ISSN: 1346-535X

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics
第十四回環太平洋応用言語学会

31st July – 2nd August, 2009
COOP INN Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan

環太平洋応用言語学会
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics
Edited by Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Bldg 16, Rm. 621. 1-6-1 Nishi-Waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan 169-8050
http://paaljapan.org/

ISSN: 1346-535X

Copyrights © 2009 PAAL All rights reserved.
PRINTED IN JAPAN

Co-Chairs:
Michiko Nakano (Waseda University)
Bok-Myung Chang (Namseoul University)

Conference Committee:
Kazuharu Owada (Tokyo College of Music), Norifumi Ueda (Mejiro University), Junko Negishi (Waseda
University), Masanori Oya (Waseda University), Eiichiro Tsutsui (Hiroshima International University),
Yusuke Kondo (Ritsumeikan University), Kota Wachi (Shiba Junior/Senior High School), and Remi Murao(Waseda University)Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics
第十四回環太平洋応用言語学会

31st July – 2nd August, 2009
COOP INN Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan

環太平洋応用言語学会
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Preface
We feel honored that we can hold the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics inKyoto. The theme of the conference is ‘Fundamental Issues in Applied Linguistics’ which can cover any
controversial topics in our profession. We have received more than 100 papers. We had a screening meetingon the 9th of May. The acceptance notifications were immediately sent by Professor Yusuke Kondo,
Ritsumeikan University. This year, the length of Proceeding papers was double-columned 4-6 pages, which
stands for 8-12 pages in the standard format. The organizing committee accepted, however, papers indouble-columned 2-10 pages. The deadline for the Proceeding papers was on the 30th of June.
It is a great honor to receive Professor Rod Ellis as the Keynote speaker for this conference. Researchinterests of Professor Rod Ellis covers Second Language Acquisition Researches, in particular, analysis of
Learner Language, Task-based Instruction Researches, etc. His books are widely studied by professionals in
Applied Linguistics. Although his achievements are outstanding and too busy to spend time with us, he waskind enough to give us Workshop as well.
The 14th Conference of PAAL is funded in part by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) 20320085,
printing of this proceedings, travel fees, accommodation and honorarium for Professor Rod Ellis. Since dueto the space, the acknowledgements were omitted in our papers, we would like to acnowledge that researches
among graduate students and former graduate students at Japan-side of PAAL (specifically at Waseda) weremade possible by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) 20320085.
Finally, as a convention chair, I would like to thank our organizing committee members:
Yusuke Kondo, Norifumi Ueda, Junko Negishi, Eiichiro Tsutsui, Kazuharu Owada, Kota Wachi, Remi
Murao, and Masanori Oya.

Michiko Nakano, Waseda University
Bok-Myung Chang, Numseoule UniversityiContents
A-1

Relative Clause Acquisition and EFL Learners
Supakorn Phoocharoensil (Language Institute Thammasat University)

A-2

Intralexemic Sense Development of 'of': Evidence from the First Language Acquisition
Jong Sup Jun (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies)

A-3

1
5

L2 Acquisition of Unaccusative Verbs by Japanese and Korean Learners of English
Kenichi Yamakawa (Yasuda Women's University), Naoki Sugino (Ritsumeikan
University), Yuko Shimizu (Ritsumeikan University), Michiko Nakano (Waseda
University), Hiromasa Ohba (Joetsu Univeristy of Education)

A-4

Aspectual Use of the Negative Forms: A contrastive analysis of Japanese and Turkish
Aydin Ozbek ((Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University)

B-1

29

Construction and implementation of automatic L2 speech evaluation system
Yusuke Kondo (Ritsumeikan University) and Michiko Nakano (Waseda University)

D-1

25

Seeking a Culturally Appropriate Classroom Model for Japan
William Baber (Ritsumeikan University)

C-2

19

Student Presentation as a Means of Learning English
Lee Eun-pyo (College of Medicine, Eulji University)

C-1

15

National Policy and the Ideology of English: The Case of Taiwan
Han-Yi Lin (The Overseas Chinese Institute of Technology)

B-2

9

33

"Lion Heart's Legacy": Personification of the Japanese Prime Minister in Cabinet E-mailMagazines
Riikka Lansisalmi (Leiden University)

D-2

39

Movie Reviews in Japanese and English Newspapers Published in Japan: Rhetorical
Preferences in Each Discourse Community
Tama Kumamoto (Nagoya University of Foreign Studies)

E-1

45

Teaching Business Japanese of Distant Course through Internet Technology: Importanceof Teacher Training
Remi Kakiyama (Sophia University) and Yoko Okita (Tokyo Medical and Dental
University)

E-2

51

Intercultural Communication through Distance Learning Among Korean and Japanese
University Students
Bok-Myung Chang (Namseoul University)

E-3

University Students’ Recognition and Use of Strings in L2 Writing
Victoria Muehleisen and Sean Wray (Waseda University)

F-1

55
59

Links Between Research on L2 Phonological Variation and Pedagogy of L2 Phonology:
A Study of Phonological Variation in the English Interlanguage of Cantonese Speakers
Yuet Hung Cecilia Chan (City University of Hong Kong)

ii

65

F-2

Raising Awareness of English Prosody among Thai University Students
Soisithorn Isarankura (Dhurakij Pundit University)

G-1

71

Has the English Ability of the Japanese Improved?-The National Curriculum Standards
and Embarrassment for English Teachers and Students in Japan
Katsura Yuasa (Kyoto Prefectural Kizu High School)

G-2
I-1
I-2

77

Epistemic Modality by Korean University Students: Perception and Production
Hera Chu (Yong In University)

81

Haeng Jung (Honam University)

87

Analysis of Listening Test Items in Korean CSATThe Development and Validation of the In-house Can-do Statements for Required
Writing Courses
Kahoko Matsumoto (Tokai University)

J-1

91

Evaluating a Newly Developed Index for Readability Measurement of Japanese EFL
Textbooks1
Toshiaki Ozasa and George R S Weir (Fukuyama Heisei University, University ofStrathclyde)

J-2

95

Verb form usage in Japanese EFL Texts
George R S Weir and Toshiaki Ozasa (University of Strathclyde, Fukuyama Heisei
University) 101

J-3

Conjunctive Adverbials in English Academic Writing by Chinese Speakers: A Corpus
ApproachTung-Yu Kao and Li-Mei Chen (National Cheng Kung University) 105

K-1

An Acoustic Study of English Language Learning Transfer from Japanese: a case study
in CNN English Conversation
Yi-jun Liu (National Cheng Kung University) 109

K-2

The effects of conference participation on communication apprehension
Rieko Matsuoka (National College of Nursing)K-3

Taiwanese College Students’ Perceptions of Plagiarism: Is it a Cultural Issue?
Shih-Chieh Chien(National Sun Yat-sen University)

L-1

115
117

Importance of Teaching Gender-neutral Language in EFL Classrooms: Students’ Survey
Results
Chiyo Myojin (Kochi University of Technology) 121

L-2

Metaphorical use in lay and expert cancer discourse and conception of cancer in Thai
cultureWorawanna Petchkij (Chulalongkorn University and the Royal Golden Jubilee, Thailand
Research Fund) 125

L-3

Emotions, Visual Rhetoric, and Pragmatic Inferencing in Campaigning Discourse
Vincent Tao–Hsun Chang (National Chengchi University) 129

iii

M-1

Developing ESP Course Material for International Economics Students
Tony Cripps (Ritsumeikan University) 135

M-2

Effects of Review Activities on EFL Learning
Hsiao-fang Cheng and Nina Chiulan Lin (Takming University of Science andTechnology) 139

N-1

A study on the stress experienced by native English teachers in Korea
Jongbok Lee (Mokwon University) 145

N-2

Partitive-self constructions: Lexico-grammatical resources for constructing socioculturaland individual aspects of the self
Kam-yiu S. Pang (University of Macau) 149

O-1

Extremes of L2 Learning: Neurolinguistic Evidence
Loraine K. Obler (The Graduate Center of The City University of New York) andElizabeth Ijalba (Queens College, CUNY) 157

O-2

An Investigation into the Prevalence of Voice Strain in Chinese University Teachers
Zhou Gang and Niu Xiaochun (Dalian University of Technology) 163

O-3

Memory Strategy Instruction, Contextual Learning and Vocabulary Recall
Somayeh Kazemi Tari (Science and Research University) 169

P-1

Do Visual Supports Enhance EFL Listeners’ Self-confidence? An Empirical Study
Hsiao-fang Cheng (National United University) 175

P-2

SEL-Hi: Current and Future English in Japan
Hideyuki Kumaki (Waseda University) 179

P-3

Bilingual Education: What can Malaysia learn from the US Experience?
Juliana Binti Othman (University of Malaya) 185

Q-1

Suggestion for Teaching English Based on the Concept of Internalization
Naomi Kakihara (Hosei University) 191

Q-2

The Development and Implementation of Task-based Writing Performance Assessment
for Japanese Learners of English: (3) Main Experiment 1
Yoshihito Sugita (Yamanashi Prefectural University) 195

R-1

Incorporating Information Gap Activities in EFL Elementary Classrooms
Chiou-hui Chou (National Hsinchu University of Education) 201

R-2

Greetings and EFL Teachers
James Martin Ronald(Hiroshima Shudo University) and Timothy Floyd Hawthorne(Hiroshima International University) 207

S-1

Interaction of Native and Target Phonology in Learner Speech: A Study of Korean
EnglishYunju Heo, Jin Hyun Kim and Jong-mi Kim (Kangwon National University) 213

S-2

A corpus study of passive unaccusative verbs in L2 English produced by advanced
Japanese learners
Kazuharu Owada (Tokyo College of Music), Victoria Muehleisen and Hajime Tsubaki(Waseda University) 219
iv

S-3

A corpus analysis of intransitive verbs used in junior high school English textbooks inJapanKazuharu Owada (Tokyo College of Music), Hajime Tsubaki, and Daisuke Yoshizaki(Waseda University) 225

S-4

Effectiveness of Student Perception on Need-based Grouping
Handan Girginer (Anadolu University) 229

S-6

Elaboration of Tasks as Means to Mediate Classroom Learning and the Outside World:
Analyses of Language Learning Activities in Three EFL Classrooms for Children
Hirokatsu Kawashima (Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies), Naoki Sugino(Ritsumeikan University), and Yuya Koga (Shukugawa Gakuin College) 233

S-7

A Case Study of the Development of Communication Skills through Cross-Cultural
Distance Learning
Akiko Watanabe (Waseda University) and Annette Karseras Sumi (Waseda University
International Cooperation) 239

S-8

Vocabulary Frequency in Japanese Entrance Examinations from 2005 to 2008
Takane Yamaguchi (Waseda University) 245

S-9

Syntactic Categorization of Ditransitive and Dative Verbs by Japanese EFL Learners
Naoki Sugino (Ritsumeikan University), Simon Fraser (Hiroshima University), Chika
Ikeda (Aichi Prefectural University), Hirokatsu Kawashima (Nagasaki University ofForeign Studies), Yuya Koga (Shukugawa Gakuin College) and Naoki Sugimori(Ritsumeikan University) 251

S-10

Quantitative Analysis of Speaking in Group Oral Interaction – Range of Speaking on theBasis of CEF Assessment –Junko Negishi (Waseda University) 255

S-11

Towards the Assessment of the Use of Prosodic Cues in Speech Recognition
Remi Murao and Michiko Nakano (Waseda University) 260

S-12

The effect of two types of feedback on Iranian EFL students' tense-marker production
Somayeh Kazemi Tari (Science and Research University) 263

S-14

Information Sharing in a Pre-hospital Care Setting – A time related corpus based
approach
Keiko Tsuchiya, Miche Kawashima, Tetsuo Yukioka1, Shoichi Ota, Shiro Mishima, Jun
Oda, Chikako Kawahara(Tokyo Medical University), Masaki Onishi, and Ikushi Yoda

(National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) 269
S-15

A Study of English Language Textbooks in Japan: With a focus on consistency
Koji Uenishi (Setsunan University) 275

S-16

Acquisition of New Phonemes in Learner Speech: A Study of Korean English
Eun sil Bang, Oh Seon Kweon, and Jong-mi Kim (Kangwon National Univrsity) 281

S-18

College Teacher Training for Tertiary Students Towards Becoming Effective English
Teachers
Byung-Bin Im (Kongju National University) 287
v

S-19

Effect of Using English Storybooks for Improving Korean English Learners’ Reading
and Writing Skills and Their Learning Attitudinal Factors
Mun-koo Kang (Kongju National University) 291

S-20

The Development of English Passive Constructions by Korean Learners
Hyesook Park (Kunsan National University) 297

S-21

The Association between EFL Learners’ Reading Motivation and Their L2 Reading
Behavior
Eun-Mi Yang (Kkottongnae Hyundo University of Social Welfare) 303

S-22

A Discussion of Understandable English
Kyunghee Choi (Hanyang Women’s College) 305

S-23

Development of Negation in Child Language and Learning Principles
Ho Han (Ajou University)

S-25

311

Insertion Preferred to Deletion in Learner Speech: A Study of Korean English
Gyu-jeong Han and Jong-mi Kim (Kangwon National University) 317

S-27

The Effects of Dictation Practice in English Listening Classes
Myeong-Hee Seong (Eul-Ji University) and Eun-Hee Nam (Chung-Ang University) 323

S-28

An Analysis of the Interrelationship among Learner Variables of Dictation Practice inEnglish Listening Classes
Myeong-Hee Seong (Eul-Ji University) and Eun-Hee Nam (Chung-Ang University)

S-29

327

The Development of Namseoul-Waseda Cross-Cultural Distance Learning Project from2005 to 2009
Bok-Myung Chang (Namseoul University) 333

S-30

A Method of Automatic Acquisition of Typed-Dependency Representation of Japanese
Syntactic Structure
Masanori Oya (Waseda University) 337

S-31

How intelligible and acceptable are 'Japanese English' pronunciations?
Nozomi Kato (Tokiwa University) 341

S-32

A Case Study on Developing a Vocabulary Testing
Norifumi Ueda (Mejiro University), Eiichiro Tsutsui (Hiroshima International
University), Yusuke Kondo (Ritsumeikan University) and Michiko Nakano (Waseda
University) 347

S-33

Range Analysis of Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL) Reflection Work Sheet: A
Pilot Study
Satoshi Yoshida, Hideyuki Kumaki and Akiko Watanabe (Waseda University) 351

S-34

Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL) and the Learner’s Motivation toward the
CCDL CMC Activities: A Survey on Three Types of CCDL Classes
Satoshi Yoshida and Michiko Nakano (Waseda University) 357

S-35

Assessing Japanese EFL Learner’s Social Skills in Cross-Cultural Distance Learning(CCDL) Context: a Longitudinal Study among Waseda University Students
Satoshi Yoshida and Michiko Nakano (Waseda University) 363
vi

S-36

Lesson Review Tests and CEFR Can-do Statements
Michiko Nakano (Waseda University) Hikaru Sugiyama (Waseda University
International Co.), Manabu Itoh (Waseda University International Co.), Yusuke Kondo(Ritsumeikan University) and Hajime Tsubaki (Waseda University) 369

S-37

English Tutorials, CEFR and ACPA
Michiko Nakano (Waseda University) Kazuharu Owada (Tokyo College of Music)
Eiichiro Tsutsui (Hiroshima International University) and Yusuke Kondo (Ritsumeikan
University) 375

S-38

Preliminary assessment of Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL) competence using
Discourse Completion Tasks (DCT)
Michiko Nakano (Waseda University), Junko Negishi (Waseda University), Kazuharu
Owada (Tokyo College of Music), Remi Murao (Waseda University), Masanori Oya(Waseda University) Tae Yamazaki, Miyasaka, N., and Norifumi Ueda (Waseda
University) 379

S-39

Cyber course on World Englishes and ELF: Some tentative evidence
Michiko Nakano and Yuko Haraguchi (Waseda University) 385

S-40

Assessment of Teaching Practice of an EFL teacher – A Working Model of a Practical
SchemeTaehee Choi (Guryong Middle School) 393

S-41

A Research on Children’s Motivation
Eunpyo Lee (Eulji University) 397

S-42

Award-giving as a Means of Motivation and English Grades
Eunpyo Lee (Eulji University) 401

T-1

Durational Analysis of the Acoustical Characteristics of English Speech by Japanese
Learners based on the Contrast between the Stressed and the Unstressed
Shizuka Nakamura (Waseda University) 405

T-2

The relation between familiarity rating and productive knowledge of academic words
Toru Nakamura (Tokyo Metropolitan Aoyama High School) 409

T-3

A Study of the Effectiveness of the CALL Program, 'Adjective Sommelier', as a Leaning
Tool to Improve Learners’ Analytical Approach to the Polysemous Senses of TL
Adjectives
Noriko Aotani (Tokai Gakuen University), Taichi Kameyama (Gifu National College ofTechnology), Naoki Sugino (Ritsumeikan University) and Yuko Amaya (Tokai Gakuen
University) 415

T-4

Learning Strategies: A Theoretical Assumption
Wakako Kobayashi (Chuo University) 419

vii

T-5

The Development and Implementation of Task-based Writing Performance Assessment
for Japanese Learners of English: (1) A Pilot Experiment
Yoshihito Sugita (Yamanashi Prefectural University) and Michiko Nakano (Waseda
University) 423

T-6

The Development and Implementation of Task-based Writing Performance Assessment
for Japanese Learners of English: (2) How to improve rating scales
Yoshihito Sugita (Yamanashi Prefectural University) and Michiko Nakano (Waseda
University) 429

T-7

The Development and Implementation of Task-based Writing Performance Assessment
for Japanese Learners of English: (4) Main Experiment 2
Yoshihito Sugita (Yamanashi Prefectural University) and Michiko Nakano (Waseda
University) 435

T-8

The Development and Implementation of Task-based Writing Performance Assessment
for Japanese Learners of English: (5) Comparison of Two Main Experiments
Yoshihito Sugita (Yamanashi Prefectural University) 441

T-9

A Qualitative Look at Japanese and Native Speaker Teachers' Views on the University
EFL Classroom
Richard Silver, Satoko Ito, and William Baber (Ritsumeikan University) 447

T-10

Consonant clusters by Japanese learners of English
Aya Kitagawa (Waseda University) 453

T-11

Using, not knowing traditional Chinese characters affect Kanji recognition by Japanese:
A MEG case study
Yoko Okita (Tokyo Medical and Dental University) 457

T-12

Investigating the Effects of English E-Tutoring in a Junior High Afterschool Program
Hung-Hsuan Kao (Jinwen University of Science & Technology) 461

T-13

The Acquisition of Restrictive Relative Clauses by Japanese and Korean Learners ofEnglishHiromasa Ohba (Joetsu University of Education), Kenichi Yamakawa (Yasuda Women's
University), Naoki Sugino (Ritsumeikan University), Yuko Shimizu (Ritsumeikan
University), Michiko Nakano (Waseda University) 467

T-14

A Study on Learner Factors in Acquiring English Pronunciation
Yuko Tominaga (University of Tokyo) 471

T-15

Examination of Foreign Language Anxiety Constructs between Japanese and KoreanCollege Students Learning English
Nami Iwaki (Nagoya University) and Hyun Jin Kim (Cheongju National University of
Education) 475

T-16

Supporting and Assessing L2 Learners’ Self-Regulated Learning
Eiichiro Tsutsui (Hiroshima International University), Kazuharu Owada (Tokyo Collegeof Music), Norifumi Ueda (Mejiro University) and Michiko Nakano (Waseda
University) 479
viii

T-17

An analysis of basic verbs in Japanese junior and senior high school textbooks
Norifumi Ueda (Mejiro University) and Kota Wachi (Shiba Junior/Senior High School) 483

T-18

Listening Comprehension Strategies of Turkish EFL Students and the Effects ofProficiency Level on Strategy Use
Funda Gercek (Anadolu University) 487

S-26

Students’ perception of intercultural communication through new distance learningmodel
Bok-Myung Chang and Eunjung Bang (Namseoul University) 491

ix

Time Table
Day 1: 31st of July
09:00-09:30

Registration

09:30-10:00

Opening Address

10:00-12:00

Session A

Session B

A-1

B-1

A-2

B-2

A-3
A-4
12:00-13:30

13:30-15:00

Break
Session C

Session D

C-1

D-1

C-2

D-2
D-3
Poster Session I

15:00-15:30

15:30-17:00

Break(14:00-16:00)

Session E

Session F

E-1

F-1

E-2

F-2

E-3
18:00-19:30

Board MeetingDay 2: 1st of August

09:00-10:30

Room 1Room 2

Session G

Session H

G-1

H-1

G-2

H-2

Room 3

Undergraduate session

H-3
10:30-11:00

Break

11:00-12:00

Keynote speech

12:00-13:30

Break

13:30-15:00

Session I

Session J

I-1

J-1

I-2

J-2
J-3

15:00-15:30

Break

15:30-17:00

Workshop by Prof. Rod Ellis

19:30-21:30

Dinner at RIHGA ROYAL HOTEL KYOTO
x

Day 3: 2nd of August

09:00-10:30

Room 1Room 2

Session K

Session L

K-1

L-1

K-2

L-2

K-3

L-3

10:30-11:00
11:00-12:00

Break
Session M

Session N

M-1

N-1

M-2

N-2

12:00-13:30

13:30-15:00

Break
Session O

Session P

O-1

P-1

O-2

P-2

O-3

P-3

15:00-15:30
13:30-15:00
16:30-17:00

Room 3

Break
Session Q

Session R

Q-1

R-1

Q-2

R-2
Closing Addressxi

Poster Session II(13:30-15:30)

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Relative Clause Acquisition and EFL Learners
Supakorn Phoocharoensil

Language Institute, Thammasat University
Yhee143@gmail.com

Abstract1This paper discusses how Thai EFL learners acquire
relative clauses (RCs) in English. The pilot study
indicates that the participants’ acquisition, like other
EFL learners’, conforms to a language universal
known as the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy(NPAH) in that subject relatives are the mostcommon in their productive data, whereas object
relatives are found to be less common. The least
frequent one is object-of-preposition relatives. It is
discovered that the degree of markedness
determines the frequency of each relative clausetype. More marked types are usually avoided.
Moreover, pronoun retention is universally
employed by most learners no matter whether theirmother tongues permit it or not.

Thai and English relative clauses

A Thai relative clause is introduced by one of thethree possible markers: thi i, sy N, and an. The
most common relative marker is thi i, which can beused in all contexts, whereas sy N usually occurs
in more formal situations. e.g. formal speech or
academic writing. As for an, it expresses a moreformal tone than the other two, frequently used inhighly formal writing, such as in religious texts(Sornhiran, 1978).
(1) de kthi i / sy N/ *an

cha n

li aN

maa…
child REL

Keywords

I

bring upcome…..

‘The child that I brought up …’

Relative clause, second language acquisition(Sornhiran, 1978, p.177)

Introduction(2)

Relative clauses (RCs) have been underinvestigation in the area of second language
acquisition for decades. There have been a numberof studies on how English relative clauses (ERCs)
are acquired by learners with different L1
backgrounds. No study to date, however, has been
dedicated to scrutinizing Thai EFL learners’
acquisition of ERCs in a thorough fashion. For thisreason, the present study is aimed at examining in
great detail the ERC acquisition by Thai EFL
learners with emphasis on analyzing productive
linguistic data, i.e. essays. Even though Thai andEnglish RC systems are alike in head direction, i.e.
head-initial (Sornhiran, 1978), quite a few Thailearners do have problems with using such astructure in English.
The findings from the pilot study evidently
show that the ERCs produced by Thai EFL learners
share some universal properties with those made byother EFL learners. There also appears evidence of
avoidance of marked ERC types. Furthermore, it
seems from the data that their problems can be
attributed to the high degree of markedness and L1
transfer.

phe t

thi i/ sy N/an mii kha adiamond REL

have

value

maha asa an
tremendous‘the diamond that has tremendous value…’(Sornhiran, 1978, p.177)

It seems that an is not normally used in an
informal context as in (1), while all the relative
markers can be employed in a formal context as in(2).
Like those in Thai, English RCs, areright-branching, i.e. precede their head nouns.
There are up to eight relativizers in English,
whereas only three are existent in Thai. SpecificallyEnglish relative markers are of two main types.
Who, whom, which, whose and that are classified as
relative pronouns, while when, where, and why are
known as relative adverbs (Master, 1996).
Who and whom are employed when the RC
head noun refers to a person as in (3). They differ inthat whom can only occupy an object position as in(4). When the head refers to a thing or an animal,
which is selected. That can be used for things,
animals, or persons (Azar, 2003), as in (3-6). Bothwhich and that can occupy a subject or object
position. As for whose, it is the possessive relative1

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

word for persons as well as things (Swan, 2005), asin (7) and (8). An omission of relativizer (zero orO) is allowed when a relative marker serves as a
RC object, as in (3) and (6).

1977).
Despite being not allowed in English,
resumptive pronouns exist in many other languages.
Therefore, learners of English whose mothertongues permit pronoun retention are often
predicted to commit an error when supplying thiskind of pronoun in ERCs (Celce-Murcia, 1999).
Several studies found support to the NPAH
(e.g. Schumann, 1978; Gass, 1979, 1982;
Hawkins, 1994, 1999).

(3) A teacher who/whom/that/ O every student respects is smiling now.
(4) A teacher who/that like syntax is keen on teaching grammar.
(5) The dogs which/that is sleeping near me is Alex’s.
(6) The car which/that/O she purchased is very expensive.
(7) I know the boy whose bicycle was stolen.
(8) The house whose kitchen had been repaired was sold.

2 The Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy(NPAH)

3

Avoidance is L2 learners’ behavior caused by thedifferences between the native language and thetarget language. The greater the difference, themore likely they are to avoid. When learners are notsure about a grammatical structure in L2, they are
inclined not to produce it on purpose (Richards,
2002). Schachter (1974) discovered avoidance ofusing ERCs, which are head-initial, by Chinese andJapanese speakers, whose RCs in their L1s precede
heads. Although these learners seemed to makefewer errors on ERCs than Arabic and Persian
speakers, whose native languages, like English,
have head-initial RCs, this was because Chineseand Japanese subjects also produced much fewer
ERCs than the others since the different headdirections of RCs in English was not familiar tothem. Kleinmann (1977) attributed such aphenomenon to the considerable difference in headdirections between L1 and L2, which caused thelearners difficulty and made them employ an
avoidance strategy.
Gass (1980) also investigated avoidance in EFL
learners’ writing and found that they intentionally
avoided marked RC types on the NPAH. In otherwords, the more marked a type of RC, the moredifficulty they have. For Gass, avoidance is closely
related to high degree of markedness. Marked RC
types are claimed to lead learners to avoidance of
those types. Zhao (1989) used a translation tocompare the frequency of RCs in English andChinese, asking Chinese EFL learners to translate
ERCs into Chinese. The study revealed that the
subjects avoided employing RCs in their Chinesetranslation because some special functions of ERCs
cannot be translated into Chinese RCs. Additionally,
Chinese does not have non-restrictive RCs as
English does. Consequently, it was necessary forthe learners to use some other constructions torepresent the meaning in the source text.
According to Li (1996), which also supports
Zhao (1989), Chinese ESL learners obviously
avoided producing ERCs not because of their majordifference in head direction between both languages.
Their avoidance is claimed to result from the factthat RCs in English have certain pragmatic

The Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH)
resulted from Keenan and Comrie’s (1977)
considerable effort to find a language universal that
explains how RCs are acquired in first language
acquisition. Having exhaustively studied fifty
languages across the world, they proposed aworld-famous hierarchy, NPAH, as outlined below:
SU > DO > IO > OBL > GEN > OCOMP 1(9) That’s the man [who ran away]. (SU)(10) That’s the man [whom I saw yesterday]. (DO)(11) That’s the man [to whom I gave the letter]. (IO)
(12) That’s the man [whom I was talking about]. (OBL)(13) That’s the man [whose sister I know]. (GEN)(14) That’s the man [whom I am taller than]. (OCOMP)(Keenan & Comrie, 1977)

According to the NPAH, two claims are worth
being discussed. First, it is assumed that any
language that has relativization can relativize on
subjects. In addition, predictions can be made suchthat if a language has a RC type x, then it will also
have any RC type to the left of x. For instance, Thai
is found to allow relativization on IO, This means
Thai is claimed to permit relativization on DO and
SU as well. It is unlikely for relativization
possibility to skip any type of RC along the way
from x to SU.
As regards second language acquisition ofRCs, the NPAH can also be used to predict theorder of acquisition in such a way that the left RC
types, which are less marked, tend to be acquired
before those on the right. It is also proposed that
resumptive pronouns 2 are more likely to be used inmarked RC types on the NPAH (Keenan & Comrie,
1

Avoidance

N.B. ‘>’ = ‘is more accessible to relativization

than’
SU = subject, DO = direct object, IO = indirect
object, OBL = oblique, GEN = genitive, OCOMP =object of comparative
2 A within-RC pronoun that has the samereference as the head noun2

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

functions to which Chinese speakers are notaccustomed. The learners, hence, relied on someother structures which are closer to thecorresponding structures in L1 so as to serve thesefunctions.

(23.44 %). Zero relative (O) is the third (4.69 %),and the least frequent one is which (3.13 %).
The overall number of RCs found is 64, with59 restrictive RCs (92.19 %) and 5 non-restrictive
RCs (7.81 %).

4.

5.

Research Methodology

4.1
Data collection
The participants of the study are 45 Thaiintermediate EFL learners who are first-year
undergraduate students at Thammasat University,
Thailand. They speak Thai as L1 and have learned
English in classroom setting for at least twelve
years before being recruited for the present study.
The participants were asked by the researcher, who
also acted as the instructor for their English
foundation course, to write four descriptive
200-word essays and submit each in class every two
weeks. They were also informed that their essays
would not be graded according to grammaticalaccuracy so that they would feel free and relaxed to
produce their writing which truly represents theirauthentic linguistic competence.
4.2 Data analysis
The framework of the analysis is based on the
NPAH (Keenan & Comrie, 1977). As the present
research aims at investigating the learners’ use of
ERCs according to the types proposed in the NPAH,
the relative adverbs were excluded. Of the four
essay topics, only one was selected here for the
preliminary data analysis as a pilot study.
Table1: Distribution of relative markers in different
RC types
ERC types

SU

DO

OPREP

Total

%

42
2
4
48
75

2
10
2
14
21.88

1
1
2
3.13

44
2
15
3
64

68.75
3.13
23.44
4.69

Relativizers

who
which
that
O
total
%

Discussion of the findings

It is discovered that the findings of the study
conform to the predictions of the NPAH. That is,
SU was used with the highest frequency since it is
the least marked type. DO, which is more marked
than SU, occurs with the second most frequency.
OPREP is the most marked type produced and it
appears with the lowest frequency. The results at
first seem to go against the NPAH in that IO, which
is predicted to be easier to acquire than OPREP, is
not found at all, while OPREP was used by theparticipants. However, upon careful consideration,
it is not unusual to see more frequency of OPREP(3.13%) than IO (0 %). Gass (1979, 1982)
explained this occurrence, showing that IO andOPREP can be merged together since they are closein nature. An IO relative requires a proposition
inside the RC, as does an OPREP one. Because ofthis, these two RC types should be treated as one
and the same, and it is not surprising to find only
OPREP in place of IO especially from the small
amount of the pilot study data.
Moreover, as predicted, the most marked RC
types, GEN and OCOMP, are not seen perhaps
because of two reasons. First, these two types are
too difficult for them to use; they are probably
unaware of how to use them, particularly OCOMP,
which is the most marked and sometimes viewed as
ungrammatical for some native speakers (Ellis,
1994). Second, even though the learners have seensome instances of GEN or OCOMP, they were
probably not certain about its proper use, thus
avoiding such RC types.
With respect to the relative markers, theparticipants, used who with the highest frequency(68.75 %) probably because the topic of the writing
was my best friend. This means the learners needed
to use relative words referring to persons. In thiscase, who is the most common and easiest for themto employ since who can occur in the subject aswell as the object positions of a RC. Second to it infrequency is that (23.44 %), used more as objects
than as subjects. In addition, only 3 tokens or
4.69 % of that was used with human heads, while
the other (18.75%) was used to refer to non-humanheads. This result is in line with Biber et al. (1999),
which found more use of that with non-humanantecedents. In addition, since that can occur in freevariation in terms of grammatical functions in RCs
and animacy of heads, the learners probably took
advantage of this convenience, avoiding taking a

The findings from the pilot study indicate, as
illustrated in table 1, that the most frequently
produced RC type is subject (SU) with 75 %. The
second most frequent type is direct object (DO)with 21.88 %, while object of preposition (OPREP)
is ranked third with 3.13 %. No indirect object (IO)
type was used. Further, the two most marked types,
genitive (GEN) and object of comparative(OCOMP), are not found either.
When relative markers are taken in account,
who was made with the highest frequency(68.75 %). The next most frequent marker is that3

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

learners. In R. Scarcella & S. Krashen(Eds.), Research in second language
acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury
House.
Gass, S. (1982). From theory to practice. In M.
Hynes &W. Rutherford (Eds.), On
TESOL’81: Selected papers from thefifteenth Annual Conference of teachers ofEnglish to Speakers of Other Languages(pp.129-139). Washington, DC: TESOL.
Gass, S. & Selinker L. (2001). Second language
acquisition: An introductory course. LEA:New Jersey.
Keenan, E. & Comrie, B. (1977). Noun phrase
accessibility hierarchy and universal
grammar. Linguistic Inquiry, 8, 63-99.
Kleinmann, H, (1977). Avoidance behavior in adultsecond language acquisition. Language
Learning, 27, 93-107.
Li, J. (1996). Underproduction does not necessarilymean avoidance: Investigation ofunderproduction using Chinese ESL
learners. In Lawrence F. Bouton (Ed.).
Pragmatics and Language Learning:
Monograph series, 7, 171-187. University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Richards, J. C. (2002). Dictionary of language
teaching and applied linguistics.
Longman: Pearson Education.
Schachter, J. (1974). An error in error analysis.
Language Learning. 24, 205-214.
Sornhiran, P. (1978). A transformational study ofrelative clauses in Thai. PhD. Dissertation,
University of Texas at Austin.
Swan, M. (2005). Practical English usage. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Zhao (1989). A discourse analysis of relative
clauses in Chinese and English: an error in‘An error in error analysis’. IDEAL, 6,
105-17.

risk in using other relativizers, the usage of which
they are not certain about.
The third most frequent is zero relativizer(4.69 %). The learners omitted relative markers inDO (3.13 %) and OPREP (1.56%). There appears
no deletion of relative markers used as subjects,
which is ungrammatical in standard English. The
least frequently-occurring relative word is which(3.13 %), entirely used as subjects of RCs. This is
not unexpected because the topics are related topersons and may have necessitated more use of who
as a human relativizer.
An interesting point lies in pronoun retention(7.81 %) used by the participants despite the factthat their native language, Thai, does not allow it.
The use of pronominal reflexes is claimed to beuniversal since they are produced by most L2 RC
acquirers irrespective of their L1s. Whether
learners’ L1 has this kind of pronoun, they often
supply such a resumptive pronoun to clarify themeaning of a RC (Gass & Selinker, 2001).

8

Conclusion

The present study does demonstrate that Thai EFL
learners are similar to others in that their acquisitionof RCs in English can be explained by the NPAH.
The degree of markedness, in other words,
determines their ERC acquisition in such a way thatthe learners tend to use RC types with low level ofmarkedness, which are easy to acquire. To be
specific, subject relatives (SU), the least marked
type, occur with the highest frequency, followed bydirect objects (DO) and objects of preposition(OPREP) respectively. More marked RC types were
avoided. It is found that avoidance is connectedwith high degree of markedness. It seems that suchmarkedness has in turn brought about typologicaluniversals, e.g. NPAH, of RC acquisition, whichmostly prove true. In addition, pronoun retention isshown to be a feature universally shared by most L2
learners regardless of their native languages.
References
Azar, B. (2003). Understanding and using English
grammar. New Jersey: Prentice hall.
Biber, D, S. Johassan, Leech G., Conrad S. &Finegan E. (1999). Longman grammar of
spoken and written English. Pearson:
Singapore.
Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language
acqusition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Gass, S. (1979). Language transfer and universal
grammatical relations. Language Learning,29(2), 327-344.
Gass, S. (1980). An investigation of syntactictransfer in adult second language
4Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Intralexemic Sense Development of ‘of’:
Evidence from the First Language Acquisition *Jong Sup Jun

Dept. of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
jongsupjun@korea.com

by virtue of the functional preposition of. But why
can’t we reverse the order of the preceding andfollowing nominals of of, and say *the table of thelegs? In A of B, A can be a part of B, but not viceversa. On the other hand, in the Product-Material A
of B construction, either ‘Product of Material (e.g. atable of wood)’ or ‘Material of Product (wood of thetable)’ is allowed. This shows that the prepositionof imposes strict selection restrictions on thepreceding and following nominals.
Then, how can we characterize the semantic
properties of of? This paper aims to answer thisimportant question from the perspective of
language acquisition. In this paper, I analyzed
longitudinal data of eight children from theCHILDES (= Child Language Data Exchange
System) database (MacWhinney & Snow, 1985,
1990). The eight children in this study are carefully
selected, since their speech transcripts are available
for the same discourse situations at ages 3, 4, and 5.
The database also provides transcripts obtained atage 9 for six of the eight children, which allows us
to trace important features of language development
at later years.
When we look into the actual data spoken by
English-speaking children, we are surprised by thefact that children never utter nominalized verbal
complement structures like destruction of Rome. In
fact, the representative examples that are cited as
evidence for a dummy case assigner do notconstitute a representative portion of child language
data at all. Rather, when English-speaking children
utters of, it is used most of the time in part/quantity
constructions (e.g. all of / a cup of / two of) or in
collocation structures (e.g. kind of / out of / a lot of).
The intraleximic sense development of of strongly
suggests that of is best described as a relational
functor that defines a restricted number of semantic
relations over a concept network rather than as adummy case-assigner.1

Abstract
Contrary to the common belief that of is a dummycase-assigner (Chomsky, 1981), of imposes strict
semantic restrictions on the preceding andfollowing nominals. For instance, in ‘A of B’, A canbe a part, and B can be a whole (e.g. the legs of thetable), but not vice versa (*the table of the legs).
This paper aims to spell out semantic properties ofof from the perspective of language acquisition. To
achieve this goal, I analyzed longitudinal data ofeight children at age points of 3, 4, 5, and over 9from the CHILDES (= Child Language Data
Exchange System) database (MacWhinney & Snow,
1985, 1990). Using the CLAN software, I extracted
all utterances of the subject children that include theuses of of, and analyzed the data with reference topre-defined sense categories of of. Surprisingly, thewell-known examples that are cited as evidence fora dummy case assigner are not found at all in thechild language data. Rather, English-speaking
children use a handful number of fixed expressions
that contain of, most of which are part/quantity
phrases or simple collocations. Based on thisfinding, I argue that of is a relational functor thatdefines a restricted number of semantic relations
over a concept network.

Keywords
Functional category, case, dummy case-assigner,
language acquisition, CHILDESIntroduction
The standard treatment of of is syntactic by nature;i.e. of lacks semantic content, and makes afunctional contribution to grammar. According toChomsky (1981), of makes a purely functional
contribution to grammar as a dummy case assignerthat is inserted into a phrase like destruction ofRome to satisfy the Case Filter. Here, the lexical NP
Rome needs case as a complement of destruction;
but destruction fails to assign case to Rome becauseof its [+N] feature. Instead, Rome gets case by of.
A less discussed use of of is the legs of the table.
In this example, table is a lexical NP, and gets case* This paper is an abridged version of my latest work.
For a more detailed discussion of the data, see J. S. Jun(2009).
5

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

1

i. after property adjectives: It is kind of you togive me this present.
j. before an abstract noun: of kindness

Children’s Acquisition of ‘of’Child language data provide essential tools toinvestigate the grammatical status of of, in that theacquisition of a functional category has been along-standing issue of the acquisition literature(Radford, 1990; O’Grady, 1997; Whitman, 1997).

In (1), the uses of ‘(e) θ-roles,’ ‘(i) after property
adjectives,’ and ‘(j) before an abstract noun’ neverappear in the speech transcripts of the eightchildren.

1.1
Research Design
1.1.1
Data Source and Subjects
This paper reports the finding from the speechtranscripts of eight English-speaking children in the
the CHILDES (= Child Language Data Exchange
System) database (MacWhinney & Snow, 1985,
1990). In particular, I focus on the HSLLD (TheHome-School Study of Language and Literacy
Development; Dickinson & Tabors, 2001) corpus.
In the HSLLD corpus, speech transcripts wereobtained from various modalities, i.e. discourse
situations. The modalities include BR (Book
Reading), ER (Elicited Report), MT (Mealtime), TP(Toy Play), and so on. In this paper, eight children
are selected from the HSLLD corpus, and they arecoded by eight acronyms, i.e. Brt, Geo, Kar, May,
Mel, Sar, Tri, and Vic. These children’s speechtranscripts are available for the same modalities of
BR, ER, MT, and TP at ages 3, 4, and 5. The
database also provides transcripts obtained at age 9
for six of the eight children, which allows us totrace important features of language development atlater years.

1.2
Results
Overall, children do not make use of of very often:
at age 3, 0.8 % of utterances contain the use of of;at age 4, 1.6 %; at age 5, 2.0 %; and at age 9, 3.7 %.
At ages 3 and 4, children’s uses of of are restricted
to part/quantity and idiom/collocation phrases, as in(2) and (3).
(2) Part/Quantity (Brt 3;8)
*MOT: you wanna [: want to] help me?
*CHI: want a glass of juice?
*MOT: yeah that’d be nice.
(3) Idiom/Collocation (Geo 3;8)
*MOT: # <who did Peter> [/] who did Peter live
with?
*CHI: he [/] he live in a cage.
*MOT: Peter ?
*CHI: because when the wolf come out of theforest # &a and you shoot [!] the wolf.
By the time they pass their fifth birthday,children’s uses of of become refined and expanded.
At age 5, part/quantity expressions include the endof this book, the top of the bridge, etc.; andidiom/collocations include a whole bunch of, out of,
etc. Besides these two representative uses of of, thematerial use comes into play.

1.1.2
Procedure
The speech transcripts are reorganized in terms ofage groups of 3, 4, 5, and 9. Then, using the KWAL
command on the CLAN program, I extracted allusages of of for the eight children. The uses of ofare classified into (sub-)sense categories of of.
The sense categories of of are taken and edited
from the Collins COBUILD Electronic Dictionary(Ver. 3.1). Hence, the senses in (1) make up a
relational ontology that defines semantic relations
among ontological objects.

(4) Material (Geo 5;3)
*CHI: ## make a paper airplane out of this [!] I
suppose.
*CHI: it willn’t go that # far .
Also, the affiliation and predicate-complement uses
are observed in examples like the King of the jungle,
and She was a scared of it respectively.
Finally, at age 9, language development reaches
its mature stage, which is shown by the fact that theuses of of are expanded to diverse semantic types
like material, predicate-complement, explanation,and property. (5) shows representative utterancesfor various types in the corpus.

(1) The Relational Ontology of ‘of’a. property: the population of this town
b. affiliation: the prince of Walesc. part/quantity: the other side of the square / acup of tea
d. material: local decorations of wood andstraw
e. θ-roles: the death of their father, the reductionof trade union power inside the party
f. explanation: a little cry of paing. idiom/collocation: bunch of, more of aproblem, type of, kind of, out ofh. predicate-complement: dream of, be proud of(5) Semantic Types at Age 9a. part/quantity: the rest of the day (Geo 9;8)/
one of the dangerous stunts in the whole wide
world (Sar 9;2)/ we get this book at the day6Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

before the last day of school (Tri 9;10)/ in the
middle of the year (Tri 9;10 )b. idiom/collocation: in front of (Geo 9;8)/
instead of (Geo 9;8)/ I don’t run out of space(May 9;4)c. material: we have to make them out of apaper bag (Tri 9;10)/ a graph out of it (Tri9;10)
d. predicate-complement: be afraid of (Geo9;8)/ think of (May 9;4)/ be careful of (Tri9;10)
e. explanation: we can play a nice quiet game ofcheckers (May 9;5)/ they are doing a projectof a show (May 9;5)f. property: in the light of the moon (Mel 9;11)

sort of, kind of, out of, because of; a lot of, etc. foridiom/collocation.
1.3
Discussion
The results in 1.2 are important in at least threerespects. First, children’s uses of of are restricted to
the limited domains of part/quantity andidiom/collocation as late as at age 5, and hence it ishard to believe that of is inserted for syntactic
reasons.
Second, children make use of a handful numberof fixed expressions repeatedly. Geo, for instance, isa talkative child with the MLU of 3.35 at age 3. But
he utters only one of-- and out of-- over and overat ages 3 and 4; and one slice of--, some of--, oneof--, pack of--, out of--, because of--, and a lot of-at age 5. The (seemingly functional) preposition ofdoes not look like a functional preposition; rather, it
is part of a small number of fixed expressions, andthe fixed expressions denote a restricted set ofsemantic relations.
Finally, at age 9, children’s uses of of are refinedand expanded, but the distribution is best explainedby such semantic relations as part/quantity, material,
explanation, property, and so on. More importantly,
the well-known examples that are cited as evidence
for a dummy case assigner do not constitute a
representative portion of child language data at all.
We cannot find phrases like destruction of Rome inthe child language database, nor can we find moreplausible phrases analogous with destruction ofRome, e.g. writer of (the book). Notice that of isfrequently used in predicate-nominal structures atage 9, but all the observed instances of of inpredicate-nominal structures are part of idiomatic
verbal/adjectival constructions like be afraid of(Geo 9;8), think of (May 9;4), and be careful of (Tri9;10).
From these facts follow my claims: (a) the
preposition of has its own semantics; (b) the
semantics of of is best described by a limited
number of semantic relations, i.e. a relational
ontology in (1); (c) in acquisition, of is used as partof a handful number of fixed expressions that
denote a limited set of semantic relations at earlyages; (d) at later ages, the uses of of are refined andexpanded, but they are still semantic by nature; and(e) children are not willing to use of as a puredummy case-assigner. In short, of is a relational
functor that defines a restricted set of semantic
relations over ontological objects.

Table 1 summarizes our findings so far withexact figures.
Table 1: Intraleximic sense development of ‘of’
Age 3
14

Age 4
18

Age 5
29

Age 9
32

7

19

17

20

material

3

4affiliation

1

Predicatecomplement

1

part/quantity
idiom/
collocation

explanation1

4
2

property3

overgeneration

1

4

6

Total #
of utterances(# of children)

2718
(8)

2568
(8)

2596
(8)

1920
(6)

Percentage of
of

0.8 %

1.6 %

2.0 %

3.7 %

It is clear from Table 1 that children’s early uses ofofarerestricted
topart/quantity
andidiom/collocation.
Although other uses like material, affiliation,and predicate-complement come into play, thepart/quantity and idiom/collocation types still
dominate the distribution of of at age 5. When we
look into specific expressions used by each child in
the part/quantity and idiom/collocation types, weare surprised to see that children use a handful
number of fixed expressions like a glass of, one of,some of, all of, one slice of, one piece of, two cansof, the end of, the top of, etc. for part/quantity, and2Concluding remarks

Contrary to the common belief that of is a dummycase-assigner, children do not seem to insert ofbefore a caseless nominal. Instead, children use of7

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

as part of a small number of fixed phrases toexpress restricted semantic relations.
Then, what about the case-assigning function ofof? We have to remember that all prepositions
including of have the case-assigning function. In
other words, the fact that an oblique argument
follows of does not provide evidence for thewide-spread belief that of is a dummy case-assigner.
The finding of this paper is important, in that itsuggests a future direction for a case theory and any
theory of grammar in general. Given that Case
Filter is a crucial part of the GB theory, the claimthat of is not purely grammatical can be a strong
motivation to revise the theory of nominalization in
generative linguistics.
The present study is, however, limited in thescope of data collection, in that the CHILDES
transcripts mainly consist of production data, andnot comprehension data. That is, we can say that
English-speaking children say such and such things
at ages 3, 4, and 5; but we cannot say whether thesame children can comprehend certain uses of ofeven though these uses do not appear in theirspontaneous speech. We have observed thatchildren do not produce nominalized verb
complement structures like destruction of Rome orwriter of the book. But can they comprehend
nominalized verb complement structures when they
hear these phrases? If the answer to this question isYes, why do they not produce such phrases? Or, incase the children seem to understand such phrases,
does it necessarily mean that of is used as a dummycase-assigner? These questions call for a morecomprehensive study that covers both the
production and comprehension data. Clearly, thecurrent study will serve as an important starting
point of the future research.

Hankwuke suptuk. In Y-J Kim, et al., eds.,
Enehak ilonkwa hankwuke uymi thongsa
kwuco suptuk I, 155-170. Seoul: Minumsa.
Radford, A. (1990). Syntactic theory and theacquisition of English syntax. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Whitman, J. (1997). Phyeyswaypulyu pemcwuuy
mokwuke suptuk. In Y-J Kim, et al., eds.,
Enehak ilonkwa hankwuke uymi thongsa
kwuco suptuk I, 171-198. Seoul: Minumsa.

References
Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government andbinding: the Pisa lectures. Dordrecht:
Foris.
Dickinson, D. K. & Tabors, P. O., eds. (2001).
Beginning literacy with language: young
children learning at home and school.
Baltimore: Paul Brookes Publishing.
Jun, J. S. (2009). A Relational Function in
Acquisition: The Ontology of ‘of’. Korean
Journal of Linguistics 34-2, 399-421.
MacWhinney, B. & Snow, C. E. (1985). The Child
Language Data Exchange System. Journalof Child Language 12, 271-96.
MacWhinney, B. & Snow, C. E. (1990). The Child
Language Data Exchange System: an
update. Journal of Child Language 17,457-72.
O’Grady, W. (1997). Kinung pemcwuwa sengswuk:
8

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

L2 Acquisition of Unaccusative Verbs by Japanese and Korean
Learners of English
Kenichi Yamakawa1, Naoki Sugino2, Yuko Shimizu3, Michiko Nakano4 and Hiromasa Ohba5

1

Faculty of Letters, Yasuda Women’s University, 2College of Information Science and Engineering,
Ritsumeikan University, 3College of Economics, Ritsumeikan University,
4

Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences, Waseda University,
5

Graduate School of Education, Joetsu University of Education

kyamakaw@yasuda-u.ac.jp, gwisno@is.ritsumei.ac.jp,
yukos@ec.ritsumei.ac.jp, nakanom@waseda.jp, hohba@juen.ac.jp

claims that there are two distinct classes of
intransitive verbs known as unergatives andunaccusatives, which exhibit different argument
structures:(1) a. Unergatives:[NP1 [VP V] ](e.g., [ Mary [VP cried] ] )b. Unaccusatives: [empty [VP V NP2] ](e.g., [empty [VP happen the accident ] ] )c. The accident happened 15 years ago.
The unergatives (e.g., cry, dance) originally have alogical subject (NP1) as an external argument,
which bears the participant role AGENT (theinstigator of an event) (1a). The unaccusatives (e.g.,fall, happen), on the other hand, originally lack alogical subject, and only have a logical object (NP2)
as an internal argument, which assumes theparticipant role THEME (a participant affected byan event) (1b). The internal argument (NP2), then, is
moved to the surface subject position in order tosatisfy the English syntactic requirement which
stipulates that the subject position must be filledwith a lexical item (1c). As a result, the grammatical subject of the unaccusative verb originates
as the logical object. At first sight it becomesdifficult to make the unergative/unaccusative
distinction on the surface level because both havethe same surface structure (i.e., NP + V).

Abstract
The present study focuses on the acquisition of
unaccusative verbs by Japanese and Korean learnersof English. Previous studies have accumulated withregard to the characteristics observed in L2
acquisition of English unaccusative verbs. It has
been reported that learners with various L1
backgrounds make a distinction among intransitive
verbs and that they feel greater difficulty withunaccusatives than with unergatives. However, few
studies have examined and compared acquisition
processes of unaccusative verbs by learners withdifferent L1s on a common scale.
34 Japanese and 34 Korean EFL learners
participated in the study. Based on the results of atest aiming to measure the general proficiency in
the English grammar, they were assumed to be ofequal proficiency. The 68 learners, then, were given
a grammatical judgment task in order to explore
their knowledge of unaccusative/unergative verbs.
Their task performances were analyzed in terms of1) the distinction between unaccusative andunergative verbs, 2) possible causes of overpassivization errors in unaccusative verbs, 3) thevarying degrees of difficulty of unaccusative verbs,
and 4) comparison of the two L1 groups. The
results showed the overall similarity of the two L1
groups, confirming most of the findings reported in
the previous research.

2
2.1

Errors in unaccusative verbs made by
EFL learners
Many researchers have noted that L2 learners ofEnglish often extend passive formation rules to
unaccusatives and produce the following types ofungrammatical sentence:(2) a. *Most of people are fallen in love andKeywords
Unaccusative verb, unergative verb, Japanese EFL
learner, Korean EFL learner, the Unaccusative
Hypothesis, the Unaccusative Hierarchy, SLA

1

L2 Acquisition of Unaccusative verbs

Unaccusative and unergative verbs

The Unaccusative Hypothesis (Perlmutter, 1978)9

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

unaccusatives, which could question the notion of
unaccusatives as a single linguistic (and psychological) category.
Unaccusative verbs can be divided into two
subcategories: alternating and non-alternating verbs.
The former have transitive counterparts (e.g., break,open), whereas the latter lack such correspondingtransitives (e.g., appear, die). Research findings
have presented contradictory results with regard to
relative difficulty with the two subcategories of
unaccusatives. Some studies report that L2 learners
found alternating unaccusative verbs more difficult(e.g., Hirakawa, 2003; Hwang, 1999, 2001; Kwak,2003), whereas Shomura (1996) reports the
opposite. Furthermore, Ju (2000) argues his Chinese
subjects showed no difference in difficulty level.
Kondo (2005) claims that different degrees ofdifficulty depend on the learner’s native language.
Varying degrees of difficulty of individual
unaccusative verbs have also been reported. L2
learners avoided intransitive counterparts of suchalternating verbs as break and dry (Hirakawa, 2003),
break, hang and open (Shomura, 1996), break,close and freeze (Ju, 2000), and close, dry andfreeze (Kondo, 2005). In addition, L2 learners also
regarded as transitives such non-alternating verbs as
emerge, fall and occur (Shomura, 1996) and appear,
disappear, die, emerge and vanish (Kondo, 2005).
No & Chung (2006) also noted different rates ofoverpassivization errors in unaccusatives. Theygave a grammaticality judgment task to 112 Koreanlearners of English, and found that such errors were
attributable to multiple factors: English inherent
factors, L1 influence, and semantic factors. Morespecifically, more overpassivization errors wereobserved when the verb was an alternating
unaccusative verb (English inherent factors), when
the corresponding Korean unaccusative verb had alexical/derived passive morpheme (L1 influence),
and when the subject of the unaccusative verb wasinanimate (semantic factors).
Sorace (1993, 1997) notes that, based on
observations of various Western languages,
different unaccusative (and unergative) verbs
display different syntactic behavior acrosslinguistically and intra-linguistically, and proposes
the Unaccusative Hierarchy, which is later called
the Split Intransitive Hierarchy (Sorace & Shomura,
2001: Table 1). Based on aspectual parameters, thehierarchy identifies the notion of telic dynamicchange at the core of unaccusativity and the notionof agentive nonmotional activity at the core ofunergativity. The upper and lower extremes of thehierarchy consist of core unaccusative/unergative
monadic verbs, which display least variation ofsyntactic characteristics, whereas peripheral verb
types between the extremes are susceptible tomarry with somebody. (Japanese L1)(Zobl, 1989: 204)b. *…terrorism is happened very often…
(Korean L1) (Oshita, 2000: 312)
Unlike unaccusatives, unergatives rarely undergo
this inappropriate passivization process. In addition,these nontarget sentences are observed in L2
English with various L1 backgrounds, and areparticularly noticeable among intermediate/
advanced learners.
2.2

Two major accounts of passivizedunaccusative verbs
Two major accounts of the nontarget phenomena
have been advanced so far: the NP movement
account and the lexical causativization account. The
former account points out that the argument
structures of an unaccusative (1b) and a passive
construction (3a) are almost identical in that bothlack an external argument (logical subject) and thatan internal argument (logical object) is moved tothe surface subject position. One difference is that
only the passive construction can take the be + p.p.
marker to signal the NP movement (1c and 3b):(3) a. [empty [VP V NP2] ](e.g., [empty [VP be spoken English] ] )b. English is spoken in many countries.
However, some learners notice the similarity of thetwo and also apply the passive formation rules to
unaccusatives in order to signal the NP movement,
which results in inappropriate passives as in (2).
According to the lexical causativization account,on the other hand, L2 learners treat an unaccusative
verb as transitive and temporarily create a causer ofthe event (4a). Then the verb is passivized with the
suppression of the nonce causer (4b):(4) a. *The driver happened the accident 15 yearsago.
b. *The accident was happened 15 years ago.
2.3

Variation in the acquisition of
unaccusatives
As we have seen, there is amounting evidence inthe literature that the Unaccusative Hypothesis canbe validated in L2 acquisition because L2 learners
experience greater difficulty with unaccusatives
than with unergatives (e.g., Hirakawa, 2003; Oshita,
1997; Shomura, 1996; Yamakawa et al., 2003).
Thus, in the relevant literature, unaccusatives aretreated differently from unergatives, and those two
types are regarded as subclasses of intransitive
verbs, each forming a single category. From thisview, members belonging to the same category
should display the same grammatical characteristics.
However, it is also observed that L2 learners
experience varying degrees of difficulty with10

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

variable syntactic behavior.

3.1
PurposeThe present study aims to pursue the following
three research questions (RQs):
RQ1) Do learners of English make a distinction
between unaccusative and unergative verbs (theUnaccusative Hypothesis)?
RQ2) Which account (i.e., the NP movement
account and the lexical causativization account) is
plausible in order to explain the possible cause of
overpassivization errors in unaccusatives?
RQ3) Does any variation in the acquisition of
unaccusatives and unergatives exist? If so, does it
support the Split Intransitive Hierarchy?
RQ4) Do learners of English with different L1s
display any differences in the acquisition of
unaccusative and unergative verbs, especially interms of the three research questions above?

Table 1: The Split Intransitive Hierarchy (Adaptedfrom Sorace & Shomura, 2001: 250)
Unaccusative (least variation)
Change of location (e.g., arrive, fall, go)
Change of condition (e.g., appear, die, happen)
Continuation of a pre-existing condition (e.g., last)
Existence (e.g., exist, suffice)Uncontrolled process[emission] (e.g., rattle)[involuntary reaction] (e.g., tremble)
Controlled motional process (e.g., swim)
Controlled nonmotional process (e.g., work)
Unergative (least variation)

Sorace (1997) hypothesizes that learners’
knowledge is sensitive to the relative hierarchicalposition of a verb, and that acquisition takes placein an order consistent with the hierarchy with coreverbs first, and peripheral verbs at later stages.
Yamakawa et al. (2007) examined theplausibility of the Unaccusative Hierarchy, using
grammatical judgment tasks administered to 655
Japanese EFL learners. The data was analyzed withthe use of Item Response Theory, which yieldedb-parameter (difficulty parameter) values of the test
items. The comparison of the b-parameters of thetest items did not lend support to the difficulty (oracquisition) order that the hierarchy predicted.
Kim (2006) investigated how semantic nature of
intransitive verbs could be related to the L2
overpassivization errors. A total of 126 Korean highschool students were given a grammatical judgmenttask consisting of seven semantically different
intransitive verbs (four semantic types forunaccusatives and three semantic types forunergatives). The results showed that the subjects
experienced different degrees of difficulty with theseven semantic types, which did not accord withwhat the Split Intransitive Hierarchy predicted. It
was also argued that the simple dichotomy ofunaccusative/unergative distinction did not sufficefor the explanation of L2 overpassivization.

3

3.2
Subjects and materials
The authors had prepared several grammatical(judgment) tests and gathered data from more than
1,200 university-level Japanese learners of English
to order to investigate the overall development of
the English proficiency (For details, see Yamakawa
et al., 2008). One of the tests, Unit Y, which
required judgments of 48 sentences withunaccusatives/unergatives, and another test,
MEG05 (Measure of English Grammar 2005: see
Shimizu et al., 2006), which consisted of 35
discrete-point items to measure learners’ generalproficiency of the English grammar, had alreadybeen used. Out of the 1,200 learners, 367 learners
had taken both Unit Y and MEG05.
In the present study, the same tests were given
to 57 university-level Korean learners of English.
Based on the test scores of MEG05, 34 Japaneselearners out of 367 and 34 Korean learners out of
57 were selected for analysis. The difference
between their average scores of MEG05 (M=20.92,
SD=5.58 for the Japanese learners; M=21.74,
SD=5.08 for the Korean learners) was notstatistically significant (t(66)= -.636, p=.527). The
two groups were assumed to be of the equal
proficiency in the English grammar.
Unit Y contained six nonalternating unaccusative verbs (appear, arrive, die, exist, fall, happen),
six unergative verbs (cry, dance, laugh, play, sing,work) and six alternating unaccusative verbs 1(break, burn, close, dry, grow, melt). Each verb wasplaced in the following three sentence constructions: NP+V, NP+be+p.p. and NP+V+NP (Table 2).

The study

As we have seen in Section 2, research findings
have accumulated with regard to L2 acquisition ofEnglish unaccusative verbs; however, few studies
have thus far compared acquisition processes of
unaccusative verbs by learners with different L1s
on a common scale. In this section, we will report a
study conducted to Japanese and Korean learners ofEnglish.

1

In the present study, the alternating verbs were notincluded in the analysis because Unit Y did not containtest items where alternating verbs were used in the NP+V
construction.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 2: Sample sentences used in Unit Y(Unaccusative verbs: e.g., arrive)
NP+V (Category A): Your letter arrived yesterday.
*NP+be+p.p. (Category C): *Because of the rain, thetrain was arrived late.
*NP+V+NP (Category E): *Finally the waitressarrived the salad to us.
(Unergative verbs: e.g., cry)
NP+V (Category B): Her father cried at her
wedding ceremony.
*NP+be+p.p. (Category D): *He was cried when heheard of his mother's death.
*NP+V+NP (Category F): *The boy hit his little
sister and cried her.

Figure 1: Mean scores of the six verb categories
A two-way repeated measures ANOVA with two
independent variables (L1 and verb category) was
conducted. There was a main effect both of L1 (F(1,66)=7.39, p<.01) and of verb category (F(5,330)=42.65, p<.0000). It can be claimed that the
Korean learners performed better overall than theJapanese learners. A post hoc comparison test
(Ryan’s method) indicated the following difficultyorder: B > A, E, F > D > C (“>” means there is astatistically significant difference). Both groups felt
the least difficulty with unaccusatives/unergatives
used in the NP+V construction (Categories A andB), and the most difficulty in the NP+be+p.p.
construction (Categories C and D). They always felt
more difficulty with unaccusatives than with
unergatives used in the same construction except
for Categories E and F. This bears out the
Unaccusative Hypothesis (RQ1).
With regard to the possible cause of overpassivization of unaccusatives, it can be argued thatthe results above would support the NP movement
account (RQ2) because Category C was significantly worse than the other categories for both L1
groups: The lexical causativization account presupposes that an overpassivization error is derived
from the corresponding transitive sentence. Thisimplies that if the lexical causativization had been
at work, both Categories C and E should have been
worse than the other categories and that Categories
C and E should not have been significantly
different; however, this was not the case here 2 .

3.3

Procedure
The Japanese learners took Unit Y and MEG05
in the computer-scored answer sheet style ondifferent days, whereas the Korean learners took thetests in the on-line fill-in-the-blank style on thesame day. In either case, it took about 20-30
minutes to complete the two tests. The results ofUnit Y, which was based on a five-point scale (1-5),
were converted to 0-4 because we intended tomeasure the “distances” of learners’ judgmentsfrom the correct answers. All the statistical analyses
were conducted with the use of ANOVA 4 (Kiriki,
2002: http://www.hju.ac.jp/~kiriki/anova4/).
3.4
Results
3.4.1
Comparison of verb categories(RQs1 and 2)
Tables 3 and 4 below show the results of Unit Y
for the Japanese and Korean learners, respectively.
Figure 1 shows the mean scores of the six verb
categories.
Table 3: Mean acceptability judgments (Japanese)
MeanSD
Category
MeanSD

Unaccusatives
2.31
1.26
A
C
E
2.63 1.81 2.49
1.28 1.33 1.17

Unergatives
2.52
1.28
B
D
F
3.07 2.14 2.36
1.14 1.42 1.28

3.4.2
Variation in individual verbs (RQ3)
Table 5 and Figures 2-5 show that the mean scoresof correct judgments of individual unaccusatives
and unergatives used in three constructions.
A two-way repeated measures ANOVA with two
independent variables (six individual verbs andthree construction types (A-C-E and B-D-F)) was
conducted for the Japanese and Korean learners

Table 4: Mean acceptability judgments (Korean)
Mean
SD
Category
MeanSD

Unaccusatives
2.53
1.52
A
C
E
3.07 1.70 2.83
1.43 1.67 1.45

Unergatives
2.98
1.33
B
D
F
3.55 2.49 2.89
0.90 1.68 1.41

2

The Japanese learners produced relatively more
overpassivization errors in such unergatives as cry, dance,laugh than the Korean learners. This can becounter-evidence to the NP movement account because
the NP movement account does not predict suchoverpassivization errors in unergatives.

12

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

separately. It was shown that there were significant
interactions between verbs and constructions for all
the four combinations: Unaccusatives for theJapanese learners, (F(10, 330)=6.85, p<.0000:
Figure 2) and for the Korean learners (F(10,330)=2.83, p<.005: Figure 3); Unergatives for theJapanese learners (F(10, 330)=3.74, p<.0001:
Figure 4) and for the Korean learners (F(10,330)=3.93, p<.0000: Figure 5). Multiple post hoccomparison tests were conducted to determine
which contrasts were significant.
Figure 4: Mean scores of individual unergative
verbs for the Japanese learners

Table 5: Mean scores of individual verbs
M (SD)

NP+V(A)

NP+be+p.p.(C)NP+V+NP(E)appeararrive
die
exist
fall
happen2.50 (1.40)
1.94 (1.74)
3.47 (0.66)
2.53 (1.44)
2.56 (1.35)
2.79 (1.10)

1.84 (1.40)
2.24 (1.56)
1.21 (1.20)
2.18 (1.22)
1.97 (1.24)
1.47 (1.38)

2.50 (1.11)
3.21 (1.07)
2.68 (1.30)
2.18 (1.19)
1.65 (1.35)
2.71 (1.00)

NP+V(B)

NP+be+p.p.(D)NP+V+NP(F)3.44 (0.89)
3.06 (1.07)
3.06 (1.15)
2.79 (1.51)
3.44 (0.79)
2.65 (1.41)

2.21 (1.49)
2.09 (1.36)
1.53 (1.44)
2.32 (1.47)
2.77 (1.44)
1.94 (1.35)

2.09 (1.38)
2.00 (1.28)
1.94 (1.21)
2.32 (1.47)
2.65 (1.43)
3.15 (0.89)

M (SD)

cry
dance
laugh
play
sing
work

Figure 5: Mean scores of individual unergative
verbs for the Korean learners
As shown in Table 5 and Figures 2-5 above,some unaccusative/unergative verbs behaved
differently from the others: For example, for theJapanese learners, die was significantly better in the
NP+V construction while the same verb wassignificantly worse in the NP+be+p.p. construction.
In addition, fall was significantly worse in the NP+V+NP construction for the two L1 groups.
However, there was not a clear indication of
statistical differences that could support the Split
Intransitive Hierarchy.
There was a significant difference among
almost all of the individual verbs according to thethree construction types: All the unaccusatives
except appear and exist for the Japanese learners,
and all the unaccusatives except exist for the
Korean learners; all the unergatives except play for
the Japanese learners, and all the unergatives except
work for the Korean learners.
As illustrated in Section 3.4.1, the distinction
between unaccusatives and unergatives was made in
L2 acquisition; however, there was enoughevidence that would support the claim that there
was such a wide variation in between-unaccusatives
and between-unergatives respectively, and in
between-construction types (A-C-E and B-D-F,
respectively) that it might be a little too simplistic
to categorize those different verbs under the samelabels such as “unaccusatives” and “unergatives”(Also see Kim, 2006). Therefore, it is necessary, atFigure 2: Mean scores of individual unaccusative
verbs for the Japanese learners

Figure 3: Mean scores of individual unaccusative
verbs for the Korean learners

13Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

least, to give due attention to the characteristics ofindividual verbs as well as those of linguistic
categories at the same time.

of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, 7, 169-187.
No, G-H., & Chung, T. (2006). Multiple effects andthe learnability of English unaccusatives.
English Teaching, 61, 19-39.
Oshita, H. (1997). The unaccusative trap: L2
acquisition of English intransitive verbs.
Ph.D. dissertation. University of Southern
California, LA, California.
Perlmutter, D. M. (1978). Impersonal passives andthe unaccusative hypothesis. Proceedingsof the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 4,157-189.
Shimizu, Y., Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Ohba, H.,& Nakano, M. (2006). Developing asample-free grammatical proficiency test
for SLA research. Proceedings of the 10th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 227–236.
Sorace, A. (1997). Acquiring linking rules andargument structures in a second language.
In L. Eubank, L. Selinker, & M. Sharwood
Smith (Eds.), The current state ofinterlanguage (pp.153-175). Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
Sorace, A., & Shomura, Y. (2001). Lexicalconstraints on the acquisition of split
intransitivity. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition, 23, 247-278.
Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Kimura, S., Nakano, M.,
Ohba, H., & Shimizu, Y. (2003). The
development of grammatical competence ofJapanese EFL learners: Focusing on
unaccusative/unergative verbs. Annual
Review of English Language Education in
Japan, 14, 1-10.
Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Ohba, H., Nakano, M.,& Shimizu, Y. (2007). Variation in theacquisition of unaccusative verbs by
Japanese EFL learners. Proceedings of the
12th Conference of Pan-Pacific Associationof Applied Linguistics, 134-137.
Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Ohba, H., Nakano, M.,& Shimizu, Y. (2008). Acquisition ofEnglish grammatical features by adultJapanese EFL learners: The application of
Item Response Theory in SLA research.
Electronic Journal of Foreign Language
Teaching (e-FLT), 5, 13-40.
Zobl, H. (1989). Canonical typological structuresand ergativity in English L2 acquisition. In
S. M. Gass, & J. Schachter (Eds.),
Linguistic perspectives on second language
acquisition (pp.203-221). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

3.4.3
Japanese and Korean learners (RQ4)
As shown in Figure 1, the Korean learners
performed better overall than the Japanese learners.
A two-way repeated measures ANOVA with two
independent variables (L1 and construction type)
was conducted on each of the six unaccusatives andthe six unergatives. As for unaccusatives, there wasalmost no significant difference between the two L1
groups except one verb: the Korean learners
performed significantly better on arrive used in the
NP+V construction. As for unergatives, on the other
hand, the Korean learners performed significantly
better on dance, laugh, play, and work.

4

Discussion and conclusion

The present study showed the following
findings: 1) The Unaccusative Hypothesis wasvalidated in L2 acquisition; 2) the NP movement
account was a more plausible candidate for the
possible cause of overpassivization of unaccusatives; 3) there was a wide range of difference
among individual verbs in terms of between-verbs
and between-construction types; however, evidenceof such variation did not support the Split
Intransitive Hierarchy; 4) the findings 1-3 above
were applicable to both the Japanese and Koreanlearners. In addition, the Korean learners performed
better than the Japanese learners on unergatives; onthe other hand, there was not much difference
between their performances on unaccusatives.
Select Bibliography
Hirakawa, M. (2003). Unaccusativity in second
language Japanese and English. Tokyo:
Hituzi Syobo.
Hwang, J-B. (1999). Learnability and the L2
development of English unaccusative verbs.
Journal of the Applied Linguistics
Association of Korea, 15, 65-87.
Hwang, J-B. (2001). Focus on form and the L2
learning of English unaccusative verbs.
English Teaching, 56, 111-133.
Ju, M. K. (2000). Overpassivization errors bysecond language learners. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition, 22, 85-111.
Kim, J-T. (2006). Unaccusativity and L2 passive
construction.
Englishlanguage&
Literature Teaching, 12, 69-89.
Kondo, T. (2005). Overpassivization in second
language acquisition. IRAL, 43, 129-161.
Kwak, H-Y. (2003). A study of Korean high school
students’ overpassivization errors. Journal

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Aspectual Use of the Negative Forms: a contrastive analysis ofJapanese and Turkish
Aydin OZBEKFaculty of Education, Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University-Turkey
aydinozbek@gmail.com

Abstract
In this study we aim to illustrate how Turkish andJapanese have different aspectual use and why thepast tense marker is interpreted as an aspect marker
in the negative forms of Turkish.

Answer:a) Iya, (mada) tabe-tei-nai
No, yet eat-Asp-neg“No, I haven’t eat yet”

In languages such as English and Russian,perfectual aspect expressions are clearly interpretedby the hearers. However, when we consider Turkish
or Japanese, there is no clear distinction between
the perfectual aspect and past tense in affirmative
constructions. Most of the aspectual expressions
have ambiguous interpretations and do not have an
overt or marked form to be identified. However,negative forms exhibit a clear distinction between
the temporal and the aspectual usage. In this sense,
Japanese and Turkish show a similarity.

b) *Iya, tabe-nakat-TA
No, eat-neg-Past(2) Question
Kinoo, hirumesi wo tabe-TA-ka
Yesterday lunch –Acc eat-Past-Q“Did you eat (your) lunch yesterday?”Answer:a) Iya, tabe-nakat-TA
No, eat-neg-Past“No, I didn’t eat”

Keywords
Negation, Aspect, Perfect,principle of contrast

Interchange-ability,b) *Iya, tabe-tei-nai
No, eat-Asp-neg
Teramura (1984:321,322)

Introduction
In an article entitled ‘A pragmatic Analysis ofJapanese Negative Verbal Aspect Forms’,
Szatrowski (1983) presents a well-argued analysisof the conditions determining the choice between
Japanese past tense marker –TA, and progressive
aspect marker –Teiru in negative answers as
responses to questions about the past which end
with the –TA form. Following Szatrowski (1983),
Teramura (1984)’s seminal work is the one of theleading studies pointing out the distinction between
perfect and past marking, especially in negative
answer constructions. Traditional textbooks
illustrate that Answer sentences should have thesame temporal or aspectual marking as that ofQuestion sentences. However, Teramura noticed
that, in sentences such as (1), this simple method
fails.

By using the negation test, Teramura (1984)
proposes that the past tense suffix –TA has aperfective meaning as exemplified in (1). On theother hand, the same suffix plays its original role asa temporal past tense marker in the example (2).
This is why (a) should be chosen as the answer for(1), which has an aspectual adverb moo.
Pragmatically ill-formed (b) should not be chosenbecause it expresses only past tense interpretation.
As well as in Japanese, verbs in mainclauses in Turkish are made up of a verb stem
followed by a tense or aspectual suffix. Turkish also
has a past tense marker –di and a progressive
marker –yor. Although they have syntactic andsemantic similarities with their Japanese simple
affirmative counterparts, they show clear pragmaticdifferences in negative constructions. As I will
illustrate in the following sections, I would like toinvestigate the structures and pragmatic propertiesof negative answer sentences in Turkish by using
the contrastive analysis method.

(1) Question
Moo hirumesi wo tabe-TA-ka?
Already lunch Acc eat-Past-Q“Did you eat (your) lunch?”15

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

1

Turkish Perfect(6) Continuous aspect of a stative verb
Ali Ayse-yi
tan-iyor.
Ali Ayse –Acc know-Prog“Ali knows Ayse”

The Turkish aspectual system has been analyzed bya number of linguists. Aksu Koç (1988),
Kornfilt (1997), Slobin and Aksu (1982), Göksel
and Kerslake (2005) provide a detailed treatment oftense and aspect in Turkish which were unnoticed
in previous researches. Especially, Kornfilt deals
with the various properties of the Turkish perfect. In
this section, I will refer to some of these works inorder to clarify the aspect and tense system inTurkish.

(7) Continuous aspect of a non-stative verb
Ali televizyon
izli-yor.
Ali television
watch-Prog“Ali is watching television”(8) Ingressive aspect
Ali yat-ıyor.
Ali
lie down –Prog“Ali is going to bed (now)”

1.1
Theoretical Implications
1.1.1
Basic Definitions
Kornfilt (1997) and Göksel and Kerslake (2005)
argue that Turkish does not have special suffixes
which function only for aspectual situations in allmorphological contexts. This does not mean that
Turkish lacks an aspectual system. For instance,
the perfect aspect, which indicates the continuingpresent relevance of a past situation (Comrie
1978:52), is usually expressed by the past tense
morpheme –dı.

As mentioned in Kornfilt (1997:357), it must be
noted here that “in English, the progressive form
‘was knowing’ in the translation of this example
with a stative verb would be ungrammatical.
Likewise, verbs of inert perception cannot appear in
the progressive in English while they can do so in
Turkish.”1.1.2 Inter-changeability between the Past and theContinuative aspect(3) Hasan balig-i
ye-di.
Hasan fish –Acc eat-Past“Hasan ate the fish”“Hasan has eaten the fish”(Kornfilt 1997: 349)

As I will demonstrate, -yor is not the only suffix
which expresses the continuative aspect. This isalso proposed by Göksel and Kerslake (2005).
Continuative aspects often appear in a past tense
marked form corresponding to genuine progressive
construction. These forms are formed by the pasttense marker –di. Now, let us consider theseaffirmative structures.

As exemplified in Kornfilt’s example (3), the pasttense morpheme has ambiguous interpretations.
This ambiguity can be removed by using temporalor adverbial adverbs such as saat ikide (at two
o’clock) or coktan (already).

(9) Bura-da ol-ma-na
sevin-di-m.
Here-Loc be-N-Dat
be glad-Past-1stSng“I am glad you are here”(4) Hasan balig-i saat ikide ye-di. (Past)
Hasan fish-Acc hour two-Loc eat-Past“Hasan ate the fish at two”

(10) Bura-da ol-ma-na
sevin-iyor-um.
Here-Loc be-N-Dat
be glad-Prog-1stSng“I am glad you are here”(5) Hasan baligi coktan ye-di. (Perfect)
Hasan fish-Acc already eat-Past“Hasan has already eaten the fish”

Here, the example (9) which is the past tense formof (10) shows almost exactly the sameinterpretation that the speaker’s state (to be glad) is
still continuing. According to Göksel and Kerslake(2005:334), while examples such as (9) express an“entry into a state” meaning, examples such as (10)express the “state itself”. However, this is true only
for some psychological verbs such as sevin- (beglad), üşü- (be cold).
In the case of affirmative constructions of
non-stative verbs such as koş- (run), ye- (eat), taşı(carry), düş- (fall down), this kind ofinter-changeability as illustrated below will not give

It is interesting to observe the fact that
constructions such as (3), without a temporal or an
aspectual adverb, can bear both past tense andaspectual interpretation.
As already mentioned, Turkish has a progressive
marker –yor. However, this suffix is used not only
for the continuative aspect of stative verbs, but also
for the progressive aspect (continuative aspect of anonstative verb) and ingressive aspect, as illustrated
in examples (6), (7) and (8).

16Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

identical interpretations 1 .

2

b.Sabah-tan beri hiçbir şey ye-me-di-m.
morning-Abl after any thing eat-Neg-Past-1sng‘I have not been eating anything since morning(Speaker is still hungry)

Aspect in Negative Constructions

There has so far been less investigation of theexpression of the continuative aspect of Turkish
negative constructions. As mentioned above, interchangeability between past tense and aspect is only
acceptable under special conditions. As Kornfilt(1997) states, in Turkish –den beri constructions areused to convey a situation which began in the pastand is still continuing, which is expressed by “havebeen –ing” in English. Her statement also proposesthat to convey this meaning, a present progressive
marker –(I)yor is needed.

In (12a) and its counterpart example (12b), despite
the past tense marker in the construction, thespeaker’s situation has not changed, which suggeststhat it has begun in the past and still is continuing.
Yet, past tense interpretation of (12b) will exhibit an
ill-formed situation. Negative polarity items (hiçbirşey /anything) gives a higher negation modality to
the constructions. However, the affirmative
counterpart of (12b) without a negativeinterpretation would be ill-formed, as exemplified
in (13b).
(13)
a. Sabah-tan
beri
yi-yor-um.
morning-Abl
aftereat--Prog-1sng‘I have been eating since morning’(11).Beş saat-ten beri sen-i bekl-iyor-um.
Five hours-Abl after you-Acc wait-Prog-1sng‘I have been waiting for you for five hours’
This statement should be considered to be true toexpress the present perfect aspect in Turkish.
However, not only the set of an ablative marker–den, a postpositional beri (after) and a progressive
tense marker –(I)yor gives us this interpretation, butalso a past tense marker –dI can be used with the–den beri set only in the negative constructions asshown in (12b).

b.??Sabah-tan
beri
ye-di-m.
morning-Ab l after
eat-Past-1sng‘I have not been eating anything since morning’Let us now focus on the acceptability of (12b). The
first observation to be made is that there is a clear
pragmatic difference between the meaning of (12a)and past tense marked (12b). In both constructions
the situation of “not eating” is still continuing, andthe speaker is still hungry at the time of speaking.
My informants found both sentences fully
acceptable. Yet, while (12a) gives us a modal
meaning in which the “not eating” situation isachieved by the speaker’s own will, in (12b) the“not eating” situation is only expressed as a topic.
This distinction could be briefly explained by Clark(1987)’s principle of contrast.

Here, an interesting fact about the semantics ofnegative constructions in Turkish is that the past
form –di can also be inflected to a stative verb torefer to continuing situations. Now let us consider
the following examples;(12)
a.Sabah-tan beri hiçbir şey
ye-mi-yor-um.
morning-Abl after any thing eat-Neg-Prog-1sng‘I have not been eating anything since morning’(Speaker is still hungry)

The Principle of Contrast: Every two forms contrast
in meaning.
According to Clark (1987), this principle states that“any difference in form in a language marks adifference in meaning”
Note that both the progressive marker and pasttense marker share the notion of “continuative
aspect” in Turkish negative structures, even thoughboth structures prima facie have the same aspectual
formations. However, as expressed in the Principleof Contrast, they are naturally distinguisheddepending on whether the speaker has a strong will
or not. In the next section, I will attempt to explain
why this notion is possible in Turkish.

1

In Turkish youth-language, interchangeability between
the past tense and the progressive marker is widely seen
as below. These forms are, however, considered to behighly informal and criticized by many scholars with flat
denial.
i. Tesekkur et-ti-m
ii. Tesekkur ed-iyor-um
thank do-Past-1stsng
thank do-Prog-1stsng“I thank you”
“I thank you”
Or,iii. Ben git-ti-m.
I go-Past-1stsng“I am going (now)”iv. Ben gid-iyor-um
I go-Prog-1stsng“I am going (now)”17

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

2.1
The Proposed Solution
Negation or so-called negative assertion is briefly
described in Givon (2001:302) “The proposition isstrongly asserted to be false, most commonly incontradiction to the hearer’s explicit or assumed
beliefs. A challenge from the hearer is anticipated,
and the speaker has evidence or other strong
grounds for backing up their strong belief.”
This proposal also gives us another hint about
negative constructions. It is not possible to consider
a large number of further examples here, but what isclear is that the –yor in negative constructions does
not only give the construction a continuative aspect
meaning but also gives a modality interpretation
which exhibits the speaker’s “own will” or “strong
denial”. Let us consider following (non-stative
verbal) examples;3

Conclusion

The foregoing analysis of the behavior of the pasttense and progressive markers has illustrated
aspectual and modality notions such as thecontinuative and expressing the agent’s will.
Showing syntactic similarities to Japanese, it wasclarified that Turkish has a completely different
strategy for negative constructions. In Turkish, thepast tense marker asserts that the unchanged
situation is continuing in the speech time; while on
the other hand, the progressive marker implies theagent’s behaviors and bears a modal role. In thissense, Turkish and Japanese negative constructions
need to be investigated with further studies.
References
Aksu-Koç, A. (1988). The Acquisition of Aspect andModality. Cambridge University Press.
Clark, E. V. (1987). The Principle of Contrast: A
constraint on language acquisition. In
MacWhinney, B., editor, Mechanisms of
Language Acquisition, pp 1-33.
Givon, T. (2001). Syntax:An Introduction Volume I.
John Benjamins Publishing Co.
Göksel, A & Kerslake,C. (2005) Turkish: A
Comprehensive Grammar. London & New
York: Routledge
Kornfilt, J (1997). Turkish (Descriptive Grammars)
Routledge, London
Slobin, I. and Ayhan A. Aksu (1982). Tense, Aspect
and Modality in the Use of the Turkish
Evidential. In Tense-Aspect Hopper, Paul J.
(ed.), 185 ff.
Szatrowski, P. (1983). A pragmatic Analysis ofJapanese Negative Verbal Aspect Forms.
Tsukuba working papers in linguistics 2 pp.
48-64
Teramura, H. (1984). Nihongo no sintakusu to imi II(Japanese syntax and semantics II) Kurosio
Publishing.

(14) Question
Kardes-in
universite-ye git-ti-mi?
Brother-2nd Gen college-Dat
go-Past-Q“Has your brother gone to the college?”
Answera. Hayir, git-mi-yor.
No, go-Neg-Prog“No, he hasn’t” (He doesn’t want to go)b. Hayir, git-me-Di
No, go-Neg-Past“No, he hasn’t” (event)(16) John oda-sı-nı topla-Di-mi?
John room-Acc tidy-Past-Q“Has John tidied up his room?”
Answera. Hayır, topla-mı-yor
No
tidy-Neg-Prog“No he hasn’t” (And he doesn’t want to do)b. Hayır, topla-ma-Di.
No
tidy-Neg-Past“No, he hasn’t” (event)
It seems, therefore, that the inter-changeability
process seems a false approach that is contrary to
the principle of contrasts. It is interesting to observethat the past tense marker always has a continuative
aspectual interpretation, while the actual
continuative marker –yor bears another role, toexpress the agent’s will. Past tense markers innegative constructions are filling the slot which is
emptied by the progressive –yor.

18

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

National Policy and the Ideology of English: The Case of Taiwan
Han-Yi Lin

Department of Applied English, the Overseas Chinese Institute of Technology
hanyilin@ocit.edu.tw

This study argues that the spread of English in theworld involves not only the effect of policy making
and education practices but also the subtle influenceof discourses regarding English. By presenting a
textual analysis of national policy, the ideologicalcharacter of the English language in Taiwan isinvestigated. Through the employment of Critical
Discourse Analysis and by analyzing how English
is presented in the governmental document, it
examines the presentation and construction of
discourses on English. This research suggests that
discourses concerning English in Taiwan areconditioned by the external global structure andTaiwan’s socio-cultural context. Through discourses
regarding the necessity of English for Taiwanesesociety, the ideology of English consequently
functions as part of the mechanisms involved in the
global spread of English.

education practices but also the subtle influence of
discourses regarding English. In order to uncover
the ideological character of the English language in
Taiwan, this research focuses on the prevailing
beliefs, values and propositions relating to English
as a global language and the spread of English in
the country. By analyzing how English is presented
in national development plan, it examines thepresentation and construction of discourses ofEnglish. First, I look at some significant research on
the ideology of English and the role of the English
language in Taiwan Six-Year National Development
Plan (2002-2008). The second part of this study
outlines the methodological background of thisresearch. In the third part, the construction of
discourses concerning English and ideologicalassumptions regarding the English language in
Taiwan is investigated. Finally, discourses andideological assumptions identified in the texts andtheir implications are discussed.

Keywords

1

Ideology of English, global English, English in
Taiwan, Taiwan six-year national plan, critical
discourse analysis

1.1

Abstract

Global English, Ideology andTaiwan’s National Plan

Criticism of Global English and theIdeology of English
Many scholars have done research on the criticalinvestigation of the global spread of English (e.g.
Canagarajah, 1999; Kubota, 1998; Pennycook,
1994; Phillipson, 1992; Tollefson, 2000; Tsu andTollefson, 2007). Two significant works were
published by Phillipson (1992) and Pennycook(1994). Both Phillipson and Pennycook advocate acritical examination of the global spread of English
and expose the correlations between the English
language and socio-economic inequality. However,under Phillipson’s theoretical framework, thehegemony of English is examined and explained
through the notion of imperialism and oppression
and thus inevitably falls into the pattern ofoppressor vs. the oppressed where the oppressed are
powerless victims of oppressors (Anglophone
speakers vs. non-Anglophone speakers in the caseof English linguistic imperialism). This kind ofpolitico-economic analysis to a certain extent might

Introduction
The research proposed here is a case study of the
impact of the global spread of English in an EFL
country, focusing on discursive practices andideological effects. Although the global spread ofEnglish has been investigated by many scholars
employing various perspectives, its impact andconsequences are still controversial (see Davies,
1996; Phillipson 1992; Seidlhofer, 2003). This is
not only because the phenomenon of global English
is unprecedented, but also because it is complex andcontextually varied. This research intends to offer astudy of the underlying knowledge and power
relations between global English and national
policy in an East Asian country, Taiwan, in order toobtain a more complete and detailed picture of thisglobal phenomenon.
In the case of Taiwan, the spread of English
involves not only the effect of policy making and19

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

investment and skilled managers to Mainland
China.
The English language plays a central role in the
project for cultivation of talent for the E-generation.
It aims to cultivate manpower in order to meet thechallenges of globalization and internationalization(GIO, 2005). The project has three parts: (1)establishing an internationalized living environment
and enhancing national English ability; (2)cultivating the young generation with vitality
through sports and arts; (3) creating a society oflifelong learning (MOE, 2005). The first part of the
project focuses on the promotion of English underthe basic tactic of the six-year national development
plan— ‘global connection, local action’. In that,
English has been seen as the key element of
globalization and modernization in Taiwan.

effectively explain language policies and language
planning in a collective sense but will inevitably
encounter difficulties dealing with issues such as
the confrontation between English and local
languages, the resistance to English, the localizationof English and the subjectivity of individuals. By
imposing a powerless position on non-Anglophone
speakers, the effect of power is unidirectional andhard to reverse, and the roles of the individual are
fixed and controlled.
However, in fact, we are encountering rather
complex and divergent phenomena of the global
spread of English where roles of the individual are
shifting, i.e. a non-Anglophone speaker in Taiwan
could be a member of a minority ethnic group andmeanwhile an influential official in the government,
and power is uncentered as well as multipledirectional. In terms of the subjectivity of theindividual, Phillipson’s accounts to a certain degree
lose its effectiveness for being unable to explain thepractices and resistance from the oppressed side andthe dispersal struggles and negotiations of power indiscourse of the English language. Comparatively
Pennycook offers a more effective investigation of
the global spread of English. Without a clear agencyof power and an evident causal relationshipbetween intentions of native English speakers andoutcomes of English spread, power struggles andthe effect of ideology are exercised in discourse ofEnglish where there are no clear-cut oppressors toblame or victims to save. The focus has been shiftedfrom the oppression of imperialism to the effect ofpower in processes of discourse. Therefore, rather
than under a grand social structure, the ideology ofEnglish needs to be investigated in a more
contextual and discursive way in order toeffectively explain the divergent phenomena of
global English and the complex relations of power.

2

Research Methodology

As Eagleton (1994) and Lull (2000) suggest,
ideology, as a system of ideas expressed incommunication, is shaped by as well as shaping ouractions. Ideology has persuasive force only whenthese ideas can be represented and communicated.
The mass media and all other large-scaleinstitutions play a vital role in the circulation ofideologies. According to this assumption, thesystem of ideas about English is conditioned by aswell as conditioning the social situation in theprocessofcommunication.
Thevalues,predispositions and orientations towards English in
Taiwan are embedded and thus identifiable in the
discourses produced by cultural institutions
including the government and the education system.
As far as the ideology of English is concerned,
the hypothesis proposed here is that there exists a
system of ideas about the English language
embedded in social practices of Taiwanese society
through cultural institutions, e.g. the government.
And discursive practices as the linguistic aspect of
the social order play a significant role in the
production and reproduction of the ideology ofEnglish. Under these assumptions, a discussion of
CDA as research method, the rationale of text
selection, and the procedure of text analysis are
explained in this section.

1.2
English and Taiwan’s National Plan
In the past few decades, the spread of English
learning has been growing dramatically not only
because of globalization, but also due to afundamental change of perception and learning
culture toward the English language. English is nolonger regarded as a foreign language, but an
indispensable part of national policy.
Taiwan Six-Year National Development Plan
(2002-2008) includes wide-ranging projects
focusing on economic growth and environmental
protection, i.e. three major reforms (i.e. government,banking, and finance) and four major investments(cultivating talent; research, development, andinnovation; international logistics; and a highquality living environment). The plan wasformulated by the Taiwanese government in orderto face the technological challenges and a loss of

2.1

Critical Discourse Analysis as Research
MethodCritical discourse analysis (CDA), with a particularinterest in the relation between language and power,
regards ‘language as social practice’ (Fairclough
and Wodak, 1997) and considers the context oflanguage use to be crucial. Language as social
practice is ‘a key instrument in socialization, andthe means whereby society forms and permeates the20Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

in the selected texts: textual analysis (the stage ofdescription), discursive practices (the stage ofinterpretation), and social practices (the stage of
explanation).

individual’s consciousness (Hodge and Kress, 1993:1).’ Hodge and Kress define the constructedconsciousness of the society as ideology – ‘asystematic body of ideas, organized from aparticular point of view’ (ibid, p.6). For CDA,
ideology is regarded as an important means ofestablishing and maintaining power relations. The
relationship of language and power where‘language mediates ideology in a variety of social
institutions’ (Weiss and Wodak, 2003: 14) therefore
is given considerable attention by CDA analysts.
For language is not powerful on its own, rather it
indicates, expresses, and even challenges power. It
is thus important for CDA to investigate theexpressions and manipulations of power by
analyzing linguistic forms in context.
According to the aim and hypothesis of thisresearch, that is, there is a need to investigate therole of discursive practice in the maintenance of the
predominant status of global English and theideological effects of discourses on thedevelopment of ELT in Taiwan. Here, CDA is a
useful instrument for analyzing the relations
between the English language, power and ideology
and is therefore adopted for analyzing governmental
discourses in order to investigate the cultural andideological meanings of global English in Taiwan.

2.3.1
Textual analysis
At the level of textual analysis, the focus is oncontent, form and textual organization. Therefore,
by focusing on representations, social relations andidentities, and cohesion and coherence (Fairclough,1995; Richardson, 2007), the stage of description
includes three levels of analysis: lexical analysis,
sentence structures, and textual structures.
2.3.2
Analysis of discursive practices
Discursive practice mediates between text andsocial practice and focuses on ‘how authors of texts
draw on already existing discourses and genres tocreate a text and on how receivers of texts also
apply available discourses and genres in the
consumption and interpretation of the texts’(Jørgensen and Phillips, 2002: 69). In other words,
the interpretation of a text is not only constructedby the formal features of a text but also depends onbackground assumptions of the reader, ‘themembers’ resource’ (MR) (Fairclough, 2001a:118).
Therefore, the analysis of discursive practice
involves not only an explanation of how a text is
produced and interpreted but also ‘what genres anddiscourses were drawn upon in producing the text,
and what traces of them are there in the text’ –intertextuality (Fairclough, 1995: 61).

2.2
The Rationale of Text Selection
In terms of text selection, although every instanceof language use can be a reflection of social order,some instances such as governmental documents
are more influential due to the process of theirproduction and consumption. The assumption hereis that the texts created by official institutions canbe regarded as manufactured and highly-circulated
discourses which produce, reproduce or challenge
the existing power relations in Taiwanese society
and therefore are more influential and prevailing at
the socio-cultural level. The selected text is an
extract from a significant governmental document,
Taiwan Six-Year National Development Plan, which
represents the blueprint of national developmentfrom 2002 to 2008 and emphasizes the importanceof English at national level. This text is selected
because of its significant influence on Taiwan’s
government policies and educational practices ofEnglish.

2.3.3
Analysis of social practices
The analysis of social practices assumes a
dialectical relationship between society and texts.
At this stage, the MR is regarded as ideologies
because they are associated with assumptions about
culture, social relationships, and identities. It is thus
important to investigate ‘what elements of MR
which are drawn upon have an ideologicalcharacter’ (Fairclough, 2001a:138). By focusing on
processes of social struggles or relations of power,
the analysis of social practices examines
determinants and effects of discourse at threelevels: societal, institutional and situational.

3

2.3

Application of CDA Methods in thisResearch
By employing Fairclough’s (1992, 1995, 2001a,
2001b) analytical framework of CDA, Systemic
Functional Grammar (Halliday and Matthiessen,2004), and discourse/text analysis, this research
examines the features at the three levels of analysis

Analysis of Text: Cultivate Talent for
the E-Generation

Text 1 (see Appendix A) is an extract of Taiwan
Six-Year National Development Plan. With its title– Cultivate Talent for the E-Generation, the mainidea of this project focuses on manpower. This
project is the first of the ten projects of Taiwan
Six-Year National Development Plan and is21

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

the development of a nation, especially economic
development. However, it is questionable if thebasis of all development is manpower. It is quitepossible that all development refers to national
development (since it is a presupposition in a
project
under
TaiwanSix-Year
National
Development Plan) and therefore focuses on
economic development according to Taiwan’ssocio-historical background. English as thelanguage that links to the world implies that
English is the communicative instrument to interact
with people, institutions and countries around theworld. This presupposition is also related tosentence 2 in the first paragraph. The ROC should
first enhance the abilities of its people in order tomeet the future challenges of globalization andinternationalization. The ability to master English
or, in other words, the ability to link to the world is
especially emphasized for facing the challenges ofglobalization and internationalization. However, it
is not necessarily true that one cannot link to theworld without the English language, and language
is only one facet of the challenges of globalizationand internationalization.
The linkage between national planning,
manpower and English can also be identified
through the analysis of discursive practice. The
following discourses can be identified in Text 1: adiscourse of national development and manpower; adiscourse of the inevitability of globalization andinternationalization; a discourse of English as theglobal language to link to the world. Manpower isconsidered the basis of national development andneeds to acquire some skills required for facing thefuture challenge. Globalization mainly refers toeconomic globalization which is a process of
integrating national economies into the international
economy through trade, capital flows, foreign
investment, migration and spread of technology. It
can also be considered as the internationalization of
everything related to foreign countries. The processof globalization and internationalization is not only
regarded as an inevitable trend but also a challenge
for Taiwanese society in the face of the competitive
nature of the international economy. English as theglobal language is therefore treated as one of therequired skills for connecting to the world andfacing this future challenge. By combining thesethree discourses, a strong association between
national development and the English language isconstructed.
In the analysis of socio-cultural contexts,
Taiwan Six-Year National Plan was proposed by
DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) government in2002 – a midterm policy of DPP’s first four-year
term of office (from 2000 to 2004) which intended
to raise public support, by including almost all

designed to be implemented as an independent
project. Text 1 is an extract from an English editionof Taiwan Six-Year National Development Plan
which is provided by Government Information
Office and available on both the Government
Information Office Website (http://www.gio.
gov.tw/taiwan-website/4-oa/20020521/2002052101.
html) and the Washington State Taiwan Office
Website.
In terms of textual analysis, Text 1 ispreoccupied with manpower and development by
wording including the nouns cultivation, talent,
e-generation, manpower, development, abilities andthe verbs cultivate, enhance, establish, expand,promote, integrate. Most sentences of the text areformulated in modality forms through nonmodalized categorical assertions, e.g. ‘manpower isthe basis of all development’ (in sentence 1). or
through the use of modal auxiliary verbs, e.g.
should (in sentence 2 and 5), will (in sentence 3),
and must (in sentence 8).
According to Fairclough (2001a), the use ofmodality is related to author’s authority or power interms of relations between participants or the truthof a proposition. Non-modalized categoricalassertions can be regarded as a form of modalitythat expresses the author’s strongest commitment to
the truth of the proposition and that affirmatively
supports a view of the world as transparent andself-evident. The modality forms used here
represent a declarative mode, where the subject
position of the author (i.e. the government) is the
subject position of an information provider and theaudience’s position is a receiver (Fairclough, 2001a:
104-105). The forms manifest a commitment to thetruth of the statements and to the implementation ofpolicies. The authority and commitment of thegovernment can also be identified throughsentences in modality form with the government or
the ROC as subject.
According to Fairclough (2001a:109-110), thecontent of the subordinate clauses (since…) are
presuppositions. Two presuppositions can be
identified in Text 1: ‘manpower is the basis of all
development’ (in sentence 1) and ‘English is thelanguage that links the world’ (in sentence 5).
Through the use of nominalization, the basis of all
development and the language that links the world
are presupposed. By using relational processes, therelationship between the elements of the twosentences (e.g. manpower and the basis of all
development) is set up with causality left unclear.
These two presuppositions are treated as clear andundoubted facts or truths. However, if we closely
examine these two presuppositions, they may beseen not as unquestionable truths but common sense
assumptions. Manpower is of great importance for22

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

important issues related to economic growth andnational development. The promotion of English ispresented as one of the elements for cultivating
talent for the e-generation. Actually, English is themain focus of this project as articulated in the text.
Accordingly, English will be promoted in two ways:
by giving it an official status and by expanding its
use in daily life. Although the statements are simple,
the implications of these two methods of English
promotion are considerable. They involve thedevelopment of Englishization nationwide; achange of English education; enhancing quality andquantity of English teachers; internationalization ofuniversities and colleges; recruitment of foreign
students and encouragement of studying overseas(MOE, 2005).
Furthermore, the significance of this project canespecially be identified through other discourses inEnglish education, for example, the Teachers’
Manual for English Language Teaching in
Elementary and Junior High Schools, which
provides teachers with directions and references intheir teaching. It can be regarded as discourse
following the aims and rationale of English
promotion in this project.

4

4.2

Englishization as Globalization: A New
Form of Modernization
The national policy of English promotion in Taiwan
can be further examined within the wider context ofEast Asia and the global world. Taiwan and other
East Asian countries have experienced a rapid
growth in the ELT industry and changes in national
policy for improving national English ability sincethe 1990s (Ho and Wong, 2003; Nunan, 2003). For
these countries, the rationale for promoting English
and problems regarding English education are
similar in many respects. Similar to the process ofmodernization in the late 19th and the 20th century,
globalization and internationalization are thepredominant themes in the late 20th and the early
21st centuries. This process has also been seen as
the so-called ‘Englishization’ of the world’s
political, economic and social communications. It is
assumed that this trend is necessary in today’s
globalized world and perceived as instrumental instimulating economic competition. In thecompetitiveenvironment
existing
betweencountries such as China, Japan, South Korea andTaiwan, it is assumed that national levels of English
proficiency can enhance human capital as aresource, and thus make the country morecompetitive. Similar to other East Asian counties,
Taiwan faces the pressures of globalization andeconomic competition, and Englishization isadopted as a new, indispensable means forinternational competition in the globalized world.

Discussion and Implications

4.1
Discourse of English
This research has analyzed how English is
discursively presented in national policy. Commonsense assumptions in the text not only indicate theexisting power relations and power struggles, butalso sustain or change power relations. The
underlying ideological assumptions of English areclosely linked to the current trends in globalization
or internationalization, the concepts of economic
development, and competition. In addition, theimportance of the modern state in the global
capitalist system also has implicit effects on the
discourse of English. It results in discourses such as
national planning and manpower, and a political
discourse that configures Taiwan in the world. They
are drawn on for constructing the need for English
at the national level. And through the mixture of theabove mentioned discourses and some widelyaccepted assumptions in the field of English
language teaching such as ‘the younger the better’,the national and personal need for adequate English
education is reinforced. These discourses can be
regarded as dominant discourses of English, thoughsubject to text selection in this research, reflecting
prevailing assumptions of English in Taiwanesesociety. In other words, these discourses are used as‘background knowledge’ and thus constrain the
production and interpretation of the discourse ofEnglish.

5

Conclusion

In conclusion, it would be useful to consider theclaim of Foucault (1988), that power is everywhere.
The power of English can no longer be identified
with a center-border dichotomy, i.e. the powerfulnative English speakers vs. the powerless nonEnglish speakers. In the context of Taiwan, English
is not imposed but spreads through global trends
and the discourse of national plan. At the global
level, this research argues that the spread of English
can be regarded as a continuing manifestation ofmodernization which started in the late nineteenth
century among East Asian countries. It aims tostrengthen national politico-economic capability
and to compete with Western powers and othercountries in East Asia. In the case of Taiwan, theintention of improving the national level of English
is simply to acquire the language, engage andbecome successful in global economic competition,and share the benefits. Through discourses
regarding the necessity of English for Taiwanesesociety, the ideology of English consequently
functions as part of the mechanisms involved in the
global spread of English.
23

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Nunan, D. (2003) The impact of English as a global
language on educational policies andpractices in the Asia-Pacific region. TESOL
Quarterly 37, 4, 589-613.
Pennycook, A. (1994) The Cultural Politics ofEnglish as an International Language.
London: Longman.
Phillipson, R. (1992) Linguistic Imperialism.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Richardson, J.E. (2007) Analysing Newspapers: An
Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis.
Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan.
Seidlhofer, B. (2003) Controversies in Applied
Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Tollefson, J.W. (2000) Policy and ideology in the
spread of English. In Kelly Hall, J. andEggington, W. (eds.) The Sociopolitics ofEnglish Language Teaching. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
Tsui, A.B.M. & Tollefson, J.W. (eds.) (2007)
Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in
Asian Contexts. Mahwah: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
Weiss, G. & Wodak, R. (2003) Introduction: Theory,interdisciplinary and critical discourse
analysis. In Weiss, G. & Wodak, R. (eds.)
Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory andInterdisciplinary. Basingstone: Palgrave
Macmillan.

References
Canagarajah, A. S. (1999) Resisting Linguistic
Imperialism in English Teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Davies, A. (1996) Reviewing Article: Ironising theMyth of Linguicism. Journal ofMultilingualandMulticultural
Development 17, 6, 485-496.
Eagleton, T. (1994) Introduction. In Eagleton, T.
(ed.) Ideology. London: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fairclough, N. (1995) Media Discourse. London:
Edward Arnold.
Fairclough, N. (2001a) Language and Power (2nd
Edition). Harlow: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (2001b) Critical discourse analysis
as a method in social scientific research. In
Wodak, R. & Meyer, M. (eds.) Methods ofCritical Discourse anaysis. London:
SAGE.
Fairclough, N. & Wodak, R. (1997) Critical
discourse analysis. In van Dijk, T.A. (ed.)
Discourse as Social Interaction. London:
SAGE.
Foucault, M. (1988) Politics, Philosophy, Culture :Interviews and Other Writings, 1977-1984(translated by A. Sheridan and others/edited with an introduction by L.
Kritzman) London, New York : Routledge.
GIO (Government Information Office) (2005)
Taiwan Six-Year National Development
Plan. Available at http://www.washington
state.org.tw/English/taiwan-trade-economy/6-year-plan/index.htm, accessed April 20,
2005.
Halliday, M.A.K. & Matthiessen, C.M.I.M. (2004)
An Introduction to Functional Grammar.
(3rd edition) London: Hodder Arnold.
Ho, W. K. & Wong, R. Y. L. (eds.) (2003) English
Language Teaching in East Asia Today:
Changing
PoliciesandPractices.
Singapore: Times Academic Press.
Hodge, R. & Kress, G. (1993) Language as
Ideology. (2nd edition) London: Routledge.
Jørgensen, M. & Phillips, L. (2002) Discourse
Analysis: As Theory and Method. London:
SAGE.
Kubota, R. (1998) Ideologies of English in Japan.
World Englishes 17, 3, 259-306.
Lull, J. (2000) Media, Communication, Culture: A
GlobalApproach(2ndedition).
Cambridge: Polity Press.
MOE (the Ministry of Education) (2005) Challenge
2008: Key National Development Plan –Project of Cultivating Talent for
E-Generation. Taipei: MOE.

Appendix A Cultivate Talent for the
E-Generation- An Extract of Taiwan
Six-Year National Development Plan
1. Cultivate Talent for the E-Generation(1) The first project of the 6-year national development plan is thecultivation of talent for the e-generation, since manpower is thebasis of all development. (2) To meet the future challenges ofglobalization and internationalization, the ROC should firstenhance the abilities of its people. (3) Concurrently, thegovernment will establish an environment for internationalizing
learning.
(4) This project emphasizes the ability to master foreign
languages, especially English, and the use of Internet. (5) Since
English is the language that links the world, the government should
designate English as a quasi-official language and actively expand
the use of English as a part of daily life.
(6) In addition, physical health and culture is the foundation for the
next generation of society. (7) Therefore, education in culture, art,sports, and civility is an important goal for the new government. (8)Since it is necessary for the entire society to enter the new era withthe e-generation, we must make concerted efforts to establish acomprehensive life-long learning system, promote voluntary social
services, and integrate learning resources, including those in thecivil service system, to immerse ourselves in cultural, socialtransformation, and reconstruction.
Text 1 Extracted from the English version of ‘Taiwan Six-Year National
Development Plan’ (available at http://www.washingtonstate.org.tw/
English/taiwan-trade- economy/6-year-plan/ talent-e-generation.htm, accessed
21 September 2005)

24

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Student Presentation as a Means of Learning English for Upper
Intermediate to Advanced Level Students
Eunpyo Lee

School of Medicine, Eulji University
elee@eulji.ac.kr

English education seemed to cause more money
spending on the private education market due toparents’ fear that their children might not have theedge in the language.
At the upper level of education, English forSpecific Purposes (ESP) has become a popular
theme for the people who learn and teach majors
other than English. Teaching at a medical college,
ESP has been one of the research topics for the
researchers. Medical students need to get by with thelanguage as a lot of their textbooks are written in
English, and they are demanded to publish andpresent medical papers in the language even after
they graduate from medical college. Suchphenomenon triggered the demand for English
competence greater than ever. Accordingly, teaching
the language in the way they are expected to use may
serve the purpose of medical college English. As
pointed out in Kim’s (2008) study, English ability is
no longer a choice but a tool for survival. This seems
so true especially for these professionals because of
their Science Citation Index (SCI) research paper
publication in English.
This paper observes and examines an English
reading and writing course of second year medical
students. All students were asked to prepare apresentation on different topics similar to a research
paper and present it in class. It was also intended toinduce students’ participation in the English class.
The student presentation turned out very interesting
as each student created a praiseworthy one withunique Power Point materials and intriguing
audio-visual clips relevant to his/her topic. The
students agreed that the class was enjoyable andactive. Presentation class provided them with achance to learn English on their own to explain about
the topic and be able to answer the questions theirpeers had with a close interaction between thepresenter and the classmates.

Abstract

This study observes and examines how college
students perform and perceive one-topic-for-eachstudent presentation as a means of learning English.
The 49 second year medical students enrolled in
English reading and writing class in 2008 were givena single topic for each presentation in class as part ofwriting assignment. They were encouraged to becreative, informative and fun to induce classparticipation. A questionnaire was given to learn ofstudents’ opinion on the presentation. Based on these,
the data were analyzed to see if preparing and giving
presentation was conducive for medical students. The
results revealed that students wrote double length ofthe previous year writing assignment and 92% ofthem felt presentation on different topics wasinteresting and helpful for learning English. Morethan two-thirds of the students (69%) thought that
preparing for their class presentation provided themwith a chance to learn new vocabulary, expressions aswell as knowledge in English. The results show that
presentation on various topics can be used as a meansof learning English for upper intermediate toadvanced level students.

Keywords
One-topic-for-each presentation, Power Point, UCC

1

Introduction

Before the demand of the English language swept thenation as a requirement for globalization, having an
ability to speak English well was often considered as
higher status and elite group as stated in Shim’s(1994) study. However, as the world has become a
big global village, competence in the English
language seems like a must acquired skill regardlessof individual’s major or interest.
Being financially hit hard during the IMF era,
the Korean government lead by former president
Kim Dae-jung emphasized importance of thelanguage. A decade later, the incumbent president
Lee Myung-bak and his cabinet members seemed tobe driven by reformative measures of accelerating
the speed of the Korean people’s language
competence, thus poured out plans like immersion
program, more support for the native and bilingual
teachers into teaching, and utilizing the military
service period of the men, educated in the English
speaking countries, as substitution for English
teaching. Such measures have caused a national
ripple and resistance from the people due to lack ofthorough preparation by the experts andprofessionals in the field. Any kind of reform in

2

Literature Review

2.1
Effective ways of English teaching
As the demand and emphasis on communicativecompetence grew, fluency has become the objectiveof the English education. Once prevalent
grammar-translation method, in some cases still usedin classroom, was replaced with learner-centered
way of communicative method partly because of thechange in the national curriculum policies and25

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

fulfilling the demand from the language users. Suchcommunicative method included audio-lingual
method in which students were exposed to thelistening materials to improve listening and speaking
skills.
Toward the end of the 20th and beginning ofst
the 21 century, computer technology became part of
the English education. Kelm (1992) and Warschauer& Kern (2000) stated that since computer technology
helps students to generate their own discourse in thetarget language, such as in English, with much more
freedom than ever before, computer assisted English
language instruction could be more learner-centered,allowing students to have multiple opportunities toparticipate in real-life communication in English. In
recent years, many instructors rely on the visualmaterials as educational technology is highly
desirable because it can help improve theeffectiveness of English teaching (Park, 2004). A
growing number of studies have explored ways toincorporate technology into language classrooms(e.g., Kim, 2002; Kim, 2003; Hong, 2003),
especially by comparing two delivery modes:
computer-mediated communication (CMC) andface-to-face instruction. Lee & Chang (2001)
presented a model of CMC-based English teachingmaterials intended to improve adult learners’communicative interaction skills. They claimed that
CMC could provide an ideal learning environmentfor Korean learners who have some affective barriers
to English language learning.
As more native speakers of English were put
into the English classrooms, more awareness for
producing English similar to native speakers hasgrown among the non-native English teachers. To
encourage using the target language in the classroom,
teaching English through English (TETE) has
become popular mode of teaching. Although TETE
has been verified as effective, some Korean students’affective barriers have not been overlooked. There
are also some studies on TETE conducted in higher
education setting (Jong-Bai Hwang, 2002; Eun-Ju
Kim, 2002, 2003; Yo-An Lee, 2006). Jong-Bai
Hwang (2002) looked into anxiety and achievement
motivation of Korean college students enrolled in acontent-based course for a period of semester.
Hwang’s (2002) study examined how the students’anxiety and motivation would change over time byusing anxiety and motivation questionnaires (FLCAS& AMQ, respectively). The study found that thestudents’ anxiety decreased and that their utilitarian
goal orientation increased over time.
Chomsky (1988) stresses the importance ofactivating learners’ motivation and claims that “thetruth of the matter is that about 99% of teaching ismaking the students feel interested in the material”(p.181).
Schumann (1997) also asserts in his book, The
Neurobiology of Affect in Language, that second
language acquisition is primarily emotionally driven

and emotion underlies most, if not all, cognition.
Research on motivation (Covington, 1999;
Heckhausen, 1991; Heckhausen & Kuhl, 1985;
Husman & Lens, 1999; Karniol & Ross, 1996) has
incorporated time elements into the motivational
research paradigm.
There are numerous factors involved in thesecond (foreign) language acquisition. The effective
methods that take affective barriers of the EFL
learners into account may be desirable for language
teaching.
As a measure for improving English
competence of Korean teachers of English so thatthey can be fluent English teachers with all four
skills, the Ministry of Education plans to include anintensive oral interview and writing test as part of theteacher certification exam beginning in 2009.
.
2.2
Presentation in English
Even though efficient ways of teaching the language
are adopted in the classroom, learners still need to
produce their language (Swain, 1985, 1995; Swain &Lapkin, 1995). It obviously means that learners
ought to use the language in the target form. Oncethey do, as pointed out in Izumi & Bigelow (2000),
Pica, Holliday, Lewis, & Morgenthaler’s (1989)
study, they become more observant not only inmeaning of language but also in forms.
While presentation may be a stressful task forlearners who are not yet readily equipped with theskills of preparing, it can be an effective tool for
upper intermediate to advanced level learners.
As shown in Choi et al’s (2008) study that wasdone on developing English discourse competence
through self-directed practices, the results showed
the subjects became more confident in the languagein the process of preparing for the weekly
presentation session.
The study explores the possibility of utilizing
student presentation in classroom whether the upperintermediate to advanced level students benefit frompreparing for class presentation and learn on theirown in terms of new vocabulary, expressions, andknowledge in English as well as practicepronouncing unfamiliar words, where to pause, andeven memorize the content of their presentation.

3

Method3.1
Participants
For the study a second-year English reading andwriting class was observed. The total of 49 medical
students were given a single topic for each at least
two weeks prior to their presentation to prepare andpresent in class. The rationale for the two-week time
was to let the students have sufficient time to doresearch to write a research paper and be ready forthe class presentation. To encourage the students’
active participation, the presentation was given 15
percent of the grade as medical students tended to26

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

perform better when points or credit were given.
Grading was based on creativity, content informationand interesting presentation to attract the classmembers’ attention. Also as for an incentive,
excellent presenters were awarded at the end of eachmonth, March through May, as well as the ones withoutstanding content.
The length of the presentation was set for 10
minutes each for 4 students a week. At the beginningof the semester, the length of the presentation wasless than 10 minutes. But in a couple of weeks, thestudents seemed more absorbed in showing various
visual materials from the Internet, UCC, and thePower Point, thus presenting in a more interesting
way. Consequently, the presentation time graduallybecame longer. Some were enthusiasticallyapplauded by their peers after the presentation andthe class atmosphere was lively with more questions
and answers afterwards. A few students mimicked
the instructor’s lecturing style that brought a goodlaugh and some came up with witty remarks andanswers at the end of their session. By the end ofeach presentation, the class seemed relaxed andcontented.

month to be praised with an award written in English.
Each presentation paper was then reviewed andcounted how many words and sentences were used.
The results of the questionnaire were also analyzed.

4

Results and Discussions

There were 20(40%) female and 29(60%) malestudents. They took the TOEIC by the end of the firstyear and their results showed that they werecategorized as upper intermediate to advanced
students with the mean score of 793 (806 for female
and 780 for male students). The lowest was 715 andthe highest 990. Table 1 and 2 are omitted.
Answers to the questionnaire on whether thepresentation was interesting and useful and whether
the presentation on different topic rather than thesame-topic-for-all student presentation was moreinteresting, 40 students (92%) gave favorable
answers and only 3 students (6%) were not sure. As
shown in Table 4, majority of the students (80%)
agreed that it was more effective than face-to-facelecture-only class.
Upon asked whether preparing for thepresentation helps acquiring new vocabulary,
expressions and knowledge in English, 30 students(69%) answered favorably.

3.2
Data Analysis Procedure
The topics were selected by the instructor based on
the reading materials and current issues. Eighteen
topics were given in March and the lists are as
follows: Picasso, Taean oil spillage, great CEOs,
earthquake, pets, global warming, newspaper,
broadcasting, psychology, Sigmund Freud, Louvre
Museum, Da Vinci Code, real estate speculation,
credit card, Oprah Winfrey, Nobel prize, autism andgreat American anchors. In April, 16 topics were
given such as materialism, Socrates, cross-overmusic, Ecstasy (drug), foreign legendary musician,hip-hop music and young generation, recycling,
Korean legendary musician, famous Korean anchor,
great musician and actor, religion & science, stocks& funds, pesticide, FTA, great inventors, and ballet.
Then in May, 15 topics were given and the lists are
as follows: 3Ds, social belief, weather forecasting,
Asperger’s syndrome, Grameen Bank & Yunus,
pneumonia, ideal government, genetics, great
choreographer, impressionism, obsession, maniac,
diet, and pollution. From these lists, the students
selected the one they were interested in. After thepresentation, the students’ papers were collected andreviewed. Several noticeable things were the marks
indicating where to pause, stress, and how topronounce certain words on the paper. It showed thatthe students did research, wrote papers in accordancewith a format, and practiced to present it in class.
During the month of March, 18 students
presented their papers, and 16 in April and 15 in May,
respectively. They were also given a questionnaire on
the presentation at the end of the semester. Based on
the content of the presentation and how well theypresented it, two presenters were selected each5Conclusion and Implications
Acquiring the English language takes time and effort
on both teachers and learners. At the same time,
students need to be motivated to learn the language.
With an ever-more emphasis on the communicative
aspect and other skills in the language, college
English should include what students can benefit
from.
By observing a class conducted with student
presentation on a single topic for each student, it waslearned that the students could outperform inpreparing their own presentation using the Power
Point and UCC to create an interesting, creative, andinformative presentation. For example, one studentwith a topic of global warming approached a rather
heavy topic lightly showing cartoon clips, comic
strips, and pictures to get the message across, andtherefore, her presentation was easily connected tothe class. Other topics such as the Korean B-Boys,and famous entertainers prepared the UCC clips ofactual performance and such various audio-visualmaterials were indeed entertaining. The students
actively participated by asking numerous questions.
Also a student whose topic was Oprah Winfrey did athorough research and delivered a very strong
message on poverty, determination, and fame.
However, the study has some limitations: The
students’ improvement was not tested or measured in
the current study. It was a descriptive study based on
the presentation paper and student questionnaire.
Also since students’ presentation skills are27

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

considered a prerequisite for such an English
presentation, implementing it may be limited. Somestudents were extremely shy and their eye contact
and/or interaction with other students were
non-existent. Even though the substance of thepresentation was good, such a presenter made theclass boring and students not pay attention.
Overall, the reading and writing classotherwise can be somewhat boring, turned out to be avery lively and fun activity having student
presentation. It was learned that upper intermediate
to advanced level students benefit from such a class.
These students felt that learning through presentation
is effective and helpful.

Kim, Eun-Ju. (2003). A comparative study ofacademic oral interaction in English-medium
lectures and Korean-medium lectures.
English Teaching, 58(3), 3-20.
Kim, S. (2002). Korean college students’ reflectionsof English language learning via CMC and
FFC.
Multimedia-Assisted
Language
Learning, 5(2), 9-28.
Kim, Sung-Yeon. (2008). Five Year of Teaching
English Through English: Responses from
Teachers and Prospects for Learners. English
Teaching, 63(1), 51-70
Lee, Yo-An. (2006). Speaking proficiency of
non-native English teachers: Construction
multiple utterances. English Teaching, 61(3),189-212.
Lee, Y., & Chang, J. (2001). CMC-based materials
design to improve learners’ communicativeinteraction
skills.
Multimedia-Assisted
Language Learning, 4(1), 20-56.
Park. J. K. (2004). Needs analysis for developing aculture-focused teacher training course.
English Language Teaching 16(2), 73-100.
Pica, T., Holliday, L., Lewis, N., & Morgenthaler, L.
(1989). Comprehensible output as an
outcome of linguistic demands on the learner.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition,
11(1), 63-90.
Schumann, J.H. (1997). The neurobiology of affect inlanguage. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Shim, R. (1994). Englishized Korean: Structure,status, and attitudes. World Englishes, 13(2),225-244.
Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence:
Some roles of comprehensible input andcomprehensible output in its development. In
S. Gass & C. Madden (Eds.), Input in second
language acquisition (pp. 235-253). Rowley,
MA: Newbury House.
Swain, M. (1995). Three functions of output insecond language learning. In G. Cook & B.
Seidlhofer (Eds.), Principles and practice inapplied linguistics: Studies in honour of H.G.
Widdowson (pp. 125-144). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Swain, M., & Lapkin, S. (1995). Problems in output
and the cognitive processes they generate: A
step towards second language learning.
Applied Linguistics, 16(3), 371-391.
Warschauer, M., & Kern, R. (2000). Network-based
language teaching: Concepts and practice.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

References
Choi, S., Joh, J, & Lee, Y. (2008). Developing
English discourse competence throughself-directed practices of non-native English
teachers. English Language & Literature
Teaching, 14(2), 25-46.
Chomsky, N. (1988). Language and problems ofknowledge. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Covington, M. (1999). Caring about learning: The
nature and nurturing of subject-matterappreciation. Educational Psychologist, 34,
127-136.
Heckhausen, H. (1991). Motivation and Action. New
York: Springer.
Heckhausen H., & Kuhl. J. (1985). From wishes toaction: The dead ends and short cuts on thelong way to action. In M. Frese & Sabini(Eds.), Goal-directed behavior: The conceptof action in psychology. Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Hong, S. (2003). Discussion ability development
between CMC and on CMC group. English
Teaching, 58(2), 227-248.
Husman, H. & Lens, W. (1999). The role of the
future in students motivation. Educational
Psychologist, 34, 113-125.
Hwang, Jong-Bai. (2002). L2 learners’ anxiety andmotivation in an English-only content-basedclass. English Teaching, 57(1), 193-211.
Izumi, S., & Bigelow, M. (2000). Does output
promote noticing and second language
acquisition? TESOL Quarterly, 34(2),239-278.
Karniol, R. & Ross, M. (1996). The motivational
impact of temporal focus: Thinking about the
future and the past. Annual Review of
Psychology, 47, 593-620.
Kelm, O.R. (1992). The use of synchronous
computer networks in second language
instruction: A preliminary report. Foreign
Language Annuals, 25(5), 441-454.
Kim, Eun-Ju. (2002). Voices of learner fromEnglish-medium lectures. Journal of the
Applied Linguistics Association of Korea,
18(1), 145-163.
28

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

A Japan Appropriate Teaching Model for Adult Learners
William W. Baber1

1

Ritsumeikan University

willbaber@yahoo.com
around the world, Japanese students do not appear
to be excelling and indeed may be falling behind
their counterparts in neighboring countries
according to widespread perceptions.
Following this apparent failure, someconsideration of alternatives to CA is in order. This
report asks if there are Japanese teaching idioms
that are more appropriate and culturally familiar to
Japanese students and explores the application of
one approach widely used in Japan business world.

Abstract
In this paper I describe the pilot implementation ofa classroom approach that is familiar to daily
Japanese culture, unlike practices common to
Communicative Approach (CA) teaching. Thisapproach, drawn from Japan’s business world, may
provide an antidote to the difficulty CA has faced inJapan. The pilot implementation involved small
groups with a clear boss (kachou) responsible to theteacher for class functions as well as a shortpresentation and discussion. The model differs fromCA group activities in that students are not peers –the kachou is hierarchically above the groupmembers and the teacher above the boss. The
resulting in-group pressure and group desire toachieve as a group are integral to the classroom’s
motivation and management. The aspects in which
this approach fits and conflicts with CA are
discussed.

1

Literature review

1.1
An inherent weakness?
CA often founders in the classrooms of Japan(McVeigh, 2002; Sato, 2002; Usuki 2007). The
cultural appropriateness of CA has been called into
question by Ellis (1996) who found that CA must be
adjusted to Far Eastern classrooms, and additionally,
accepted. The issues to be overcome are not only
for learners, but also teachers as pointed out by
Kojima and Kojima (2005). In their writing, Kojima
and Kojima conclude variously that “teachers
should…” and “students will have to…” however
they do not provide a cross cultural comparison or
guide to how these shifts in behavior might occur.
Collins (1999) suggests that the difficulties with CA
in Japan arise from incompatibility with usual
teacher roles, cultural values and other key points.
Specifically, Collins refers to cultural barriers
towards risk taking, in-class verbalization,
challenging teachers and other elements vital to CA.
Nonetheless, it seems that students and educators
cannot reliably overcome these barriers. Other
barriers to CA arise from the overpowering effect of
the university entrance exams as students andteachers conform to that variety of English (Wada,
2002) as well as insufficient teacher training (Sato).
In summary, it seems that CA is inherently
flawed due to low cross cultural compatibility,
relying on deep reaching mediation (Ellis, 1996)
and the limited ability of students and teachers tonegotiate acceptance of the approach in theclassroom.

Keywords
Teaching approach; Japan higher education; TEFL;
cross cultural; kachou

Introduction
Japan is home to a significant population of English
teachers, about 5,000 in the Japan Exchange andTeaching program and almost 5,000 in the recently
collapsed NOVA school and untold thousands moreworking in higher education, industry and othersettings throughout Japan. These teachers often
employ Communicative Language Teaching, orCommunicative Approach (CA), in which students
are encouraged to vocalize and interact in student
centered situations (Ellis, 1996; McDonough andShaw, 2003). In this approach, students vocalize
target language as they are presented with it and inpractices thereafter. As the students progress, they
are expected to refresh and hone their abilities
through repeated use, including especially verbal
efforts. Yet students in Japanese classrooms
generally avoid risky actions such as vocalizing
unfamiliar phonemes, words, and phrases (Collins,1999).
Despite the establishment of CA practices in29

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

ended writing, teacher observations, and teacher
self-reflection.

1.2
Corrections, alternatives to CA
It may be that as Ellis (1996) and Bax (2003)
suggest, CA can be improved, corrected orotherwise fixed. On the other hand, there may bealternatives that can be fruitfully employed withsome classes and groups in higher education orother settings.
Corrections and mediations may bear significant
fruit in the long term, but are not easily attainable inthe short term. Therefore this paper will examine
other alternatives.
In their 2005 article on indigenous traditions
suitable for TEFL, Shin and Crookes suggested asearch through historical and recent training
patterns indigenous to Korea. Importing their idea,
the subsequent discussion will consider a few
Japanese teaching approaches found in modern day
Japan. The first goal is to consider approaches thatare familiar to learners, culturally accepted, andgenerally compatible with TEFL teaching goals andpractices. Thus, we will avoid any discussion ofteaching practices found in ancient Japan as these
could be as alien to contemporary students as an
approach imported from Mars. Further, this paper
will not discuss the traditional training of deshi,sumo, or the sports world from all of which
examples are to be learned or avoided.

2.1
Implementation
The structure of the course was explained to
students and the daily pattern continued througheight weeks. Anonymous feedback was collected at
mid point and end of course from the 2 smallerclasses. Non anonymous written comments werecollected from the larger and smaller classes atvarious points throughout the semester. The smallerclasses received instruction in use of English for
managers including handouts to guide theirspeaking. Bosses were assessed for presentation totheir group as well as for managing discussion withthe group. Group members in the two larger were
not assessed, but group members in the in two
smaller classes were assessed.
The classes that included the kachou approach
repeated the same pattern and timing eight of the 15
weeks in the semester. After warm up activities, thestudents formed the same groups with a different
boss each week. The kachou delivered a shortpresentation (2-4 minutes), being graded by theteacher on the second delivery. Thereafter the
kachou lead the group in discussion about thepresentation topic for several minutes, also being
graded. The subsequent phase saw the kachou
directing the students in various practices frompronunciation to writing to workbook materials.
Between each phase, the bosses were called out of
the groups to form a huddle with the teacher. In thehuddle, bosses received brief evaluations,
instructions, and materials for the students. The
huddles were a time of intensive teacher-student
interaction.
Between huddles, the students worked as
directed by the bosses with the teacher walking theroom to see that work was progressing. Where there
was a problem, the teacher did not interact with thesmall group members, but only the boss. After the
problem was identified and briefly discussed withthe boss in front of the group, the boss was left
resolve it. Bosses could resolve misunderstandings,
errors or even student misbehavior such as chatting
as expedient by their own devices.
Boss directed activities usually took one half tothree-quarters of class time. After completing
activities directed by the boss, the class pursued
other activities from independent work to wholegroup activities. The boss position was transferred
weekly and each student was a boss two times.

1.2.1
The Japanese business world
The business world of Japan, however, provides a
widely known and broadly experienced training
process. After an initial large-group training period,
new staff are absorbed into small groups led by anexperienced kachou, or boss. The kachou andexperienced workers as well as new staff sit in acompact group with clear sight and sound contact.
Mistakes and successes are clear to all in the group.
The new person observes closely the detailed
activities of others and is guided as needed by theboss. New group members feel pressure from theboss and from peers to learn quickly and perform
well. In common with other indigenous Japanesetraining models is the clear hierarchy among
learners and distance to the trainer.
With some modification, this model is the
subject of this study.

2

Methodology

For this study, the kachou approach was piloted
with four classes, two large and two small, of
business students at a private university in westernJapan. There were some variations in application
among the classes, but the overall experience wassimilar for all.
Outcomes of the classes were collected basedon student feedback in questionnaires and open30

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

questionnaires
hypotheses:

2.2
Student data
Data collected from students included open ended
non-anonymous responses to the teacher made in all
four classes in this study. Typically these comments
ranged from a few words to two sentences andcovered all aspects of the classroom from content topoints unrelated to the classroom work. The teacher
responded to these comments briefly andindividually. The two smaller classes completed
anonymous questionnaires in addition to the above
mentioned open ended comments.
Data include grades given for group discussions
led by the student boss. The discussion grades
reflect the quantity of speaking in the group
discussions as well as the quality of those
discussions in terms of target language, interaction
among participants, and the boss’s management of
the discussion. Discussions were graded by theteacher using scorecards and the grades were thentransferred to a database. These grades indicate
improvement over time during the semester. The
improvement included quality of speaking by allparticipants and use of target language by boss andparticipants.
These data are necessarily subjective
assessments by the teacher, despite being based on arubric and thus represent a flaw in this study.

•
•
•
•

test

the

followingnull

students had no clear opinion positive or
negative about the kachou-approach as
suitable for Japanese students;
being boss was neither a positive nor
negative experience;group members did not provide or feelpressure on their members to perform;
group members did not support their boss’s
efforts to be successful.

Other questionnaire items explore impact of the
kachou-approach on student motivation, autonomy,
quality of classroom experience, and success inlearning from other students. Additionally, thequestionnaire explores student impressions ofacting as a boss, a hierarchical position, in relation
to their fellow students.
3.2
Outcomes based on teacher observations
Grades,collected
chronologically,
showedimprovement on the part of all students, whether
acting as bosses or participants. Grading was doneby the teacher according to a rubric which thestudents had in hand, however grading is
inseparable from the teacher’s perceptions of the
moment, and necessarily was not objective.
More general teacher observations provided thefollowing picture of authority and dynamics in thegroup. The bosses were supported in their efforts todirect and correct group members partly by theauthority of simply being named the boss that week.
Moreover, even shy and ineffective bosses were
supported in their efforts by the small groupmembers. The very members who were directed by
the boss often took upon themselves the effort ofensuring that group members participated actively
to complete their tasks. In short, the groupdeveloped its own pressure to succeed even if theboss was weak and applied this pressure to groupmembers to continue activities, change behavior, or
grapple with assignments.

2.3
Teacher data
The data originating from the course teacher are
self-reflective impressions. As such these
impressions cannot be rigorously verified orcompared with impressions or information fromother staff or researchers. Future study should
undertake analysis based on a multiple class andmultiple teacher approach in order to successfullycompare and interpret teacher impressions.

3

will

Discussion

The following discussion covers the outcomes of
the kachou approach, then compares the kachou and
CA approaches and finally considers theircompatibility.
3.1
Outcomes based on student data
The outcomes of the approach as implemented weresatisfactory to the teacher and to students in several
respects, but lacking in other areas. Satisfactory
results included the perception by students that theboss job was tough but doable. These sentiments
are reflected in un-elicited written comments likethese: “Be boss was tough!” and “I work so hard.”
as well as “I talk a lot in English.” These comments
were collected from non-anonymous open ended
written communications with the teacher.
Further outcomes based on anonymous student

3.3
Compatibility of kachou and CA
Understandably, teachers steeped in the ideas anduse of CA will be cautious about reaching for a new
system. However, the two approaches are notmutually exclusive and indeed overlap in many of
the goals and actualities of the classroom. Overlap
occurs as both approaches strive for meaningfulcommunication, real life context, sense ofachievement, student centered activities, intense s-t

31Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

practice requires frank verbal interaction in a
non-hierarchical and therefore non-Japanesebusiness setting.
The phrases and language
provided for use in the discussion, especially by theboss, are typical of an idealized supportive andconstructive English speaking boss. Ultimately
these changes represent a modification of the
kachou model to fit the needs of English speakers.
Next steps in researching and adapting the
kachou model othe EFL classroom include moredetailed review of existing knowledge about the
kachou model in businesses. Furthermore, a study
with two groups of classes, kachou and non-kachou,covering the same material and taught by different
teachers remains to be designed and undertaken.

interaction, enjoyment, effort to achieve task, senseof group, and socio-linguistic competence.
One key omission in the kachou approach is the
direct pressure from the teacher toward students.
This absence is because the effort to have students
complete assignments, stay on task and the like istransferred to the boss and as well as the groupitself.
Further there are four points that are moreevident in the kachou approach including thepressure among students alluded to above.
Non-verbal communication is not encouraged instandard CA classrooms and, in a verbalizing
environment, may be discouraged. The kachou
approach, however, allows this kind of knowledgetransmission. Tacit knowledge (Polyani, 1967)
about how to complete tasks, behave, and interact
thus are transferred without the direct interventionof the teacher and without codification.
While close observation skills are notdiscouraged in the CA classroom, the kachou
seating plan makes the most of this behavior which
seems omnipresent in Japanese classrooms, offices,and even public spaces.
Finally, the group develops a sense of
responsibility towards each other. As suggested
previously, the group develops a desire to manage
the activities successfully together. The result is not
only pressure on group members who underperformor misbehave, but also mutual supportiveness that
results in learners helping each other to build
competence and communication skill.

4

References
Bax, S. (2003). The end of CLT: a context approachto language teaching. ELT Journal. 57,3,
278-287.
Collins, S. (1999). Communicative methodology: A
health warning? Explorations in Teacher
Education. 7, 1.
Ellis, G. (1996). How culturally appropriate is thecommunicative approach? ELT Journal.
50,3, 213-218.
Hall, J. (2005). What are the obstacles tocommunicative language teaching in Japanand what can we do to remove them? 岩手
大学英語教育論集. 7.
Kojima H. & Kojima, Y. (2005). Teacher Rolesin
Learner-Centered
Communicative
EFL
Instruction. Bulletin of Faculty Education
Hirosaki University. 94, 59-72.
McVeigh, Japanese higher education as myth.
Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Polyani, M. (1967). The tacit dimension. Gloucester,
MA: Peter Smith.

Conclusions

Comparison suggests there is a strong affinity
between the Japanese business world’s training
model and CA as it is generally practiced. The
kachou model as presented here is modified
somewhat to fit classroom needs in terms of spaceand number of learners. Because the group dynamic
is based on pressures and desires for achievement
common to groups in Japan, the approach does notstumble against disinclination towards verbal
performance as does CA. Additionally, the teacher
is less burdened with motivating the students
because the group dynamic and hierarchy play tomotivation patterns already established in Japan.

Sato, K. (2002). Practical understandings ofcommunicative language teaching andteacher development. In Interpreting
Communicative Language Teaching.
Ed. S. Savignon. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Shin, H. & Crookes, G. (2005). Indigenous criticaltraditions for TEFL? A historical andcomparative perspective in the case of
Korea. Critical inquiry in language studies.
2,2, 95-112.
Usuki, M. (2001). The learning process model

4.1
Critique of kachou approach
While the kachou approach provides motivation,
structure, and familiarity, it does not strongly
support the language and behaviors associated withthe culture of the English language. To someextent this weakness is ameliorated by discussion
format and language content. The discussion

and autonomy. (ERIC Document
Reproduction Service no. ED 455693).
Wada, M. (2002). Curricular innovation in
Japan. In Interpreting Communicative
Language Teaching. Ed. S. Savignon.
New Haven: Yale University Press.
32

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Construction and implementation of automatic L2 speechevaluation system
Yusuke Kondo1 and Michiko Nakano2

1

Language Education Center, Ritsumeikan University, 2School of Education, Waseda University
ykondo@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp, nakanom@waseda.jp

Abstract

Introduction

This study reports the construction, theimplementation, and the evaluation of a web-based
L2 speech evaluation system. The system
implements the automatic speech evaluation in thefollowing procedure; examinees read out the text,“The North Wind and the Sun” on their clientcomputer, and their audio files are sent to the server
computer which analyzes the audio files andreplicates the evaluation scores given by humanraters based on a prediction formula, and then,examinees receive their scores on their clientcomputer. Because the system recognizes speech
data based on Hidden Markov Model, certain
amounts of speech data are required to train themodel and obtain accurate results of speech
recognition. Furthermore, learners’ speech dataneed to be evaluated by human raters. Therefore,
the speech data of 101 Asian learners of English
were collected, and their speeches were evaluatedby human raters, and the correlations were
examined between the examinees’ speechcharacteristics and their evaluation scores (Nakano,
Kondo, and Tsutsui; 2008), because the system
replicates the raters’ evaluation using learners’
speech characteristics. The read-out speeches givenby the Asian learners were divided into threegroups; high, mid, and low, according to theevaluation scores analyzed based on Neural Test
Theory (Shojima, 2007). In this system, newexaminees are given their evaluations based on thetwo speech characteristics of theirs. Theirevaluations were done according to the average
distance to the prototype of each category. In theevaluation of the automatic evaluation system, thedegree of rating agreement among human raters andthe automatic evaluation system was examined, andsubstantial agreement was obtained.

This paper introduces the construction, theimplementation, and the evaluation of automatic
Second Language (L2) speech evaluation system. In
this system, the evaluations to be predicted were
given by the trained raters, the raters and theevaluation items were scrutinized based on
Multifaceted Rasch Analysis, and the learners’
speech characteristics to be analyzed were selectedfrom the measures adopted in Applied Linguistics.
The text which examinees read out was a fable from
Aesop, “The North Wind and the Sun”, which
consists of 113 words, five sentences. The
evaluations to be given to examinees are categoricalevaluation scores: A, B, and C. Therefore, therankings were estimated based on NTT instead ofthe estimated ability in Multifaceted Rasch Analysis.
As Shojima (2008) mentioned, a test is not an
accurate tool to measure examinees ability. It is notcapable of measuring examinees’ ability in interval
scale, but it is capable of measuring examinees’
ability in ordinal scale at its best. For these reasons,the understandability of examinees and thecapability of the test, categorical evaluations wereadopted in this system.
In this paper, firstly the data used to build thesystem are described. Secondly, the scoringprocedure, the speech recognition technology
adopted in this system, the structure of the system,and the test-taking procedure are described. Lastly,
the evaluation of the system is discussed.

1

Data

101 Asian learners of English participated in therecording of reading-aloud passage. They were
forty Japanese, seventeen Chinese, nineteen Korean,
six Filipino, ten Thai, four Vietnamese, and one
Indonesian. They were either undergraduate or
graduate students. Table 1 shows the key
information of the participants. All the recordings
were made in soundproof rooms in the universities
which the participants belonged to. The participants
were called in the room and given the instruction of

Keywords
Second language speech, Reading aloud, automatic
evaluation system

33

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

exceeded thirty (McNamara, ibid: 182). In thisanalysis, neither raters nor items was not considered
to be unreliable according to the criterion.
We investigated the relationship between theevaluation scores estimated by Multifaceted Rasch
Analysis and the speech characteristics realized inread-aloud speech (Kondo, Tsutusi, Nakano,
Tsubaki, Nakamura, and Sagisaka, 2007; Kitagawa,
Kondo, and Nakano, 2007; Kondo, Tsutsui, Tsubaki,
Nakamura, Sagisaka, and Nakano, 2007; Nakano,
Kondo, and Tsutsui, 2008). The examined speechcharacteristics were number of nonlexical pause,
number of silent pause, duration of nonlexical
pause, duration of silent pause, mean length of run,number of syllable unneeded, pruned syllable persecond, and the ratio of weak syllable to strong
syllable. Through three pilot studies of correlation,
we found the two independent predictors of theevaluation scores: the pruned syllable per second
and the ratio of weak syllable to strong syllable. In
the present study, the analysis was done bymulti-regression analysis (stepwise method): thecriterion variable is the evaluation score; and thepredictor variables, the pruned syllable per second
and the ratio of weak syllable to strong syllable.
The significance of the model was verified (F(2, 98) =44.57, p < .01, adjusted R2 = .47). The correlation
between the observed values and the predictedvalues is .69. Figure 1 is the scatter graph of theobserved and predicted value: y-axis is the observed
value and x-axis, the predicted value.

recording individually. In the recording, theparticipants gave their self-introduction to aninterviewer and read out the text. After therecording, the participants were given a small gift
for their participation. It took about ten minutes foreach participant to complete the recording.
The reading text, was a fable from Aesop, “TheNorth Wind and the Sun”, which is so famous thatthe students at university level must know it. This
passage was also used in the NIE corpus (Deterdingand Ling, 2005), and is used in the phonetic
description of the International Phonetic
Association.
Table 1: Key information of the participants inreading-aloud speech data
Age
Study of English (year)

M
23.46
11.88

SD
4.42
5.41

Range
20
29

Six raters joined this evaluation, who participatedin the rater training where they discussed the speechcharacteristics of L2 learners and watched the videoof learners categorized based on Common
European Frameworks of References (CEFR). The
reliability of the raters was examined in the
self-introduction speech evaluation data (Nakano,
Kondo, Tsubaki, and Sagisaka: 2008).
To evaluate the read-aloud passage, tenevaluation items were selected from theself-introduction speech evaluation. The six raters
evaluated 101 learners’ speech with the fourteen
items shown in Table 2. The raters evaluated thelearners’ speech individually on an evaluation
website.
Table 2: Evaluation items in read-aloud passage
Loudness
Quality of vowels
Epenthesis
Word stress
RhythmSpeech rate
Place of pauseSound pitch
Quality of consonantsElisionSentence stress
Intonation
FluencyFrequency of pause

Figure 1. The Correlation Between the Observbed
Score and the Predicted Score

The items are originally from Yashiro, Araki,
Higuchi, Yamamoto, and Komissarov. (2001), andeach item was thoroughly reviewed in order tomake the items suitable in the evaluation ofread-out speech. Unreliable raters and items weredeleted based on Multifaceted Rasch Analysis. To
delete unreliable raters and items, the scores of“infit” was adopted as the index. The score of infit“provides the size of the residuals, the differences
between predicted and observed scores (McNamara,
1996: 172). The acceptable range of infit is “themean ± twice the standard deviation of the meanscore statistics” in the case where the population

2

Automatic evaluation system

2.1
Introduction
Through the correlation studies between theevaluation scores and the L2 learners’ speechcharacteristics realized in read-out speech, we
found two independent predictors of the evaluation
score: the pruned syllable per second and the ratio
of weak syllable to strong syllable. In thecorrelation analysis, the evaluation score we
adopted was an interval scale, which was calculated
based on Multifaceted Rasch Analysis. An interval
34

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

scale was easy to handle for researchers in theanalysis of the test score, but it is difficult tointerpret the score of interval scale for examinees
and, as Shojima (2008) mentioned, a test is not an
accurate tool to measure examinee’s ability withinterval scale. Therefore, in this system, we adopted
categorical scores with three levels: A, B, and C,
which were calculated based on Neural Test Theory(NTT).

compared to the case where we set up small numberof levels such as three. However, Shojima (2008)
mentioned that because a test is not reliable enoughto detect fine differences among the abilities of
examinees’, the realistic range of levels is fromthree to twenty. Shojima (ibid) also mentioned thatlevels should be set up not only by the model fit
statistics, but also based on test developers’
experience and the practicality of the test.

2.2
Analysis of evaluation scores
The evaluation scores were analyzed based on NTT
to estimate the examinees’ levels. The automatic
speech evaluation system to be constructed here is
the system to replicate the evaluations given by thehuman raters. Considering the reliability in thehuman rating and the accuracy of replication by thesystem, it is reasonable and proper that examinees
are grouped into three levels which correspond tothe criterion given by CEFR: basic user,
independent user, and proficient user in terms ofpronunciation and prosody. In this analysis, thelevels are set up to three, and the fit of the data to
the model is examined.
The examinees were group into three groups:
thirty six proficient users, thirty one independent
users and forty four basic users. Table 3 shows thetest fit indices in NTT. The indices shown below all
indicates the good fit of the data to the model in
NTT.

2.3
The scoring procedure
In Figure 2, the ranked speech data of the learners
examined are identified with the values of pruned
syllable per second and the average ratio of weaksyllable to the strong syllable. The x-axis indicatesthe value of the average ratio of weak syllable to thestrong syllable; and the y-axis, the values of pruned
syllable per second. The values of the average ratio
of weak syllable to the strong syllable are inverted(the plotted values are 1 minus the original values)
for the clear picture. Although some outliers and amulti-occupied area by all the three ranks are found,the areas of each rank can be specified to someextent. The averages of the two values were
calculated in each category, and plotted. The bigger
indicators are the averages (prototypes) of the twovalues in each category.

Table 3: Test fit indices in NTT
Index
NFI
RFI
IFI
TLI
CFI
RMSEA
AIC
CAIC
BIC

Value
-237.655-000.859-000.859-000.994-000.993-000.994-000.021-146.323-731.250-574.376

Figure 2: Scatter Graph for the Values of Pruned
Syllable per Second and the Average Ratio of Weak
Syllable to the Strong Syllable in Each Category

To examine the fit of data to the model in NTT, in
statistics, several indices are
addition toavailable: the normed fit index (NFI), the relative fit
index (RFI), the incremental fit index (IFI), theTucker-Lewis index (TLI), the comparative fit
index (CFI), the root mean square error of
approximation (RMSEA), the Akaike information
criterion (AIC), the consistent AIC (CAIC), and theBayes information criterion (BIC). The model fit
statistics depend on the number of levels which testdevelopers set up. Hence, if we set up many levels
such as thirty levels, the model fit statistics
indicates better fit of the data to the model

A new examinee’s category is determined based on
the Euclidean distances to the prototypes in eachcategory. The distance to each prototype arecalculated in the equation below:

where p1 is the average of pruned syllable persecond in a category, and x1, the pruned syllable persecond of a new examinee’s; and p2 is the averageof the ratio of the weak syllable to the strong
syllable, and x2, the ratio of the weak syllable to the35Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

and the Sun” on their client computers, the recorded
speech data are transferred to the server computer
where the data are analyzed, and the examinees
receive the feedback from the server computer on
their client computer. Figure 5 shows the procedureof this automatic evaluation.

strong syllable of a new examinee’s. Comparing thethree distances of the new examinee’s values toeach prototype: Rank A, B, and C, the examinee isgiven the category of the nearest distance.
2.4
Speech recognition
To measure the speech features of examinees’, thesystem adopts Hidden Markov Model Toolkit(HTK). HTK is a tool for Hidden Markov Modeling
optimized for speech recognition. The procedure of
the model training in HTK is depicted in Figure 3.
Firstly, HTK codes the raw speech waveforms intosequences of feature. In this study, Mel Frequency
Cepstral Coefficients were used.

Figure 3: The Procedure of Model Training in HTK
In the model training, because HTK requires
prototype Hidden Markov Model (HMM), text
labels for the speech data, and the pronunciation
dictionary, the text labels were created. The
phonetic description was done based on Jones(2003). For the initial training, as the speech data
TIMIT Acoustic-Phonetic Continuous Speech
Corpus (Garofolo, Lamel, Fisher, Fiscus, Pallett,Dahlgren, and Zue: 1993) were used to train the
HMM. For adapting the model to L2 speech of
Asian learners’ were used. In the process of themodel training and adopting, HTK phone-aligns thetarget speech data based on the order of occurrenceof the phones referring the text labels and thepronunciation dictionary. HTK runs through themodel training several times to create robust
HMMs.

Figure 5: Procedure of Automatic evaluation
The system records the examinees’ speeches using
Java applet, JavaSonics ListenUp (Mobileer, Inc,
2008). The recorded speeches are transferred to thesever computer and are stored. Then the speeches
are converted to the HTK format and are analyzed.
The results of forced alignment are edited to
calculate the two indices, pruned syllable persecond and the average ratios of weak syllable tothe strong syllable. Then, based on the two indices,
the examinees’ scores are calculated, and thefeedback is sent to the examinees computer. All theprocesses are controlled by Perl scripts, including
calling JavaSonics ListenUp and HTK processes.
The processes of examinees’ side are done with a
web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, FireFox, andGoogle Chrome).
Figure 6 shows the structure of the evaluation
system. The recording procedure is done by Java
applet stored in the folder, codebase, and thetransfer and the retention of the speech file process
is controlled by upload_x.cgi. The examinees
record their speech sentence by sentence, and thisprocess repeats five times. In each process,upload_x.cgi calls HTK to convert the speech
file, phone-align the speech using the files stored inhmm. The converted speech file is stored in the
directory mfcc; and the output file of the phonealignment, in the directory out. The output file ofthe phone-aligned speech is edited byupload_x.cgi and stored in the directory lab.

Figure 4: The Procedure of Forced Alignment in
HTK
Figure 4 shows the procedure of the forcedalignment. In this procedure, HTK phone-aligns
the speech data based on the corresponding text
labels.
2.5
Structure of the system
The automatic L2 speech evaluation system to be
implemented here is a web-based system where
examinees read out the passage, “The North Wind36

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

whole passage to be read and the translation into
Japanese are provided in this page. After thepractice, they go to the recording page. In this test,
they read out the passage, “The North Wind and theSun” and record and submit their speech sentenceby sentence. They record and submit their speech
five times in total. Figure 7 shows the screenshot of
the recording page.
Lastly, after the examinees complete theirrecordings of the five sentences, they receive theirown evaluation and their own feedback according
to their level which the system estimates.

Lastly, eva.cgi calculates the two indices ofspeech characteristics and the distances to theprototypes stored in the information in the edited
output file in the directory out. The program
produces the evaluation and feedback to the screenon the client computer of the examinees’. The
directory img contains the image file used in the
webpageforexaminees.
The
file
instruction.cgi creates the instruction page;recx.cgi,
eachrecordingpage;
andtestrec.cgi controls the test recording in the
instruction page. The files data.dat andques.dat store the information the examinees
enter in the initial page.

Figure 7: Recording Page
2.7
Evaluation of the system
2.7.1
ParticipantsParticipants of this study were twenty Japaneselearners of English and three raters. The raters were
the Japanese language teachers of English who
received rater training according to CEFR. The
learners were Japanese undergraduate students.
2.7.2
Methods
The raters evaluated the twenty learners’ speeches
according to the criterion, CEFR and gave thecategorical evaluations: A, B, and C. We
investigated the degree of agreement in theevaluation among the human raters and theautomatic evaluation system based on Fleiss’ kappa.
Fleiss’ kappa is a measure of inter-rater reliability
for assessing the degree of agreement when morethan three raters evaluate performance using
evaluation items with a fixed number of categories(Gwet, 2001). The interpretation of this index issomewhat controversial, because it depends on thenumber of raters, categories, and examinees. Table
4 shows the interpretation of Fleiss’ kappa provided
by Landis and Koch (1977). Though this table is notwidely accepted, it can be adopted as one of thecriteria in the examination of the degree of

Figure 6: The structure of the evaluation website
2.6
Test-taking procedure
This section introduces the procedure of theautomatic evaluation. Firstly, examinees access theevaluation website, enter their names, and answer
the questionnaire. They submit their answers and go
to the instruction page.
Secondly, in the instruction page, the examinees
receive the instruction on how to take the test, andpractice using the application for recording. The
37

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

corpus of spoken Singapore English.
Deterding, In D., Brown, A., & Ling, L. E.
(Eds). English in Singapore. Singapore:
McGraw-Hill Education.
Garofolo, J. S., Lamel, L. F., Fisher, W. M., Fiscus,
J. G., Pallett, D. D., Dahlgren, N. L., & Zue,
V. (1993). IMIT Acoustic-Phonetic
Continuous Speech Corpus. Philadelphia:
Linguistic Data Consortium.
Gwet, K. (2001) Statistical Tables for Inter-Rater
Agreement. (Gaithersburg : StatAxis
Publishing)
Kitagawa, A., Kondo, Y., & Nakano, M. (2007).
Does vowel quality matter? Proceedings of
12th Conference of Pan-Pacific Associationof Applied Linguistics, 224-227.
Kondo, Y., Tsutsui, E., Tsubaki, H., Nakamura, S.,
Sagisaka, Y., & Nakano, M. (2007).
Examining predictors of second language
speech evaluation. Proceedings of 12th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 176-179.
Kondo, Y., Tsutsui, E., Tsubaki, H., Nakamura, S.,
Sagisaka, Y., & Nakano, M. (2007).
Examining predictors of second language
speech evaluation. Proceedings of 12th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 176-179.
Landis, J. R. & Koch, G. G. (1977). The
measurement of observer agreement for
categorical data. Biometrics Vol. 33,
159-174.
McNamara, T. F. (1996). Measuring second
language performance. Essex: Pearson
Education Limited.
Nakano, M., Kondo, Y., & Tsutsui, E. (2008).
Fundamental Research on Automatic
Speech Evaluation. 9th APRU Distance
Learning and the Internet Conference--New
Directions
forInter-institutional
Collaboration: Assessment & Evaluation in
Cyber Learning. 207-212.
Nakano, M., Kondo, Y., Tsubaki, H., & Sagisaka, Y.
(2008). Rater Training Effect in L2 andEFL Speech Evaluation. The 8th Phonetics
Conference of China and the International
Symposium on Phonetic Frontiers. 8 pages
in CD-ROM Proceedings.
Shojima, K. (2008). Neural test theory: A latent
rank theory for analyzing test data. DNC
Research Note. 08-01.
Yashiro, K., Araki, A., Higuchi, Y., Yamamoto, S.,& Komissarov, K. (2001). Ibunka
communication workbook. [A workbook forcross-cultural communication]. Tokyo:
Sanshusha.

agreement.
Table 4: Interpretation of Fleiss’ kappaκ<0.21 - .40
.41 - .60
.61 - .80
.81 - 1.0

Interpretation
Poor agreement
Fair agreement
Moderate agreement
Substantial agreement
Almost perfect agreement

2.7.3
Results
Table 5 shows the Fleiss’ kappa of this evaluation.
We calculated the indices four times. In each time,
one of the raters was excluded. By comparing these
indices, the rater who lowers the degree ofagreement can be detected. For example, the kappain the second row indicates the rater agreement
among Rater 1, 2, and the automatic evaluation
system, excluding Rater 3. The kappa in the lowest
row indicates the rater agreement among all theraters: Rater 1, 2, 3 and the automatic evaluation
system.
Table 5: Fleiss’ kappa
RatersRater 1, 2, and AES
Rater 1, 3 and AES
Rater 2, 3, and AES
Rater 1, 2, and 3
ALL

κ
.70
.60
.60
.75
.66

Note. AES stands for automatic evaluation system.

3

Discussion and conclusion

In this study, we reported the construction, theimplementation, and the evaluation of the automatic
L2 speech evaluation system. 101 speeches given
by Asian learners of English were analyzed, and thetrained raters evaluated their speeches based on
CEFR. Then, the relationship between the speechcharacteristics and the evaluation scores wasinvestigated. The system was built based on therelationship revealed in this study.
As for the evaluation of the system, Fleiss’ kappa
was adopted as the index of rater agreement.
Though the agreement was the highest when thesystem was excluded from the raters, we obtained
substantial agreement between the human raters andthe system.
Perfect agreement is difficult to achieve in theperformance assessment, as was indicated the
Fleiss’ kappa among the three human raters (.75),
but the scoring procedure, the test-taking procedure,
and the correlation studies should be reviewed to
improve the system.
References
Deterding, D., & Ling, L. E. (2005). The NIE
38

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics”Lion Heart’s Legacy”: Personification of the Japanese Prime Ministerin Cabinet E-mail Magazines
Riikka Länsisalmi
Leiden University Institute for Area Studies & Centre for Linguistics
r.j.lansisalmi@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Abstract

compares this phenomenon of “personification”
with the original Japanese texts. I pay particularattention to overt 1st person reference terms in theoriginal Japanese E-mail Magazines and examine
how their English translations accommodate
intended meanings. I intend to demonstrate that 1st
person references may be extremely complex andpolitical terms, sometimes raising interpretive
issues of who or what is being represented. There
are, therefore, puzzling cases of ‘I’ or – in particular– ‘we’.

The purpose of this presentation is to examine
overt 1 st person reference in the English
translations of these Cabinet E-mail Magazines
andcomparethis
phenomenonof“ personification ” with the original Japaneseversions. It is common knowledge that Japanese
subjects can often be ellipted and therefore no
overt term is needed for example to refer to the
1 st person. In English, however, overt reference
usually becomes obligatory.

Keywords
Overt reference, personification, ellipsis

1

Data

In 2001 Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi launcheda ”Cabinet E-mail Magazine” to “express (his)thoughts and learn what (his) compatriots arethinking”. This electronic service continues today
as Prime Minister Aso’s Cabinet E-mail Magazine
and was adopted also by Koizumi’s successors
preceding Aso, namely Prime Ministers Abe and
Fukuda. In addition to a Japanese version, the Abe
Cabinet E-mail Magazine is currently available in
English, Korean and Chinese. Interested readers can
subscribe to the Magazine and have it delivered
directly to their email addresses or read current andback number issues online.
The data of this pilot study consists oftwenty issues of the Cabinet E-mail Magazine,
including five issues from each Prime Minister.
Character and word counts are indicated in Table 1.

Introduction
Natsume Soseki 1907 (Ikegami 2008):
I have to confess that I find the device of
personification simply unnatural andintolerable. (…) It is as if a monkey istrying to pretend to be a lord by putting acrown on its head.”
It is common knowledge that Japanese agents canoften be ellipted and therefore no overt term isneeded for example to refer to the 1 st person. In
English, however, overt reference usually becomes
obligatory. While in English elliptical styles ingeneral seem to be linked to sociolinguistic values
such as brusqueness, shared knowledge (solidarity),emphasis (power) and intimacy (Fowler 1985: 71),
in Japanese, ellipsis usually occurs in what isreferred to as unmarked situations. Ellipsis is likely
to take place, when the referent can be identified
through a grammatical construction, inferred fromhonorific mode or deictic expressions, understood
through contextual cues or represents the(paragraph) topic. Person terms in Japanesecomprise not only (so-called) personal pronouns,
but also various other categories, such as(professional) titles, kinship terms, proper names,
status terms, and so forth.
Against the background described above,
this presentation presents a pilot study, which
examines overt 1st person reference in English
translations of a Japanese Prime Minister’s Cabinet
E-mail Magazine launched by Prime Minister
Koizumi, also known as “Lion Heart”, andTable 1: Analyzed data
Prime
Minister

Aso
FukudaAbe
KoizumiTotal

2

Analyzed
CabinetE-mailMagazine
issue
numbers
26-30
42-46
42-46
246-250
20 issues

Charactercount inJapanese
original

Word
count inEnglishtransl.

Averagecharacter/word
count per
issue

4,515
6,937
5,282
7,805
24,539

2,772
2,975
3,033
4,101
12,881

903/554
1,387/595
1,056/607
1,561/820
1,227/644

Analysis of data

Yamamoto (1999: 67) argues that the concept ofanimacy has a strong influence on the mind of any
speaker in the process of language use and can
39

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

referring to the 1st person in the examined texts. In
the context of political discourse, representing anation and targeted at a wide domestic vs. foreignaudience, these choices are likely to shed light on
how national identities are constructed – or, at least,
how attempts to do that may be undertaken. For
example, the exclusive vs. inclusive nature of 1st
person expressions can obviously be strategically
employed to enhance national sameness or
uniqueness, or, in other words, differences orsimilarities with other national collectives.
Slight differences in self-reference can bedetected between the examined Prime Ministers.
Proportionally, the English versions of Abe’s andKoizumi’s Email Magazines seem to employ
slightly more singular 1st person agents (I) thanthose of Aso and Fukuda. Aso, on the other hand,appears to have a fondness for the fixed Japanese
expression ‘our country’ ( わ が 国 wagakuni),
including a genitive marker, while other Prime
Ministers would use the country name ‘Japan’ (日本 Nippon/Nihon), for example. In the Japaneseoriginals, Fukuda tends to employ singular overt 1st
person reference proportionally even less frequently
than the others, but it should of course be kept inmind that such overt self-personification is, overall,rather limited (45 occurrences in total). It must also
be noted that, due to the limited number of EmailMagazines analyzed in this pilot study, the claims
offered here should not be considered to be fully
representative of the respective Prime Ministers.
To elaborate, the following section of thispresentation concentrates on a comparison of overt
1st person referents in the original Japanese texts
and their English translations.

therefore be linked to varying “mind-styles”, aconcept originally introduced by Fowler. Suchmind-styles would characterize distinctive linguisticpresentations of individual mental selves, hence
allowing for example examination of the extent towhich animacy influences the mind of English andJapanese speakers in their process of using theseparticular languages as native speakers. In thispresentation the focus will be upon referential
expressions in Japanese and English, two languages
which are “expected to contrast strikingly in termsof epistemic attitude toward the expression ofanimacy and hence to represent two distinctively
different types of ‘mind-style’ (Yamamoto 1999:
71)”.
The forms which animate expressions cantake vary considerably, but this paper targets(ellipses and) overt expressions referring to the 1st
person, including 1st person pronominal forms andcommon noun phrases. Analyzed forms are listed inTable 2. As case relations are expressed bypostpositions in Japanese, only the encountered
basic terms referring to the 1st person, 私
wata(ku)shi ‘I’ and 私たち wata(ku)shitachi and
我 々 wareware ‘we’, as well as the archaic
genitive waga (occurring only in わ が 国
wagakuni ‘our country’) are listed for Japanese.
Table 2: Overt reference to the 1st person
Prime
Minister

I

m
y

m
e

私

w
e

ou
r

u
s

Aso
FukudaAbe
Koizumi
Total

34
32
78
93
23
7
44
4

7
8
39
39
93

0
4
2
6
12

9
6
14
15
45

16
14
13
26
69

1
3
9
15
28

1
2
1
1
5

st

Tot.
1
pers.
English
st
Tot.
1
pers.
Japanese

私
た
ち
0
2
3
1
6

我 わ
々 が
1
0
0
0
1

6
2
1
0
9

Overt 1st person reference in original
Japanese texts
Although the characteristic of 1st person reference
to strongly encode sentiency and potential
intentionality of the writer generally triggers
ellipsis/non-occurrence in Japanese, certain
constructions and expressions in the analyzed EmailMagazines do retain an overt term, as became
evident in the preceding section.
A first distinction could be made between
clear structural contexts, which require the use of an
overt term of reference, and those contexts, where
the use of such terms is not (structurally) obligatory.
Possessive constructions represent one type ofgrammatical context, where overt reference
becomes compulsory. The analysis of our data
further pinpoints the constructions displayed inTable 3 below, illustrated by the examples that
follow. In these examples it is necessary to fill the‘slot’ preceding the constructions represented in thetable with some kind of overt term of reference.
2.1

61

As Table 2 demonstrates, Japanese allows
predominant use of elliptical reference, whilst an
exact overt 1st person term is usually required in
English (61:444). Clearly this observation is
nothing new, as the phenomenon of ellipsis – or
non-occurrence – of overt reference is deeply
engrained in the structure of Japanese. However, acloser look at the constructions, contexts and typesof expressions in which these terms occur may
prove to be more interesting. Since counting theexact number of ellipses vs. overt reference inJapanese texts or in comparison with English
counterparts would contribute little to thediscussion, it seems more illuminating to compare
who or what is actually represented by terms
40Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 3: Constructions with overt 1st personreferents in Japanese texts

ヴァンハネン首相は、私 との会談の後、ヘルシンキ郊外にある、シベリウスが過ごし、数々の名曲を作曲した邸宅「アイノラ」を、自ら案内してくださいました。
After Prime Minister Vanhanen and I had our meeting,the Prime Minister himself kindly showed me around
Ainola, Sibelius' home in the suburbs of Helsinki
where he lived and composed countlessmasterpieces. (Koizumi249)
日曜日（１０日）の昼過ぎから始まった会議の冒頭、
私 から、テロや核の不拡散、海賊などの国際的な広がりをもつ非人道的な問題に対して、国際社会が一致して取り組むことが必要であると訴えました。
At the outset of the summit which started on theafternoon of Sunday, September 10, I stressed thatthe international community must engage inconcerted efforts to tackle internationally widespread
issues irreconcilable with the principles of humanity,
notably terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and piracy.
(Koizumi249)
山のように残された宿題と必死になって格闘した思
い出は、私だけではないでしょう。
I am sure I am not the only one who has memories ofdesperately struggling to complete a pile of homeworkat the vacation's end. (Abe42)
この枠組みには、すべての主要国が参加することが必要であり、私 としても積極的に働きかけていきます。
It is necessary that every major nation participate in
the new framework. For my part, I will actively call on
nations for their participation. (Aso28)（...）などを最優先として、私 自身 や、中曽根外務大臣を含め、あらゆるレベルで外交努力を傾注し、行動しました。
In response, Japan, including I myself and Foreign
Minister Hirofumi Nakasone, took actions by making
diplomatic efforts at all levels. (Abe27)

Rank
1.

DefinitionnTopic marker
25
は wa
2.
Genitive marker
13
の no
3.
IO marker
3に ni
4.
Particle ‘for’
2
にとって nitotte
5.
Subject marker
1
が ga
5.
Focus marker
1
も mo
5.
Conjoining particle と 1
to5.
‘Source’ marker
1から kara5.
Particle ‘only’
1だけ dake5.
‘Status’ particle
1として toshite
5.
Pron.+ refl. pron1
自身 jishin
Examples
国民の安全を守るため、私 は、世界各国と連携を密にしながら、引き続き、全力を尽くしてま い り ま す 。
I will continue to make my utmost efforts, whileworking in close collaboration with countries aroundthe world, in order to defend the people's safety.
(Abe27)
私の好きな言葉に「龍蛇無鱗（りゅうにへびのいろこ
なし）」があります。
There is a saying that I like very much: "Dragons do
not have snake scales." (Fukuda45)
局面を転換しなければならない。これが私 に課せられた責任であると考えました。
There has to be a change in the current situation, andI realized this was the responsibility that had been
given to me. (Abe46)（...） 私の最後の外遊の地フィンランドの世界遺産でひろったこの石は、私にとって思い出深い「宝石」になりました。
For me, this stone, the one I picked up at this World
Heritage site in Finland, the place of my last official
overseas visit, has become a deeply memorable gem.
(Koizumi247)
今振り返れば、厳しいご批判も、温かい励ましも、
毎週寄せられるご意見は、私 が政策を進めるための大きな原動力でありました。
When I look back now, all the opinions I received eachweek -- whether they offered severe criticism or warm
encouragement -- added up to a major driving force
for me to promote policy. (Fukuda46)
私 も１日の静岡県伊豆市での防災訓練を皮切りに、３日には来日されたチリのバチェレ大統領と会談するなど、気持ちを新たに仕事に取り組んでいます。
I myself am undertaking my work on a new note too,
beginning with participation in the disaster prevention
drills held in Izu City, Shizuoka Prefecture on the very
first day of this month and a meeting with visiting
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet Jeria on thethird. (Aso45)

As Table 3 illustrates, the topic
construction, marked mainly by the topic particle
wa, is the most likely candidate for an overt 1st
person reference in the original Japanese E-mailMagazines with twenty-five occurrences. The
topic-marker particle is generally used to indicatethat the latter part of the sentence serves as acomment on the (sentence-initial) topicalized
element, but it is also explained to reflect speaker
involvement in organizing a narrative byhighlighting a main character (Iwasaki 1993: 5).
The following table of examples hopefully
sheds further light on the contexts in which thewriter – supposedly the Prime Minister of Japan –of the examined E-mail Magazines has felt the needto make referential personification information
overt as a 1st person topic, despite, in some cases,
already being activated in the reader’s mind.

41

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 4: Overt 1 st person topic construction
types in Japanese texts
Category (representative predicates) + example
1. To act/give instructions/make decisions(past/present［future] tense)(するよう指示しました、 決意をいたしました、 参列
いたしました、 判断しました、 訴えました、全力を尽くしてまいります、去ります)
私 は、月曜日、総理大臣の職を辞する決意をい た しま
し た 。それは、国民の皆さんのための政策をより力強く進めていくためには、新しい体制を整えるべきであると考えたからにほかなりません。
On Monday of this week, I made the decision to resignfrom the post of Prime Minister. I did so because I
believe that a new system should be put in place inorder to proceed even more powerfully with policy forthe people. (Fukuda46)
2. To have/had a habit of doing/learn(ed) something(paragraph-initial)(想うことがありました、 思うときがあります、 知りました、 過ごしたものです)
私は、政策を立案する際、この「永遠の今」を想うことがありました。
I often used to think of "the eternal now" when drawing
up policy. (Fukuda46)
3. To place priority, emphasis (past tense)(最優先として、 優先しました、 強調しました)
昨日、インドの国会で「二つの海の交わり」と題する講演を行いました。N「二つの海」とは、太平洋とインド洋のことです。講演の中で私 は、日本とインドは世界で最も可能性を秘めた二国間関係であることを強調しました。
Yesterday, I delivered a speech to the Parliament ofIndia entitled "Confluence of the Two Seas." The twoseas I referred to are the Pacific and the Indian Oceans.
In the course of my speech, I stressed that the"Japan-India relationship is blessed with the largest
potential for development of any bilateral relationshipanywhere in the world." (Abe43)
4. To think/believe (often expressing contrast withanother entity)(思っています)
環境対策、というと何か「制約」というイメージを持つ人がいますが、私は、将来の飛躍に向けた大きなチャン
スだと思っています。
Some people associate environmental measures withrestrictions. However, I think of them as a great
opportunity for us to leap forward in the future. (Aso28)
5. Must/will (never) (+ neg.)(決して忘れません、 忘れてはなりません)
この間にいただいた、みなさんの忌憚のないご意見、
心温まる激励を、私は決して忘れません。
I will never forget the unreserved views and theheart-warming encouragement that were so generously
extended to me during that period. (Abe46)
6. Must/have obligation to/should (neg.)(傾けなければならない、歩んでいかねばなりません、
すべき)
私 た ち は、こうした地方の声に耳を傾けなければならない。そして、謙虚に受け止め、政策で対応していかねばなりません。今回、地方で知事を経験した増田さんに総務大臣として加わっていただきました。地方の生の声を、政策に反映していただくよう期待しています。
We must heed the voices of the people in local regions,
humbly accept their opinions and respond to them with

n
7

4

3

3

3

3

42

policies. My expectation for Mr. Hiroya Masuda, who
has joined my Cabinet as the Minister of Internal Affairs
and Communications and has had experience as aprefectural governor, is to reflect these voices directly in
Government policies. (Abe44)
7. To have responsibility/respect (progressive
tense)(責任を持っています、尊敬の念を抱いています)
私 た ち は、将来の世代に対して責任を持っています。
人口が減少し、経済がグローバル化する中でも、日本が今後とも発展を続けるためには、厳しくとも、今、改革を前進させなければなりません。
We have a responsibility to future generations. As
Japan's population declines and the globalization of theeconomy continues, we must resolutely push reforms
ahead now, difficult though it may be, to ensure ournation's continued development in the future. (Abe44)

Total

Paragraph-initial
topic
constructions
referring to past or habitual actions performed by a
1st person agent (category 2) typically introduce
new discourse topics related to the protagonist andcould be characterized as more “neutral” than otherencountered topics. In fact, in most cases, overt 1st
person topics appear to be linked to emphatic
expressions; the protagonist is portrayed as adetermined and strong-willed action-taker, whofirmly moves forward taking difficult decisions,placing priority on matters of national interest,
while remembering to remind his compatriots ofnational responsibilities in a manner appropriate toa true reliable statesman. In a number of contexts, aclear nuance of contrast with another entity can also
be detected in the analyzed examples.
As Yamamoto (1999: 96) observes, when
overt 1st person reference is used instead of ellipsis
in Japanese, thus rendering the writer stand out as ahighly ‘animated’ entity, utterances will possibly
sound persistent or bearing a heavier responsibility
for his/her claim. In other words, as indexicals,
these pronouns can be interpreted to perform thefunction of linking speech acts to “those (…)
responsible for their illocutionary force”(Mühlhäusler and Harré 1990: 25). Furthermore, in
speech act theory, overt 1st person pronouns areusually considered to represent key elements for anutterance to be “performative” rather than“constative” (Iwasaki 1993: 1).
2.2
Plurality in 1st person expressions
Plurality can be employed to blur and impersonalize
the identity of referents, thereby weakening thesense of animacy and directness encoded in overt
reference (Yamamoto 1999: 99). As Table 2 above
illustrates, in the examined E-mail Magazines
English plural 1st person referents outnumber
Japanese plural expressions by a ratio of 102:16(including the archaic genitive waga わが). In this22
5

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

section, let us first examine plurality in the Japanese
texts.

In this politically extremely sensitive
context, the English translation conveniently
encodes the entity experiencing remorse as theGovernment of Japan, rather than the Japanesenation.

Manifestations of 1st person pluralreference in Japanese texts and theirEnglish counterparts
All seven occurrences of the Japanese plural 1st
person referent ‘we’, (watashitachi 私 た ち 6
occurrences, wareware 我々 1 occurrence) havebeen rendered into English by a corresponding
plural pronoun: we (5 occurrences) or us (2occurrences). In three cases, ‘Japan’ (Nippon 日本)
is overtly mentioned later in the same paragraph,
thereby making it clear to the reader thatwatashitachi in that particular context represents
the Japanese people. Another example, although
without overt reference to ‘government’ (seifu 政府 ) or similar entities in Japanese, frames
watashitachi as representatives of the government,
further clarifying the referent for a non-Japanesereadership by having recourse to terms such as
Cabinet and Government policies in the English
version. In an additional example, the original text,
following an initial overt 1st person reference
watashitachi, has ellipsis, which in turn is encoded
as Japan in the English translation:
2.2.1

Manifestations of 1st person pluralreference in English texts and their
Japanese counterparts
Our observation that overt plural 1st person
pronouns occur frequently in the English E-mailMagazines invites a further investigation of theoriginal Japanese texts as contrasted with theirtranslations: Who or what does the English ‘we’represent and how is this interpretive entity encodedin the original texts?
Obvious candidates for the English we
include Japan or the Japanese people as well as theJapanese Government and Cabinet members, andthe majority of English plural pronouns indeed
seem to represent these parties. The Japaneseoriginals, again, often have recourse to ellipsis, butlater references in the texts for example to the‘government’ (seifu 政府), ‘Japan’ (Nippon 日本)
or other similar overt referents serve to elucidate theidentity of the missing actors (or experiencers).
Other occurrences of we depict contexts in which a
difference has to be made between ‘I’ as thewriter/Prime Minister and ‘we’ for example as
Cabinet members. When describing the signing oftreaties, on the other hand, an inclusive we can be
employed to include both the writer/Prime Minister
himself and his signing partner, usually anotherhead of state, or Japan and another – friendly –nation. In its most generic function, we appears torefer not only to the Japanese people, but perhaps
widely to the people on this planet, leaving again
the final interpretation of whom or what to include
to the reader him/herself.
The contrast between Japanese ellipticalnothingness and English we-agents is striking andmust sometimes turn into a cause of headache fortranslators of these, at times, sensitive political texts.
As some ellipses leave room for varying
interpretations, not always clearly identifiable from
anaphoric (or exophoric) contexts, trying to find thebest possible – or politically correct – solutions for
the English versions can be a daunting task. In thissense, due to its potential impersonality andidentity-effacing nature, the plural we serves as ahandy device to fill in the necessary grammaticalslots in the English texts without compromising too
much the actor-dissolving “mind-style” embeddedin the Japanese originals.
It would perhaps be appealing to claim that,with obligatory actor we’s, the English versions
seem to reflect a more involvement-enhancing
2.2.2

Example (1)しかし、私 た ち は、内向きな志向のとりこになることなく、心を開き、そのまなざしをしっかりと世界に向けながら、歩んでいかねばなりません。これからも、平和協力国家として、世界の恒久平和の確立に向け積極的に活動します。
Nonetheless, we should move forward, indifferent toinward orientation and keeping our hearts open and eyes
firmly focused on the world. As a Peace Fostering Nation,
Japan will continue to actively work toward theestablishment of lasting world peace. (Fukuda44)

All nine occurrences of the genitive waga
(わが) in the Japanese texts are used in the fixed
expression ‘our country’ (wagakuni わが国) andthus refer to Japan. Apart from one example, these
expressions have been rendered into English using
Japan. Interestingly, only in one case does the
English version use a different expression, namely
the Government of Japan:
Example (2)
その深い反省の上に立って、戦後、わ が 国は、一貫して平和国家としての道を歩んできました。今日の平和と繁栄は、戦争によって命を落とされた方々の尊い犠牲の上に築かれたものにほかなりません。
Out of profound remorse, the Government of Japan has
been committed to a path as a peaceful nation throughout
its post-war history. The present peace and prosperity ofJapan are built squarely on the precious sacrifices madeby those who lost their lives to the war. (Fukuda44)

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

character than their Japanese counterparts. It has
frequently been suggested that personal referents
can be examined as markers of involvement (Chafe
1982), that is, of “emotional connection andengagement that the speakers feel in the situation
towards the subject matter and/or the otherparticipants in interaction” (Nikula 1996). Thus, inour data, singular 1st person referents could beinterpreted to mark the speaker’s involvement withthe subject matter (or himself). However, whether
such “iconic” interpretations do in fact work wellfor pro-drop languages such as Japanese, would, in
my view, require more rigorous research. As
Yamamoto (1999: 101) puts it, in Japanese “explicit
entities tend to be expressed implicitly and implicit
entities tend to stay implicit”.

3working on “subjective-frame languages” to further
explore meanings and ‘fashions’ of speaking(allusion to Whorfianism intended).
Japanese (socio)linguists are sometimes keen
on comparing Japanese with English (for them therepresentative “Western” language) and link
typological characteristics of Japanese withtraditional “ways of thinking”, for example
interpretingor
explaining
theellipsis/non-appearance of subjects as a manifestation ofcultural traits like “modesty” (kenkyo) and“consideration (for others)” (sasshi) (Matsuo &Watanabe 2000: 103). In these formulations
structural aspects of ‘personification’ receive iconic
pragmatic interpretations based on the theory ofnegative politeness (Laitinen 1995: 341): noreference equals avoidance of subjectivity (to bedifferentiated here from “subjective-frames” à la
Ikegami). This pilot study has attempted to show
that, as Ono-Premper (2000: 63) ingeniously puts it,
the role of ‘person’ (ninshoo) in Japanese is likethat of “kuroko”, stagehands dressed in black,assisting kabuki theatre actors in various ways
during performances. Although avoidance of
explicit reference to animate human agents is
deeply ingrained in the structure of Japanese, it is amatter of degree, with a reverse side which can beassociated with textual strategies discussed in thispresentation. I believe that future analyses ofnatural data will show that ‘person’ (ninshoo) and
how it is communicated in Japanese interaction isan area in need of more rigorous research.

Discussion: Agency, “subjectiveframes” and subjectivity

It has been argued that the notion of animacy
hierarchy – and related agency – bears relevance tothe concept of perspective (Iwasaki 1993: 79) or“mind-styles” in differing languages. This pilot
study has not intended to explore the absence orexistence of a writer (or speaker) systematically inthe examined languages, Japanese and English, butrather to offer a glimpse at the varying degrees inwhich the 1 st person may be used strategically torepresent not only the writer himself, but his
entourage, (occasional) liaisons, government or an
entire nation in these languages.
Japanese is often referred to as a
subjective-frame language (vs. objective-frame
language such as English) and Japanese speakers
and writers as subjectively oriented, having atendency to encode situations as if being involvedin them as experiencers, rather than describing themas detached objective on-lookers. A classic written
example is the opening of Kawabata Yasunari’s
novel Yukiguni (Snow Country). The original
version has no mention of a 3rd person referent,
while the English translation starts off with adefinite noun, the train:

References
Chafe, W. 1982. Integration and Involvement in Speaking, Writing, andOral Literature. In: Tannen, D. Spoken and Written
Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy. Norwood:
Ablex, 35-53.
Fowler, R. 1985. Power. In: van Dijk, T.A. (ed.), Handbook of
Discourse Analysis. London: Academic Press.
Ikegami, Y. 2008. Linguistics and Poetics of ‘Ego as Zero’. Paper
presented at the European Association for JapaneseStudies conference, 20.09.2008, Lecce.
Iwasaki, S. 1993. Subjectivity in Grammar and Discourse. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
Laitinen, Lea. 1995. Nollapersoona. Virittäjä, 3: 337-358.
Matsuo, K. & K. Watanabe. 2000. Nihongo ni okeru nihon bunka.
Yooroppa nihongo kyooiku, 5: 103-109. Espoo: AJE.
Mühlhäusler, P. & Harré, R. 1990. Pronouns and People. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Nikula, T. 1996. Pragmatic Force Modifiers: A Study in Interlanguage
Pragmatics. Studia Philologica Jyväskyläensia, 39. Jyväskylä:
University of Jyväskylä.
Ono-Premper, Y. 2000. Daikushisu yooso no shidoohoo ni tsuite 2:
Ninshoo no kakureta hyoogen.Yooroppa nihongo kyooiku, 5:63-74. Espoo: AJE.
Shimojo, M. 2005. Argument Encoding in Japanese Conversation. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Yamaguchi, T. 2007. Japanese Language in Use. London: Continuum.
Yamamoto, M. 1999. Animacy and Reference. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.

Example (3)Kunizakai no nagai tonneru o nukeru to yukiguni
deatta. Yoru no soko ga shiroku natta. Shingoojo ni
kisha ga tomatta.
The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow
country. The earth lay white under the night sky.
The train pulled up at a signal stop.

How or if this tendency is to be linked withcognitive constructs of speakers and writers of aparticular language – and therefore for example
with intent, strategies or even social agency –remains under discussion. Additional studies would
be needed to develop this topic and invite linguists
44Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Movie Reviews in Japanese and English Newspapers Publishedin Japan: Rhetorical Preferences in Each Discourse Community
Tama Kumamoto

Nagoya University of Foreign Studies
kumamoto@nufs.ac.jp

to revamp this disciplinary area as intercultural
rhetoric, by reexamining research methodology, andby redefining culture. She proposes that IR(intercultural rhetoric) research should go beyond
text-level analysis, reflect the writing context, andinclude not only student essays but writing in many
disciplines and genres.
There have been three schools of genre analysis
according to Johns (2003), i.e., Sydney school, ESL,and the New Rhetoric in the USA. In the field of
ESL, much work has been done in professional
writing: business request letters, sales letters, grant
proposals,
application
letters,
lettersofrecommendation (Bhatia, 1993, for example), andin academic writing (Swales, 1990).
However, these works are all text-based,
detached from wider social contexts. The newconcept of genre does not limit its scope to businessor academic written form, but expands to everyday
social interactions, both in written and non-written
forms, as suggested by Bakhtin (1986).
Incorporating this new concept, it becomes
necessary for a genre analyst to find out “the overallpurpose or function for the creation of a text. The
purpose will determine the internal genericstructure of the text as well as its key grammaticalfeatures. (Nunan, 2007, p. 136)”
Movie review as a genre, when looked at withthis new concept of genre in mind, may havedifferent purposes (or functions) in different
cultures. An English definition of “movie review”
as “a report or essay giving a critical estimate of awork or performance” (The American Heritage
Dictionary, fourth edition) may not always be truein other cultures. Beside the purpose of criticizing,movie reviews must have an information giving
purpose, and the emphasis may shift between these
two elements depending on the speech community.
The ability that a writer must have may vary in
different communities. For the information giving
purpose, the writer must have a descriptive writing
ability to introduce the production of the movie, theplot, the actors, their acting, etc.; and for fulfillingthe critical function, the writer must excel in an

Abstract
This article aims to disclose the different purposes
the movie review genre has in the Japanese andEnglish media. Ten movie reviews are analyzed,
five in Japanese and five in English that appeared innewspapers published in Japan. The study has threephases: First, the comparison of the physicalappearance of these articles is made, together withthe examination of the placement of the thesis
statement. Second, they are read and evaluated byfour native speaker teachers of English, who are
considered to be sharing the writing norms of the
English discourse community, on the following
three points: how much the review is informative,
critical, and persuasive. Their free comments arealso gathered. The final phase is to present thetestimony of a Japanese movie critic on her
experience of writing articles in newspapers, bothin Japanese and in English, in order to reveal thenorms of the Japanese discourse community in thisgenre. The results show that the focus of the
English reviews is to critically evaluate the movies,
while that of the Japanese ones is mainly to giveinformation about the movie.

Keywords
Intercultural rhetoric, genre analysis, movie reviews,
language use in the media, teaching English writing

Introduction
Ever since the seminal work set forth by Kaplan(1966), contrastive rhetoric has played a significant
role in teaching English to speakers of otherlanguages. However, there has been strong criticism
against it: that it captures culture statically(Atkinson, 2004); that it stereotypes culturalconventions of writing (Kubota, 1997; Kubota andLehner, 2004); and that it lacks consideration of thesocial and educational backgrounds of students(Connor, 1996). It has also been pointed out thaterrors students make can be accounted for bydevelopmental problems, and not by the negativetransfer from their first language (Mohan & Lo,
1985). These criticisms led Connor (2004a, 2004b)
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

expository writing ability. In order to criticallyreview the movie, the writer has to present a
judgment (a thesis) and give reasons (arguments) to
support his/her judgment, which is exactly thedefinition of expository writing given by Martin(1985, p. 14).
In this paper, the purpose (or function) of movie
reviews in two speech communities is examined bycomparing reviews written in the Japanese andEnglish newspapers. The comparison is made firstin their physical properties (the generic and key
grammatical structures), and then by eliciting
comments by language experts both in the English
and Japanese language communities to shed more
light on the social context of this genre. In the final
section of this paper, suggestions are made to
improve teaching English writing in Japan.

1

community. Two of them are American, one British,and one Australian. Their teaching experience inJapan varies from 5 to 20 years, while theirexperience in teaching writing varies from 1.5 to 20
years. They are asked to read the translated versionof the Japanese articles first, and then a few months
later, the English articles. Each article is evaluatedon a six-point Likert scale for the following threequestions: (1) informative—if they think the review
gives a full account of the movie, (2) critical—if
they think the review is making careful and fairjudgments about the movie with well-reasoned
support, and (3) persuasive—if they think thewriting style of this review causes the reader toagree with the author. They are also encouraged towrite comments freely on the texts and also on thequestionnaire. These comments, together with thepoints given to each question, are analyzed to see
the values attached to this genre in the English
speaking discourse community.
The third phase of this study presents thetestimony of a Japanese movie critic on her
experience of writing articles in newspapers. She isa professional translator, currently writing a movie
review regularly on a national weekly newspaper,and occasionally writes reviews and articles onmovies in English as well. The exchange was done
through email on a person to person basis.

Methodology

1.1

Procedure (Materials and participants)
Two sets of movie reviews on the same five
movies, the total of ten reviews, are selected. One
set is taken from The Asahi Shimbun, a Japanesenewspaper, and another set from The Daily Yomiuri,
an English newspaper published in Japan during theyears 2006 and 2007. The five movies are Bushi no
Ichibun, Bobby, Happy Feet, The King of Scotland,and Flags of our Fathers, which will be hereafterreferred to as Bushi, Bobby, Feet, King, and Flags
respectively. These movies were open to the publicfrom November 2006 through March 2007 in Japan.
(See Appendix.) The selection of the movies ismade with care so that various types of movies areincluded, such as an animation (Feet), and aJapanese period drama (Bushi). The five writers ineach newspaper are professional reviewers who
were writing in each newspaper regularly at thetime of selection 1 .
The five Japanese articles from The Asahi
Shimbun are translated into English by this author,
sentence by sentence without changing the order ofthem.
In the first phase of the study, the comparison of
the physical appearance of these articles in eachnewspaper is made, together with the examinationof the placement of the thesis statement, as has been
traditionally done in contrastive rhetoric studies.
In the second phase of the study, the ten articles
are read and evaluated by four native speakerteachers of English, who are considered to be
sharing the writing norms of the English discourse

1.2
Analyses
The data is analyzed along the three phases. First,
the comparison in the physical appearance between
English and Japanese articles is made, such as thelength of the article, the sentence construction in thetitle, etc. Also, the location of the thesis (overall
judgment of the movie) and that of the conclusion
are investigated.
Second, the four teachers’ evaluations on theJapanese articles and the English ones are comparedto locate differences, if any, in regard to theinformative, critical, and persuasive quality of thewriting. The teachers’ comments are also used toillustrate the norms of the English speechcommunity.
Third, the Japanese movie critic’s view on thisgenre is presented to explicate the function of thisgenre in the Japanese speech community.

2

Results and discussion

2.1
Physical appearance
2.1.1
The length of the articles
The Japanese articles are generally shorter than the
English counterparts, the average number of words
in the translated English version in the former being
432, as opposed to 722 in the latter. It is customary1

Tadao Sato, for example, who reviewed Bushi inJapanese, is active also in the field of education, andpublished a book, Ronbun wo do kaku ka (How to
Write a Thesis) from Kodansha in 1980.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

that the same space is allotted to the movie review
column in Japanese newspapers, whereas the whole
page is allotted to movie reviews in English
newspapers, resulting in each article having a
different length.

Bushi
Bobby

○
○
Flags
○
○2
Note 2: The judgment is consistent with the first one.
Feet

2.2
Teachers’ evaluations
2.2.1
Scores
The results of the questionnaire survey aresummarized in Table 3. In spite of their length,
Japanese reviews are rated higher in the informative
category than English ones. English reviews are
rated higher in the other two categories, i.e., criticaland persuasive.
Table 3: The Average Scores of the Four Teachers’
Evaluations
Japanese
English difference
informative
4.45 >
4.35-0.1
critical
3.45 <
4.05
0.6
persuasive
3.90 <
4.20
0.4

Japanese titles:
Refreshing Laughter and Warm-heartedness
The USA in ’68 in Miniature
Dizzy with First-rate Images
Expressing Amin’s Two-sidedness Superbly
Describes the Cruelty of Battlefields and theEmptiness of War

2.2.2

2.1.3
The location of the thesis
Each article is outlined according to the topics ofthe paragraphs. Two of the Japanese reviews havethe thesis (overall judgment of the movie) at the
beginning; two at the end; and one at the beginningand at the end, but the second statement is
contradictory to the first one (Table 1). Four out of
the five English reviews have a thesis at the
beginning, with two of them repeating it at the end(Table 2).
Table 1: The Location of the Thesis (Japanese)
Middle

Feet
King

End
○
○1

Bobby

○
○

○
Note 1: The judgment is contradictory to the first one.
Flags

Table 2: The Location of the Thesis (English)
Beginning

MiddleTeachers’ comments

Comments by native speaker teachers (T1 –T4) on the informative quality of Japanesereviews mention that they give out too muchof the storyline. There are also positive
comments on their offering some backgroundknowledge that the general public might notknow.
(T2) Yes, pretty much the whole movie is described,
even to the point that there are “spoilers”—hebasically gives the ending away. (Bushi)(T1) I learn a lot about the storyline, but happily
not the way it is resolved in the end. The technicalexplanation about “motion capture” is also usefully
informative. (Feet)
On the contrary, comments on the informative
quality of English reviews often mention that thegiving out of the storyline is adequate. Sometimes
there are comments that there is not enoughinformation.
(T4) The review appears to provide sufficient
general outline of the events in the movie without
providing details that would spoil the storyline forpotential viewers. (Flags)(T3) Not such a full account of the movie is given.
The introduction comprises one-quarter of thereview. The information is very sketchy: I feel that
too much (information) is missing. How was
Memphis distracted? What happened exactly?(Feet)

English titles:
Yamada gets manipulative'Bobby' an odd mix of fact, fiction, good acting'Happy Feet' shakes its tail-feather
Whitaker's 'Last King' rules the screen
Army of actors makes up for uneven directing

Beginning
○

○2
○

King

2.1.2
The titles (headlines)
The majority of the English titles are actually theoverall judgment about the movie, given in a full
sentence. In fact, its function is like the thesis
statement of an essay, with a topic and a controllingidea. The verbs are often transitive verbs, whichindicate that the reviewers perceive that people(directors, actors, etc.) actually caused some effecton the movie in question. The Japanese titles areoften static, with just a noun phrase to indicate thecontent of the movie. Compare:

Bushi

○

Comments on the critical quality of Japanesereviews often point out that there is almost no

End

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author’s translation):judgment, or that the reviews lack logical support:(T1) The judgments are contradictory, so I’m left
wondering what the reviewer actually thinks.(Feet)(T2) Well, it is an overview so there are almost no
critical comments except one: “...screenplay loses
its tension...” There is support and examples about
the movie but it’s more emotional than logical.
(Flags)(T3) Very little judgment: Could not fully
understand what the critic thought of this film.
(King)(T4) I tend to agree with Sato’s judgments but they
are simply observations based on opinion and there
is no concrete support or evidence provided toprove that those judgments are either careful or fair.
(Bushi)(JMR) To aim for the wide readership of theJapanese newspaper 2 , most reviews just touch upon
the story (or content) of the movies without
discussing technical issues. In other words, they are“introduction” of movies, rather than “criticism”
of them. Actually, I know a noted critic who uses up
more than half of the space for writing the outlineof the story, which I don’t think we can call
“criticism.” However, it is true that the number ofgood critical articles is decreasing, not only innewspapers but also in magazines, because of a
recent trend in which readers don’t want to know
about anything but the genre and the storyline of
the movie. In my purely “personal view”, reviews inJapanese newspapers are treated as passing(light?) entertainment, not as culture. Of course,
there are excellent reviews from the point of movie
culture, I must add.

On the persuasive quality of the Japanesereviews, native speaker teachers often expressed
skepticism on the overly positive tones of theJapanese reviewers. T4 wonders if the reason heagrees with the reviewer is because of the sharedknowledge that he has of the movie.
(T2) Yes, with a review that is so positive, it mightseem difficult to disagree with the author, however, I
am dubious of overly positive reviews which lackany criticism. (Feet)(T4) To some extent; each body paragraph basicallyconsists of describing a section of the movie’s
storyline and an observation by Sato on its
importance. The review appears to be well written
but the fact that I am forced to agree with theauthor may largely be due to having alreadywatched and enjoyed the movie. (Bushi)

She also has an experience of writing movie
reviews in English for The Asahi Evening News(presently called International Herald Tribune / The
Asahi Shimbun）several years ago, and recalls what
her editors advised her, which obviously was notpart of her training as a movie reviewer in Japanese.
(JMR) I received a lot of advice. The importance ofthe lead, the writer’s personality, humor, theinclusion of footage and lines that show theatmosphere of the movie, etc. In sum, they wanted
good readings, but each editor wanted different
things…Since movies are composite art, I think
reviewers should incorporate not only the storyline,
but also various other things, such as the director’s
background, style, and technique.

The reasons why the teachers think the English
reviews are persuasive seem to lie in the details
they read in the passages:(T1) I felt convinced that this is a movie I don’t needto see, especially because of Par. 11 and 12.
(Bobby)(T3) It is very easy to follow the reviewer’s line ofreasoning in this article. “Whitaker dominates thescreen”, “riveting, and mesmerizing performance”.
Garrigan: “We share in his excitement that Amin isgoing to change Uganda for the better. Also
persuades us that the setting, (color/chaos, “leapoff the screen”) is authentic/realistic (“brings the70’s back to life). It makes me want to watch thismovie again! (King)

Her testimony reveals that the movie review asa genre has different functions in the Japanese andEnglish speech communities. The expectations of
the communities are different; therefore, reviewers
write in different manners. Fowler (1991) observes
a similar system working in writing news: “News is
not a natural phenomenon emerging straight from‘reality’, but a product….From a broader
perspective, it reflects, and in return shapes, theprevailing values of a society in a particular
historical context. (p. 223)” Likewise, Bakhtin
states as follows:
Both the composition and, particularly, the styleof the utterance depend on those to whom theutterance is addressed, how the speaker (orwriter) senses and imagines his addressees, and2.3
Testimony of a Japanese movie critic
There seems to be some difference in the emphasisthat Japanese and English review writers place. The
author asked a Japanese movie reviewer (referred toas JMR hereafter) on this point in our email
exchanges, and received the following answer (the2Yomiuri Shimbun, for example, has more than one

million subscribers as of January 2009.
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the force of their effect on the utterance. Eachspeech genre in each area of speechcommunication has its own typical conceptionof the addressee, and this defines it as a genre (p.
95).

3References
Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). The problem of Speech
Genres. In Speech Genres and Other Late
Essays (pp. 60-102). Austin, TX: U of
Texas Press.
Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analyzing Genre: Language
Use in Professional Settings. London:
Longman.
Connor, U. (2004a). “From contrastive tointercultural rhetoric.” Handout forDistinguished Lecture, Graduate TESOLProgram, Temple University Japan,
November 2004.
Connor, U. (2004b). Intercultural rhetoric research:
Beyond texts. Journal of English for
Academic Purposes, 3, 291-304.
Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the News. London:
Routledge.
Johns, A. M. (2003). Genre and ESL/EFL
composition instruction. In Kroll, B. (ed.),
Exploring the Dynamics of Second
Language Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 195-217.
Kubota, R. (1997). A reevaluation of the uniquenessof Japanese written discourse: Implicationsforcontrastive
rhetoric.
WrittenCommunication, 14 (4), 460-480.
Kubota, R. and Lehner, A. (2004). Toward criticalcontrastive rhetoric. Journal of Second
Language Writing, 13, 7-27.
Martin, J. R. (1985). Factual Writing: Exploring
and Challenging Social Reality. Oxford:
Oxford UP.
Mohan, B. and Lo, W. A. (1985). Academic writing
and Chinese students: Transfer anddevelopmental factors. TESOL Quarterly,
19, 515-534.
Nunan, D. (2007). What is This Thing Called
Language? New York: Palgrave McMillan.
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in
AcademicandResearch
Settings.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.

Conclusion and implications

Several differences are found in the Japanese andEnglish movie reviews:(1) English titles (headlines) often are sentenceswith transitive verbs, which express judgments(thesis) of the reviewer, while Japanese titles
are often noun phrases that show the content of
the movies without much judgment.
(2) Four out of five English reviews have the thesisat the beginning (deductive mode), with two ofthem repeating it at the end, while two
Japanese reviews have the thesis at the
beginning and two at the end (inductive mode).
The last one has two contradictory judgments
at the beginning and at the end.
(3) Native English teachers feel Japanese reviews
are informative, sometimes giving out too
much, while they feel English reviews are morecritical because of factual and logical reasoning,and persuasive because they offer both positive
and negative views on the movie.
(4) A Japanese movie reviewer’s testimony
confirms that they are in fact writing to cater tothe palate of Japanese readers.
The findings of this study suggest the following
points to those who teach writing movie reviews in
English in Japan.
(1) Awareness raising
Students need to be aware of the different
expectations that the genre has in the English
speaking community. Show them movie
reviews written in Japanese and English on thesame movie and let them analyze those reviews.
The cultural values behind the reviews should
also be discussed.
(2) Writing an outline
The outline should be kept to a minimum.
Students should also be instructed to omit theending.
(3) To overcome weak criticism
It is important to encourage students to form
their opinions about the movie, then let themfind as many reasons as possible to support
their opinions.
(4) Finally, writing a good title (headline)
The title should encompass the whole content
and express the student’s judgment about themovie.

Appendix.

Movie Reviews Used in This Study.

Bushi no Ichibun
Sato, T. “Bushi no ichibun--Warai to jo nosawayakasa (The social position of samurai:
Refreshing laughter and warm-heartedness),” Asahi
Shimbun, evening edition, November 30, 2006.
Gerow, A. “Yamada gets manipulative,” The Daily
Yomiuri, December 2, 2006.
Bobby
Inagaki, T. “Bobi—68 nen, Amerika no shukuzu(The USA in ’68 in Miniature),” Asahi Shimbun,
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

evening edition, March 1, 2007.
Baker, T. “‘Bobby’ an odd mix of fact, fiction, good
acting,” The Daily Yomiuri, February 17, 2007.
Happy Feet
Akiyama, N. “Happi fito—Gokujo no eizo ni atamaga kurakura (‘Happy Feet’--dizzy with first-rate
images),” Asahi Shimbun, evening edition, March
22, 2007.
Bergen, A. “‘Happy Feet’ shakes its tail-feather”
The Daily Yomiuri, March 24, 2007.
The Last King of Scotland
Shinada,Y.
“Rasutokingu
obu
sukottorando—Amin no hyori migoto ni hyogen(‘The Last King of Scotland’--expressing Amin’s
two-sidedness superbly),” Asahi Shimbun, evening
edition, March 15, 2007.
Satterthwaite, J. “Whitaker’s ‘Last King’ rules thescreen,” The Daily Yomiuri, March 10, 2007.
Flags of Our Fathers
Sawaki, K. “‘Chichioyatachi no seijoki’—Senjo no
muzansa to senso no munashisa egaku (‘Flags of
Our Fathers’--describes the cruelty of battlefields
and the emptiness of war),” Asahi Shimbun,
evening edition, November 6, 2006.
Chapman, B. “Army of actors makes up for unevendirecting,” The Daily Yomiuri, October 21, 2006.

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Teaching Business Japanese through Internet:
Importance of Teacher Training
Remi Kakiyama1 and Yoko Okita2

1

Faculty of Liberal Arts, Sophia University, 2International Student Center,
Tokyo Medical and Dental University
remithk@gmail.com, yokita.isc@ymd.ac.jp

e-learning, distance language learning, teacher
training

as a representative of distance learning through theInternet has slowly been established mainly inuniversities (see, for example, ALIC 2002;
e-Learning Consortium 2008) making the most of
its characteristics of combinations of time and placein learning context (White, 2003; Jung and Kubota,2006). In fact, this experimental project was
promoted by Waseda digital campus consortiumwith the aim of providing a good educational
service tool towards Japanese language learning.
With regards to the effectiveness of the distancecourse, it is considered that a number of factors
might influence on course management in relation
to choice of media (e.g. TV conference, videoconferencing system, PC) and software, audio
equipment, course contents, teacher training, etc.,
which can affect quality in the learning context. In
this project, however, researchers assumed tutors’role is a key to success to students’ learning withinteractive communication ongoing classes.
With respect to activities during the course, feedback is regarded as one of the important resources
for the development of the course. And also, theLiveOn which is called synchronous system,
permits immediate feedback that can be triggeredby tutors’ views and experience, as well as
providing opportunities for the development oflearning environment within the learning group(White, 2003). Thus, it is worthwhile that the
instructional issues
concerned
would beinvestigated improving quality of the distancelearning and teaching, focusing on both positive
and negative comments by the participants.

Introduction

1

Crossing borders is a feature of distance learning
courses and in recent years various distanceeducational courses are provided by distancelearning in a wide range of fields such as school,
company, local community and government. In
Japan, in the late 1990’s, as ICT (Information andCommunication Technology) advanced, e-learning

1.1
ParticipantsParticipants of classes were five native tutors ofJapanese, two coordinators as class observers on
Waseda University Campus, Tokyo, two teachingassistants and 14 graduate students, all of whomwere involved in research at Graduate School ofInformation, Production, and Systems, Waseda

Abstract
This paper reports about an experimental project ofteaching business Japanese in a distance language
learning context using the “LiveOn” ®(Japan Media
System) web-conference system. The instructional
purpose of this project is to provide opportunities to
speak business Japanese through the internet, forlearners of Japanese as a second language, whohave little opportunity to practice Japanese in their
daily life. The experiment was conducted from
November 2008 to January 2009. Participants of theclasses were two coordinators acting as classobservers, five Japanese tutors, two teachingassistants and 14 graduate students in Graduate
School of Information, Production, and Systems,
Waseda University in Kitakyushu. The students’Japanese proficiency levels varied from novice-highto intermediate-high level. This project exploredmain aspects of the distant course such as the use of
LiveOn, teaching materials and future expectationof on-line learners, focusing on the participants’feedback. Although students provided positive
comments on the course, our observation of classes
revealed that tutors are a key factor in the
successful implementation of distance course
through the Internet. Findings indicated that theimportance of tutor training which can be set up in
an appropriate timing so as to facilitate the classes
taught entirely at a distance.

Keywords

51

MethodProceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

useful vocabularies and expressions that can beapplied for students’ job seeking activities.
This experimental project explored main aspectsof the distant course such as the use of LiveOn,teaching materials and future expectation of on-line
learners, focusing on feedback given by theparticipants. The regular observation of classes
explored aspects of the course advantages anddisadvantages for its implementation. The classes
were monitored by the coordinators in order tofacilitate the course assisting class activities andinteractions between tutors and students, and tutors’
teaching with tracing the progress of theirtechnology use as well. Nevertheless, as Blake(2007) emphasized, how to obtain the needs of an
institution’s students is greatly influenced byquality that pursuing effectiveness of the course.
Through the course, it was considered thatobtaining timely and informative feedback data isalso very important so as to assess the process ofthe course as well. Thus, reports of lessons taught
by the tutors were submitted through the mailinglist after each lesson. At the end of course, feedback
from questionnaire survey regarding the wholecourse was collected by tutors and students.
Furthermore, reacting and evaluating opportunities
were given to students, teaching assistants andtutors during feedback meeting, which was video
recorded. The data collected was qualitatively
reviewed and considered to shed light on possible
strengths and limitations of the distance course interms of students’ satisfaction and instructional
issues.

University in Kitakyushu. The students’ Japanese
proficiency levels were from novice-high tointermediate-high level (61.9%: elementary, 20.3%:
intermediate; in total 320 students), depending on
their background of Japanese language learning
before and/or after their exchange students’ life inJapan. The participants can access the course which
is a component of an on-line Business Japanese
Language program and Learning Management
System (LMS) of courseN@vi.
1.2
Procedure
The instructional purpose of this project is toprovide speaking opportunities of business Japanesethrough the internet, for learners of Japanese as asecond language, who are looking for job
opportunities in Japan after graduation (67.1%: 47
out of 71 students). However, an obvious problem
is that the students have little opportunity topractice Japanese in their daily life either due totheir research or housing environment, where
English and/or their mother tongue are mainly used.
Course objectives are a) to develop basic
communication skills for use in business contexts,b) to learn how to participate in both casual andformal situation with colleagues and/or clients in aworkplace, and c) to acquire knowledge and skills
for fulfilling personal needs and aspirations throughexercises.
The focus of this project was a six-week on-line
course conducted at a distance from November
2008 to January 2009. Four classes were opened
and each class consists of three to four students andone tutor. Each class met 18 times (three times per
week and 45 minutes per class) for six weeks. The
course was delivered to students using the“LiveOn” web-conference system, which allows at
least five people to communicate with each otheraudio-visually through Internet. Each student and atutor wearing a headset with a microphone sitting infront of a PC equipped with a web camera. After
logging into a room of LiveOn, all participants’faces are displayed individually in a PC monitor
with small windows. The tutor is able to observe
four students’ participation individually and all
members in the room can share the same practicalconversation. The alternative format of face-to-faceclassroomwassetthroughinteractive
communication in the use of sound and visual ofInternet.
In this project, lesson plans were designed bycoordinators
andatextbookforintermediate/advanced
Japanese:
Practical
Business Japanese by TOP Language was adopted
as a sub-material. Classes were conducted inJapanese by native tutors and mainly focused onmodel conversation and role plays consisting of2
2.1

Results
Student feedback

The feedback was collected to elicit the students’view on experience of Business Japanese distantcourse using “LiveOn”. As students’ comments
showed in questionnaire and feedback meeting,both positive and negative comments present thatthe course provided a good opportunity for them inlearning
Business
Japanese.
Significant
determinants of students’ satisfaction presented intheir positive comments under LiveOn, future
distant course, after graduation and class content.
Overall, the findings indicate that the students did
not have any serious problems with the use oftechnology in the process of language learning, andthe course fairly met their needs. Additionally,
although the critical comments show that somestudents have individual needs in language learning,it also represents students’ positive attitude toward
their language learning. According to theirstatement, they are eager to participate in Japanese
language course whenever there are any

52Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

real intention of content designed by coordinators,
or probably students’ levels in a class varied.
Secondly, an example was that an experienced tutor
seemed to have difficulties in gauging students’
understanding of the lessons and/or the tutor’squestions. It can be interpreted that e-learning
would hide students’ reactions, for example, to say“No. I don’t understand,” and it can be caused by
no direct interaction. On the other hand, it might
indicate that managing the classes and manipulating
computer monitor require skills that can take timeto get accustomed oneself to the environment. In
fact, the five tutors’ experiences of teaching
Japanese at a distance or relevant experience andtutor training were varied. Lastly, throughobservation, tutors’ class report, students and tutors’
feedback of the whole course, it is clear thatstudents were satisfied with the course. It is also
revealed that the internet use can facilitate language
learning and focusing on conversation practice.
However, problems were brought to the attention of
the observers and/or tutors. Observers and tutors
realized that the abilities to use technology in
conducting classes are greatly required andpedagogical skills need to be trained as it isdifferent from face to face classroom.
To sum up, it can be considered thedevelopment of the distant course would rely on
design and evaluation in order to set up an effective
language learning environment. However thefindings through the observation strongly suggeststhat teacher training in using technology would be
focal point to guide and assist students’ classactivities successfully in an art of language learning
through the Internet.

opportunities. It can be said the distant course
greatly supported students’ language learning fortheir purpose.
2.2
Tutor reports of lessons
Tutors reports were focused on two main points.
One is related to technology problems can becaused by the system. The other is about how well
the tutor could manage each class following thelesson plans provided. Tutors reported that thetechnology can interfere with the progress of theclass as they often had to confirm sound and screen
condition, and it did cause an anxiety to someextent. Another example was shown in the use ofwhiteboard. Although most of tutors understand it isuseful for students to confirm the correct Kanji
reading and pronunciation, the speed of thewhiteboard function was slower than tutors
expected and it did not allow smooth use forteaching. In terms of instructional issues, tutor
reported that many students did not do pre-study
and some students’ language level have not reachedthe level of role play.
2.3
Tutor feedback
To follow up the tutors’ view on the distant course,
feed back (both questionnaire and feedback
meeting) was collected and the summary below
shows main aspects based on categories. Overall,comments submitted by tutors provided evidence
that the distant course promoted students’ BusinessJapanese language learning, although systemproblems occurred and disturbed class management,
particularly, at the beginning stage. It is important
to enhance tutors’ teaching experience and their useof technology. Moreover, demonstration is strongly
suggested so as to understand well the real intentionof lesson plans that should be shared through thecourse.

3Conclusions

This experimental project raised many issues andsuggested further areas of study in the development
of distant course through Internet technology.
Comments showed by the students and tutors inthis project appeared to be positive for future
distance course with regard to students’ needs intheir language learning environment. It also
provided the evidence that the combination offactors such as use of system in good conditions,teaching styles and tutors immediacy can result inan effective virtual learning environment. As Blake(2007) stated that language tutors prioritize
collaborative interactions providing their students
with opportunities to be engaged in. Researchers
believe that the keys to an effective language
teaching at a distance heavily depend on individual
tutor’s abilities to integrate new technology into a
use of computer based environment.
Further research might examine issues oftraining tutors within distance learning contexts and2.4
Coordinators’ observation
Coordinators’ observation was mainly focused on
the following matters: a) how useful the course
materials were, b) how well tutors taught using
technology, and c) what students could learn andwhether they were satisfied with the course, etc.
Although the tutors were experienced in teachingcourses in a face-to-face classroom, they had
difficulties in teaching the course at a distance,
including use of the LiveOn, e-learning system.
Firstly, with respect to lesson plans, both students
and tutors’ feedback was resulted in positive
comments such as “well designed” and “succinct
and adequate”. However the issue arose that sometutors could not follow the lesson content properly
because sometimes they could not understand the53Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

to gain some insight into tutors’ views of thegroup-based distance learning.
4

References

ALIC (Senshin Gakushu Kiban Kyogikai). (2002).
E-learning Hakusho 2002-2003 Nendoban[e-learning whitepaper 2002-2003]. Ohmsha
Blake, R. J. (2007). New Trends in Using
Technology in the Language Curriculumn.
Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 27,
76-97.
Japan e-learning consosiam (eLC). (2008).
e-learning bijinesu chosa [A business surveyof e-learning]. Tokyo Denki Daigaku
Shuppankyoku.
La, I. and Terashima, K. (2008). e-learning
Hakusho. Jun, I. and K. Kubota (Eds).
Enkakukyoiku to e-learning [Long distanceeducation and e-learning]. Kitaoji-shobo
White, C. (2003). Language Learning in Distance
Education.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Intercultural Communication through Distance Learning among Korean
and Japanese University Students
Bok-Myung Chang
Department of English, Namseoul University
bmchang@nsu.ac.kr

Abstract
Kachru(1992) defined World Englishes as three
concentric circles, the Inner Circle, the outer Circle,
and the Expanding Circle. Each circle represents thetypes of spread, the patterns of acquisition, and thefunctional allocation of English in diverse culturalcontexts. The Inner Circle contains the countries inwhich English is used as a national language: USA,
UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The
Outer circle contains the nations in which English isused as a second language; Bangladesh, Ghana,
Kenya, Malaysia, Singapore, etc. The Expanding
Circle includes the nations in which English is
being used as a foreign language: China, Egypt,Indonesia, Japan, Korea, etc. Jenkins(2003) said
that the English spoken in the Inner Circle is said to
be 'norm-providing', that in the Outer Circle to be'norm-developing' and that in the Expanding Circle
to be 'norm-dependent'. In other words,
English-language standards are determined byspeakers of English as a national language.

The purpose of this study is first to prove that theintercultural communication is important inunderstanding NNS-NNS interaction in EFL
context. Second, this study focuses the fact that thecultural communication among university students
in EFL contexts is effective in English acquisition
and understanding intercultural differences. So thecultural theme is very important in constructing the
distance learning syllabus. Third purpose is to provethat it is urgent to construct a new environment for
acquiring cultural intelligence.
This study consists on two parts: the first is tosurvey the new model of NWCCDLP of the second
semester, 2008, which focuses on intercultural
discussions organized on the preparation class andjoint class. The second part is to survey the cultural
themes of out-of class chatting in the first semester,
2009 in NWCCDLP. The data was collected form
the students’ reflection papers and interviews.
Qualitative methodology is used in analyzing thedata from the students who participated in thecourse.

2.1.2 Modiano’s model of world English
A much more recent attempt to take account ofdevelopments in the spread of World Englishes isthat of Modiano (1999). He breaks completely withhistorical and geographical concerns and bases thefirst of his two models, 'The centripetal circles ofinternational English', on what is mutuallycomprehensible to the majority of proficient
speakers of English, be they native or non-native.
The centre is made up of these who are proficient ininternational English. That is, these speakers
function well in cross-cultural communication
where English is the lingua franca. They are just as
likely to be non-native as native speakers of English.
The main criterion, other than proficiency itself, isthat they have no strong regional accent or dialect.
Modiano's next band consists of those who haveproficiency in English as either a first or second
language rather than as an international language.

Keywords
Communicative Competence, Cultural Competence,
Distance Learning, Intercultural Communication,
On-line Chatting

1. Introduction
This study focuses on achieving the followings:
1) To recognize the importance of English as an
International Language (EIL) and the concept ofWorld English
2) To develop the best way to help English learners
to acquire English as an International language inthe countries of outer/ expanding circles
3) To prove that interactions between non-native
speakers through international distance learning arevery effective in intercultural communication andcultivating the cultural intelligence among NNS.

2. Literature Review
2.1 English as an International Language
2.1.1 Kachru’s model of world English
55

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

High/Low context communication styles
Topic 4 : Neighborhood
Relationship Development
Topic 5 : Climate Change : Agreement Styles

2.2 Intercultural Communication
2.2.1 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Salovey and Mayer(1990)
The subset of social Intelligence that involves theability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelingsand emotions, to discriminate among them and touse this information to guide one’s thinking andactions.
Goleman’s Framework for Emotional Competence(1995, 2000)
Self-awareness, Social awareness,
Self-management, Relationship Management

4.1.3 Learning points
The new model of NWCCDLP focuses oncultivating the learning points based on theintercultural communication.
Raising awareness of reasoning behind others’
happiness factors.
Identifying individual and group related sources ofhappiness.

2.2.2 Cultural Intelligence(CQ) Social and emotional intelligence + culturalawareness
 To develop students’ awareness ofculture-specific aspects of communicationthat may combine with more personal styles
and responses
 Cross-Cultural Aspects of Communication
1) Sharing Information
2) Receiving Information
3) Noticing similarities and differences

Analyzingsociety in terms of group membership.

3. Research Methodology

Considering the connection between personal andcultural values in terms of happiness.

Understandingthedifference
individualism and collectivism.

between

Raising awareness of personal value orientation
related to individualism and collectivism.
Avoiding over-generalization and appreciating thedifference between personal, cultural and national
values.

The data was collected form the students’ reflection
papers and interviews. Qualitative methodology isused in analyzing the data from the students who
participated in the course.
Subjects : The university students from Japan and
Korea who participated in NWCCDLP new model
during the second semester, 2008.

4.2 Cultural themes of out-of-class chattingof the 1st semester, 2009
The students from Namseoul and Waseda
Universities were matched as partners and had tomeet in cyberspace at the appointed time and datethrough the "Live On" system. The students from
Namseoul and Waseda Universities could exchange
the voice chat and text chat, and had to record all
the processes of their chatting and must write theirreports based on their records and submit them as apart of their course work.
In On-line chatting activities, the students
participated in the form of small groups consistingof 3-5 students from Japan and Korea. Namseoul
University students have to submit their reportabout On-line chatting activities as a part of coursework.

4. Course Description
4.1 New Model of the 2nd semester, 2008
4.1.1 Class Model Preparation Class – 1 week
(Reading + Research +BBS)
 Joint Class – 1week(Voice Chatting + Text Chatting + BBS)
 Reflection Paper

4.1.2 Social and Global Issues

4.2.1 Discover common heritage

Topic 1 : Introduction
Facilitation Skills, Intercultural translation
Topic 2 : Happiness Factors
Individualism/Collectivism
Topic 3 : Family Roles

1) Language and Society: popular proverbs andmetaphors. This theme includes some discussionsof the meaning of silence in Asian cultures and towhat extent we can be talkative or out-spoken and56

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

For this research study, the new model of
NWCCDLP in the 2nd, semester has been adopted
and the out-of-class chatting data was collected in
the 1st semester, 2009. The results of data collection
and analysis through the quantitative and qualitative
research methodology proved NWCCDLP was very
help in improving the communicative abilities ofthe students who participated in this project, so that
this research study can improve that the interactions
among non-native speakers in EFL contexts arevery effective in English acquisition process.
The results for this new model for CCDL wereanalyzed through both qualitative method andquantitative method, and the results can besummarized into several categories like these:
1) Most students could develop their English
proficiency through the NNS-NNS interactions.
2) The international distance learning model can besuggested as English acquisition model for outer /expanding- circle countries.
3) The international distance learning model is very
effective for understanding the interculturalcommunication and cultivating the culturalIntelligence among NNS.

sincere in English.
2) Traditional arts and folk tales
3) Food culture: natto, tofu, miso, soy source,cooking methods, eating and drinking manners
4) Social mores: Dependency, vertical vs. horizontal
society, male and female relationship, good wivew
and wise mothers,5) Common grammatical or pragmatic features in
Asian Englishes

4.2.2. Current Society1) Campus life and students Life: majors,
graduationtheses,human
relationships,
extra-curricular activities, love and marriage, etc.
2) Current Issues: NEET, Unemployment rate,environment issues, Modern history and School
Textbooks, Child Abuse, Gender Issues, Social
security, etc.
3) Media studies: newspaper, TV commercials,
cellular phones, Internet, TV Dramas, movies, etc.
4) Social systems: Presidential Election, Group
consciousness, funerals, wedding ceremony, World
peace, crime rate, etc.
5) Globalization Issues: Convenience stores,
multi-national corporation, European Union, East
Asian Union, etc.

In conclusions, NWCCDLP can be proved as agood model for cultivating English proficiency ofthe students in EFL contexts. From the results ofthis research, the conclusions can be suggested asfollows. The first thing is that most students could
develop their English proficiency through the
NNS-NNS interaction. So it is very helpful inEnglish acquisition to communicate in English
among non-native speakers, especially focusing on
the intercultural communication.
The second
thing is that the international distance learningmodel can be suggested as English learning modelin EFL context. The third thing is that one of the
distance learning models, NWCCDLP was very
impressed with the possibility of being able to get
in touch with students and cultures in foreigncountries.
Most of the students who practiced English through
NWCCDLP wished to participate in this CCDL
model again if possible, and they think this project
can help themselves to activate the interests incultural understanding, get their self-confidence inusing English, and improve their English skills.

5. Conclusions
This study focuses on achieving these purposes.
1)to recognize the importance of English as an
International Language(EIL) and the concept ofWorld English, 2) to develop the best way to help
English learners to acquire English as a foreign
language in the expanding circle countries, 3)todevise a model of international distance learningand adapt it to the English learning environment ofJapan and Korea. 4) to prove the interculturalcommunications between non-native speakers in
EFL context are very effective in English
acquisition.
Until recent times, English was used as acommunicative tool among native English speakers,
but recently English was used as a tool among
native English speakers (henceforth NS) andnonnative English speakers (henceforth NNS).
Even more the communication between NNSs and
NNSs is delivered through English, so it is urgent to
set up a new model of English as an "International
Language" or a "World English." It is urgent toconstruct a new environment for learning andpracticing English as an International language, andone of the possible models is to construct theinternational distance learning, which can be used
as an adequate environment for interaction among
non-native speakers in Asian countries.

.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

References
Alptekin, C. (1993). Target-language culture in EFL
materials. ELT Journal, 47(2), 136-143.
Chang, B. M. (2005). World English acquisition
through CCDL project. Journal of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, 9(2), 241-261.
Chang, B. M. (2008). New environment for
acquiring English as an International
Language. Proceedings of the 13th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 129-132.
Chapelle, C. A. (2001). Computer applications insecond language acquisition: Foundations
for teaching, testing and research.
Calbridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, D. (1997). English as a global language.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotionla Intelligence. New
York: Bantam Books.
Goldman, D. (2006). Social Intelligence. New York:
Bantom Books.
Jenkins, J. (2003). World Englishes. New York:
Routledge.
Kachuru, B. (1992). The other tongue: English
across cultures (2nd ed.). Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois Press.
Klopf, D.W. and McCroskey, J.C. (2007).
Intercultural communication encounters.
MA: Allyn & Bacon
Nakano, M. (Ed.) (2007). World Englishes andMiscommunications.
Tokyo:
WasedaUniversity Interantional.
Nakano, M. and CCDL Research Center (2006).
Cross-Cultural Distance Learning Teacher’s
Manual Vol.1. Tokyo:Media Mix, Waseda
University.
Nunan, D. (1999). Second language teaching andlearning. Boston: Heinle & Heinle
Publishers.
Warschauer, M. (1997). Computer-mediatedcollaborative learning. Modern Language
Journal, 81(4), 470-481

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

University students’ recognition and use of strings in L2 writing
Victoria Muehleisen1 and Sean Wray2

1

School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University, 2Waseda University International
vicky@waseda.jp, swray@kurenai.waseda.jp
are equally essential in communication. Indeed,
Ellis, Simpson-Vlach, and Maynard (2008) claimthat the presence or absence of a sufficient amountof certain lexical strings help distinguish native-like
discourse from non-native. Yet, for the L2 student,
particularly those learning academic writing, anadditional burden lies with multi-word sequences
found in sources that are not formulaic, but rather
word choices unique to the author.
While students can be taught strategies to deal
with words and phrases considered “shared” byparticular discourse communities, i.e. language thatis not unique to the author and thus does not have tobe reworded, paraphrasing words and phrases thatare not shared remains the initial hurdle for mostsecond-language learners. The first stage of ourinvestigation into how students deal with lexicalstrings they encounter seeks to identify and describe
the strategies they deploy in incorporating
non-formulaic four-word strings into their academic
essays.
For this study, we use two learners’ corpora of
essays gathered from basic and advanced level
English-language students in the academic writing
program at the School of International Studies,
Waseda University. The basic-level essay corpus
contains 306 essays (about 166,000 words) written
as first drafts for an assignment which required
students to make an argument on the ethics of
keeping animals in zoos. The advanced-level
essay corpus contains 387 essays (about 296,500
words) written as first drafts for an assignment on
the dangers and benefits of genetically-engineered(GM) food. For both assignments, students wererequired to choose sources from a set of provided
readings with which to support their arguments.
Using the concordance application AntConc, we
compared the strings most commonly found in
students’ essays to the strings used in the readings
and the descriptions of the assignments.
AntConc’s N-gram tool allowed us identify strings
which were used repeated in the corpus (that is,strings which were used in the essays of manydifferent students), while the File View tool allowed
us to zoom in on the use of a string in the context ofa particular essay. In this paper, we present a

Abstract
Paraphrasing is an essential writing skill tool incomposing academic essays. Many studies of L2
writing, however, primarily research the issue ofplagiarism, only touching on paraphrasing as a wayof avoiding plagiarism. This study examines how
L2 students actually render text from outside
sources in their academic essays; specifically, how
students deal with unique lexical strings theyencounter in the writing process. We use a corpus ofnearly 700 student essays (totaling more than
450,000 words) written for two specificassignments (one for a basic level writing class, andone for an advanced level class), together withconcordancing software to find repeated four-word
strings.
We compared these to the strings
explicitly taught in the writing course, as well as tothe strings which occur in the articles which thestudents were assigned to use as sources for theiressays. We find that while even the basic level
students are fairly skilled at identifying uniquelanguage, the ability to appropriately integrate thesestrings into their own writing is something that only
develops over time.
We also find that theadvanced students have a greater command of
lexical strings, which could be a result of theirlonger exposure to the conventions of English
writing.

Keywords
Academic writing; bundles; clusters; concordance;
corpus; lexical strings; paraphrasing

Introduction
Corpus-based research has established that a
sizeable portion of language is built uponpredictable word sequences. These lexical clusters,
bundles or strings, such as “in order to,” or “on theother hand,” are characterized by their lexicalcommonness (Sinclair, 1991), their high-frequency,
three- and four-word sequencing (Biber, Conrad, &Cortes, 2004), and by their distribution according todiscipline (Hyland, 2008). Along with theseformulaic strings, idiomatic language, such as “overthe top” also occur as fixed-meaning phrases, and59

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

them because they are closely related to the topic
and therefore an efficient way to package
information. Finally, the asterisks mark strings
which seem to come from the students themselves:
students are specifically urged not to use absolute
quantifiers such as the “all” found “all zoos arecruel” and “that all zoos are,” and the strings “overthe world” and “are a lot of” are both strings wehave often seen in essays written for otherassignments. (In fact, the former is also one of the
top 25 strings in the essays of the advanced students,
which are described in the next section.)preliminary analysis of four-word clusters found in
the two student essay corpora.

1

The most common four-word strings
and their sources

1.1
Strings in the basic level essays on zoos
There were 433 four-word strings which occurred
more than 10 times in the corpus. The top 25 ofthese are shown in Table 1 in the Appendix.
Looking at just the top 25, we immediately see thatthe strings do not occur independently of each other.
For example, the top two strings “zoos are crueland” (175 occurrences) and “cruel andunnecessary” (154 occurrences) occur together 150
times in the longer string “zoos are cruel andunnecessary.” (Other ways of continuing the string“zoos are cruel and” include “zoos are cruel andprovide no significant benefits”, and “zoos are crueland costly”.) Similarly, of the 71 occurrences of“reason why zoos are”, 56 are part of the longer
string “another reason why zoos are”. (Other
longer strings include “the reason why zoos are”
and “another common reason why zoos are”.)
The total figure of 433 four-word strings thus
includes many strings which overlap in the text.
Table 1 also shows the probable sources of the
top 25 strings. In many cases, we can be surethrough the use of quotation marks or attribution
verbs and phrases that the writer intentionally took
the string directly from a particular reading. In othercases, even when such markings are absent, ourexperience as writer teachers makes us think thatstudents have learned the use of a word or phrasefrom the reading; one example of this is “play animportant role”, with a sense of the word play notoften encountered in the writing of students at thislevel. However, there are still other strings, such as“animals in zoos are”, which occur in at least one of
the readings but which a student might also
independently create, so the sources can only betentatively identified.
Six of the top 25 strings seem to have beentaken directly from the description of the task given
to the students. Another eight of the top 25 include
parts of strings which were explicitly taught in class,and which the students are using to structure theiressays. (In all, 39 of the top 100 strings were ofthis type). Four of the top 25 strings are strings
which occur in the same exact form in one or moreof the readings, and which the students may havetaken from these sources (Of the top 100 students,
11 were of this type). Four of the strings are what
we are calling “topic-related”. They are not foundword-for-word in the task description or thereadings, but many students have come up with

1.2

Strings in the advanced level essays on
GM food
The essays written by the advanced level students
for this assignment were required to be longer thanthose written for the basic level assignment on zoos.
This is probably one reason for the greater numberof strings in the GM Food essay corpus: there were
792 four-word strings which occurred 10 or moretimes. The top 25 strings are listed in Table 2 in the
Appendix.
Looking at sources of the top 25 strings, we seethat unlike the basic students, the advanced students
did not rely so heavily on strings that had been usedin the task description or explicitly taught in class.
Three of the topic 25 strings are ones that students
may have been taught explicitly in previous writingclasses, namely “on the other hand,” “can be said
that”, and “it can be said”, and altogether the top
100 strings include 13 of this type. However, thestrings most often used by advanced students comedirectly from the readings (10 of the top 25 strings,
and 35 of the top 100) or are closely related to the
topic (9 of the top 25, and 46 of the top 100) . The
nature of the strings taken from the readings seems
to be somewhat different as well, with several ofthese strings being from the titles of the readings orproper names from the texts, in other words, strings
that cannot be paraphrased. The topic-related
strings, however, are good candidates for stretchesof text in which the students have tried toparaphrase the reading.

2

Closer examination of two strings
taken from the readings

In this section, we look more carefully at how
students are using strings taken from the readings inquotations and in paraphrases. Due to space
limitations, we will focus on just one interesting
string from each of the corpora.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

up: “not a single case of harm”, “without one single
case of harm,” there was no single case of harm”,
and “no single case of harm is reported”. These
short paraphrases are fairly successful, but we seethat a few students run into difficulty when trying toparaphrase the whole sentence: “…the overall US
people have eaten over a trillion serving of foodadded to at least one genetically modified
ingredients and so far not a single case of harm has
been found.”

2.1“deprived animals of their” in the zoo
essaysThis string occurred 39 times in the basic-level
corpus. We’ll first look at the 28 times it occurredas part of the longer string “zoos deprive animals of
their freedom”, which occurred in the following
sentence from one of the readings: “Since zoos
deprive animals of their freedom, it is difficult for
species such as elephants, bears and lions to becontent in the limited condition of a zoo.” Only one
student included the 6 word string in a direct
quotation: “According to Naturewatch, ‘zoos
deprive animals of their freedom.’” One otherstudent used the whole sentence and attributed it toa particular reading, but without quotation marks:“In article2, it is said that since zoos deprive
animals of their freedom, it is difficult for species
such as elephants, bears and lions to be content in
the limited condition of a zoos.” Seven students
embedded the string in a sentence after a phrase
such as “some people may say” or “some claim
that”, while the others simply incorporated thestring (in one case, the whole sentence from thereading) into their own essays without any
attribution: “First, zoos deprive animals of theirfreedom.”
In the 11 cases in which the shorter four-word
string was used by itself, we can see someinteresting attempts at using the phrase creatively.
Some of these are successful (“Although zoos
deprive animals of their freedom to a certain
degree…) but some are less so (“This means thatzoos limit animals’ growth and deprive animals of
their lifetime.”)3

Discussion and conclusions

Although in its early stages, our initial findings dosuggest that students’ source integration strategies
of unique lexical strings share some over-arching
characteristics, but also differ according to the stageof English development. While the advanced
students relied much less on intact strings from thetask description and taught structures, both basic
and advanced level students tended to avoid
paraphrasing source-based strings, but did use themin either a cited quotation, near copy or copy. For
L2 students, this strategy of imitation is indicativeof their inexperience. Keck (2006) found that when
given the same summarizing task, most L1 students
attempted to substantially reword the text whilemost L2 students did not. Similarly, in a study ofChinese students, Shi (2004) reported similarfindings, but also emphasized that the students’borrowing of large chunks of language was notevidence of intentional plagiarism, but rather oflearning. This is likewise true of our students, since
the avoidance of plagiarism and the correct use ofsources was an explicit focus of instruction in theseclasses. Rather, we would argue, until students
gain both a breadth and depth of lexicalsophistication, they have little recourse but to blend
their voice with another to create both coherent andintended meaning. Howard (2001) calls this processof learning to paraphrase patchwriting; Pecorari(2003) further adds that patchwriting is a process
whereby students borrow without malice tosupplement their output to achieve a goal, gradually
reducing their dependency as they gain
competency; our early results seem to support thisnotion.
The results of our corpus enquiry indicate thatstudents at the basic level reproduced strings fromthe task description more often whereas theadvanced students, perhaps judging the task
description an easy or obvious structure to reword,
attempted significantly more changes. Thistendency is also in line with Day and Brown’s(1983) research on L2 summarizing ability; at thenovice level, students rely on a basic copy-delete
strategy in which a few words are removed orchanged, but a large chunk of the text is copied

2.2“single case of harm” in theadvanced-level GM food essays
Next, we examined the use of the string “single
case of harm”, which occurred 30 times in theadvanced-level corpus. This string also occurs in
the following sentence from one of the readings:“Further, Americans have collectively eaten over atrillion servings of food containing one or more GM
ingredients, without a single case of harm.” Wefound that fifteen of the students quoted thesentence in its entirety within quotation marks(although two slightly changed the wording!) withan attempt to indicate the source. Ten students did
not use quotation marks, but correctly attributed theidea to the authors of the reading, either in the samesentence or in a paragraph summarizing the reading.
Only five students used the string “single case ofharm” with no attribution at all, one in the
introductory paragraph and two in the conclusion.
Looking at paraphrasing, we found several
different ways that the four word string was taken
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Hyland, K. (2008). As can be seen: Lexical bundles
and disciplinary variation. English forSpecific Purposes. 27, 4-21.

almost verbatim, while at the invention stage
students are able to reproduce meaning faithful tothe original text, but independent of the source
language. Our findings also suggest a relationshipwith Li and Schmitt’s (2009) research into how
lexical strings are learned. Their study suggests that
acquisition seems optimal when strings areencountered in context, such as in sources, andwhen lexical strings are explicitly taught, as whenpresented in textbooks, but less effective via
instructor feedback. With the basic students in ourstudy, the higher frequency of strings traced back tosources and the course textbook may indicate thatthese novice writers are simply using pre-structured
strings relevant to the topic, but new to them.
Future analysis of the learners’ corpus hopes toyield a more complete description of student
strategies when confronted with both unique lexicalstrings and formulaic strings. Other areas inviting
research are also whether an intuitive word limit
exists which acts a line of demarcation between
opting to paraphrase, or to quote or summarize. In
addition, a study to determine if the grades awarded
to L2 essays which include these “native-like”
strings bear a relationship may reveal more about‘the other half’ of writing instruction – theinstructor.

Keck, C. (2006). The use of paraphrase in summary
writing: A comparison of L1 and L2
writers. Journal of Second Language
Writing. 15, 261-278.
Li, J. & Schmitt, N. (2009). The acquisition oflexical phrases in academic writing: A
longitudinal case study. Journal of Second
Language Writing. 18 (2), 85-102.
Pecorari, D. (2003). Good and original: Plagiarism
and patchwriting in academic
second-language writing. Journal of
Second Language Writing. 12, 317-345.
Shi, L. (2004). Textual Borrowing in
Second-language Writing. Written
Communication. 21, 171-200.
Sinclair,

References
Anthony, L. (2008). AntConc 3.2.2w for Windows.
Waseda, Japan: Retrieved fromhttp://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/
Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Cortes, V. (2004). If you
look at… Lexical bundles in university
teaching
andtextbooks.
Applied
Linguistics, 25L, 371–405.
Brown, A., & Day, J. (1983). Macrorules for
Summarizing Texts: The Development ofExpertise. Journal of Verbal learning and
Verbal Behavior. 22, 1-14.
Ellis, N., Simpson-Vlach, R., & Maynard, C.,(2008). Formulaic Language in Native andSecond Language Speakers:
Psycholinguistics, Corpus Linguistics, and
TESOL. TESOL Quarterly. 42(3),375-396.
Howard, R. (2001). Plagiarism: What Should a
Teacher Do? Paper presented at theConference on College Composition andCommunication, Denver, Colorado.
Retrieved from http://wrt-howard.syr.edu/
Papers/CCCC2001.html

62

J. (1991). Corpus, concordance,
collocation. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Appendix. Tables of the most frequently occurring clusters.
Table 1. Top 25 four-word clusters in the basic level essays on zoos
Number of
4 word cluster
Probable source
Rank
occurrences1

175

zoos are cruel andtask description

2

154

are cruel and unnecessary

topic-related

3

133

zoos are necessary fortask description

4106

all over the world

*

5

103

for animals and people

task description

6102

zoos are not necessary

reading

7

92

necessary for animals andtask description

880

all zoos are cruel

**

9

72

these reasons zoos aretaught in class

1071

It is true thattaught in class

1171

reason why zoos aretaught in class1268

Another reason why zoos

taught in class

13

67

First of all zoos

taught in class

14

65

that zoos are crueltask description

15

63

are necessary for animals

task description

16

63Fact Sheet on Zoos

reading

17

62

an important role inreading

18

60

play an important rolereading

1959

animals in zoos are

topic-related

20

59

are a lot of

*

21

55

say that zoos aretaught in class2254

argue that zoos aretaught in class23

52

for these reasons zoos

taught in class24

50

for animals to live

topic-related

25

48

that all zoos are**63Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 2. Top 25 four-word clusters in the advanced level essays on GM food
Rank

Number ofoccurrences

Probablesource4 word cluster

1

177

Union of Concerned Scientists

reading2

123that GM food is

topic

3

93

all over the world

*

4

90

On the other hand

*

5

89

of genetically modified foodreading682

genetically modified food is

topic

7

78

that genetically modified food

topic

8

73

can be said that

*

9

73

genetically modified foods are

topic

10

72

Risks of Genetic Engineering

reading

11

68Paul Driessen and Cyril

reading

1267

of GM food is

topic

13

64

Driessen and Cyril Boynes

reading

14

64

of genetically modified foods

topic

15

64

that genetically modified foods

topic

16

63

it can be said

*

17

62

and Cyril Boynes Jr

reading

18

59

the use of pesticides

reading

1958

it is possible toreading

20

58

that GM foods are

topic

21

56

GM food can be

topic

22

54

humans and the environment

topic

23

50

the safety of GM

topic

24

49

GM Facts versus Fears

reading

25

48

at the same timereading64

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Links between research on L2 phonological variation and the pedagogyof L2 phonology: A study of phonological variation in the English
interlanguage of Cantonese speakers
Yuet Hung Cecilia Chan
Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong
ctcyhc@cityu.edu.hk
of L1 phonological transfer and phonologicalawareness in L2 interlanguage phonology. On thebasis of the results of this study, the pedagogicalimplications are discussed.

Abstract
This study focused on the phonological variation of
initials /n-/ and /l-/ in the English interlanguage ofCantonese speakers in Hong Kong. This study
adopted Labov’s (1972) and Tarone’s (1983, 1988)
research methodology. It included elementary,intermediate and post-intermediate English learners
from primary school, secondary school anduniversity respectively. Six English tasks were
designed for collecting data: free conversation,
informal interview, passage reading, word reading,minimal pair reading and minimal pair repetition.
The results of the study show that (1) L1 negativetransfer plays a role in L2 phonological variation;(2) L2 phonological fossilization occurs; (3) The
frequency of phonological substitution varies withspeech styles; (4) A low level of phonologicalawareness leads to phonological substitution. There
are links between the research findings and thepedagogy of L2 phonology. The pedagogy of L2
phonology should aim at enhancing learners’
phonological awareness in L2, enriching them withknowledge of L2 phonology and phonetics, training
them to analyse the existing variation patterns intheir L2 production, and using different speechstyles for promoting pronunciation accuracy.

1
Research background
Recent studies have started paying attention to themerging of /n-/ with /l-/ in Hong Kong English. The
findings of these studies will be briefly reviewed,
followed by a short description of the issues ofsecond language acquisition (SLA) related to ourstudy, including L1 transfer in SLA and thevariability of interlanguage.
1.1

Previous studies on the merging of /n-/with /l-/ in Hong Kong English
The phonological feature of the merging of /n-/ with/l-/ in Hong Kong English received attention in asmall number of studies (Bolton and Kwok, 1990,
Chan, 2000, Hung, 2000, 2002, and Au, 2002). The
phonological variation of /n-/ and /l-/ described in
Bolton and Kwok (1990) and Chan (2000) was
based on a small quantity of incidental observation
data. This phonological variation was more closely
investigated in Hung (2000, 2002) and Au (2002).
These two studies exclusively used unnatural datacollected from the reading of wordlists andcontrolled presentations. All the students in theabove research were studying at university. Amongthese studies, Bolton and Kwok (1990), Chan
(2000), and Hung (2000, 2002) pointed out that thetwo initials, /n-/ and /l-/, were used interchangeably
by students due to the influence of their mothertongue, Cantonese, in which /n-/ and /l-/ are merged.
In Au’s study (2002), among 74 replacement
patterns of single onset consonants shown in thedata collected, the phenomenon of the loss of /n-/ ina number of lexical items demonstrates that thestudents had difficulty in producing the onset /n-/ inEnglish. Au suggested that the replacement of /n-/by /l-/ in English is influenced by non-distinction of/n-/ and /l-/ in Cantonese. All the above studies
claimed that mother tongue interference plays asignificant role in the variation of /n-/ and /l-/ inHong Kong English. This argument would be moreconvincing if the language data were elicited fromlearners of different levels of L2 proficiency, andKeywords
Phonological transfer, interlanguage phonology,
phonological variation

Introduction
This study investigated the English interlanguage ofHong Kong Cantonese speakers, with a focus on the
production of syllable initials /n-/ and /l-/. Previous
studies found that Hong Kong Cantonese speakers
do not make a distinction between /n-/ and /l-/, andinitial /n-/ is replaced by /l-/ in their speech (Yeung,
1980, Bourgerie, 1990, Bauer, 1982, 1997, and Ho2004). Studies on Hong Kong students learning
English indicate that due to L1 phonologicaltransfer, students mispronounced English words
with /n-/ as /l-/ (Bolton and Kwok, 1990, Chan,
2000, Hung, 2000, 2002, and Au, 2002). This study,
unlike previous studies, not only investigated therole of L1 in L2 interlanguage of Hong Kong
students, but also closely examined the interaction65Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

recognised that there are various degrees or levelsof awareness. Schmidt (1990) summarises threecrucial levels: (1) perception, including consciousand subliminal perception, (2) noticing (or focal
awareness) and (3) understanding, which are from a
low to high order. Most L2 studies were interested
in examining the roles of conscious andunconscious processes in second language learning,
and investigating the models and methods ofconsciousness-raising for facilitating language
learning (Bialystok, 1978, Rutherford andSharwood Smith, 1988, Schmidt 1990, 1995). In
those studies, attention was paid to the awareness ofsyntactic properties of the target language by L2
learners. In our study, we focused on thephonological awareness, specifically the awarenessof the distinction between /n-/ and /l-/ by Hong
Kong students learning English.

from different stylistic contexts.
1.2
SLA issues related to our study
L1 transfer is always an influencing factor which
receives serious attention in L2 studies. In most ofthe
traditional
studies,
interference
anddevelopmental errors were collected from L2
learners of different native language backgrounds
and proficiency levels, and the role of the L1 in L2
acquisition was examined (Ellis 1994). Following
the traditional studies, this study investigated thepronunciation errors of the replacement of /n-/ by/l-/ in the English interlanguage of Hong Kong
students.
As described in the SLA literature, variations
appear in L2 interlanguage. This study focused on
the systematic interlanguage variations associatedwith the variation of stylistic contexts. Previous
studies suggested that the variations of contexts areassociated with variations of learners’ attention tolanguage form or propositional content, and withthe availability of planning time. Ochs (1979) andTarone (1982, 1983, 1988) adapted Labov’s (1972)
methodological framework and captured L2
learners’ interlanguage variability along with theshifting of styles. The systematic variability ininterlanguage
wasanalysedasonanunplanned/planned continuum (Ochs 1979), or on avernacular/careful stylistic continuum (Tarone 1982,
1983, 1988). The planned and careful styles, which
involve much attention to speech, manifest morecorrect and target-like language forms than do
unplanned and vernacular styles. The effects ofplanning time on L2 production were examined andmixed results obtained. Hulstjin and Hulstjin (1984)
found that learners’ focusing attention on form,
rather than planning time, increased language
accuracy. Ellis’ (1987) study suggested that theavailability of planning time systematically
influenced the accuracy of using particularlinguistic forms. Ellis (1994) explained that if
planning time was used to focus on informational
content but not on language form, language
accuracy was not likely to increase.
Within Labov’s (1972) and Tarone’s (1982, 1983,
1988) theoretical and methodological researchframework, this study adopted a quantitative
approach to analyse the merging of /n-/ with /l-/ indifferent contexts by Hong Kong students learning
English. We further propose not only that theamount of attention to language form varies indifferent contexts as suggested by Tarone (1983,
1988), but also that the degree and level oflanguage awareness differ in different stylistic
contexts. In L2 acquisition studies, language
awareness is commonly equated with language
consciousness (Schmidt 1990). It has been

2

Aims of the study

This study aimed at investigating the phonologicalsubstitution of /l-/ for /n-/ by Cantonese speakers
learning English.
The following research questions were addressed:(1) Does L1 phonological transfer in respect of
the replacement of /n-/ by /l-/ occur in the English
production of Cantonese speakers learning English?
If so, does the occurrence of phonological transfer
negatively correlate with L2 proficiency?
(2) Does L1 phonological transfer vary in
different speech contexts which require different
amounts of attention to pronunciation, and raisedifferent degrees and levels of phonologicalawareness?
(3) Is there any link between our research on L2
phonological variation and the pedagogy of L2
phonology?

3

Research methods

3.1
Participants
There were three groups of English learners:
elementary, intermediate and post-intermediate.
Twentyparticipants were in each group, withequal numbers of females and males. The elementary
learners were fifth or sixth year primary school
students aged 10-12, the intermediate learners, fourthor fifth year secondary school students aged 16-18,
the post-intermediate learners, from year one to year
three university students aged 20-23. The mothertongue of the students was Cantonese, a Chinesedialect. All the students learnt English as a second
language since studying in primary schools fromaround 6 years old. They spoke English at school,
but seldom did so outside school. They did notreceive any formal systematic training in English
phonics, and learnt word pronunciation from English

66

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

syllable)(5) Minimal pair reading:
There were 26 minimal pairs in the list. In eachminimal pair, one word had an initial /n-/ and one
an initial /l-/.
Examples of minimal pairs follow:(a) linenine(b) lowno(6) Minimal pair repetition:
The minimal pair list designed for the reading task
was used again for the repetition task. Students
listened to the pronunciation of each minimal pairrecorded by a native English speaker, and then readeach pair aloud during the pause.

teachers who may not have been native English
speakers.
3.2 Research instruments
3.2.1
Oral tasks
Six tasks were designed for collecting participants’speech data: (1) conversation in pairs, (2) informalinterview, (3) passage reading, (4) word reading, (5)reading of minimal pairs and (6) repetition ofminimal pairs.
(1) Conversation in pairs:
Two participants who knew each other in the same
student group formed a pair. Ten questions were
given to them, each question including some words
with a syllable-initial /n-/ or /l-/. However, theparticipants did not know that their pronunciation of/n-/ and /l-/ was assessed. They took turns to ask
questions and give responses to their partner’s
answers. They were also allowed to talk aboutsomething else which they were interested in. Eachpair was given 20 minutes for casual conversation.
Examples of questions follow:(a) Do you have an English name? Would you likeyour friends to call you by your Chinese nameor your English name?
(b) If you had a chance to travel around the world,
who would you choose as your partner on thejourney?
(2) Informal interview:
Each participant was interviewed by the investigatoror a trained research assistant in a casual way. Ten
simple questions were asked by the investigator. The
questions included some words with asyllable-initial /n-/ or /l-/. The participants did notreceive any clues that we were focusing on thesounds /n-/ and /l-/. They were asked to answer thequestions and talk freely with the investigator. Eachinterview lasted about 20 minutes. Examples ofquestions are given below:(a) What do you eat for lunch and for dinner?
(b) Do you like to study in the morning, or atnight? Why?
(3) Passage reading:A passage in simple English of around 200 words
was designed. About 40 words in the passage hadsyllable initial /n-/ and five words had syllable
initial /l-/. Students read the passages at their own
pace.
(4) Word reading:
A wordlist with 53 words was designed. In thewordlist, the initial /n-/ was in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or
4th syllable of the word, and in some words, initial/n-/ was in more than one syllable. For example:
number, nation (an initial /n-/ in the first syllable)
morning, penny (an initial /n-/ in the secondsyllable)
National, Panasonic (initials /n-/ in more than one

3.2.2 Structured interviews
A structured interview was conducted with eachparticipant after they had completed all the oral tasks.
The interview aimed to know:(1) whether theparticipants learnt to make a distinction between /n-/and /l-/ in English lessons at school; (2) whether andwhen they are aware of making a distinction between/n-/ and /l-/ when they do the oral tasks.
3.3
Administration procedure
All participants followed the same sequence tocomplete the six tasks in one day: (1) conversationin pairs, (2) informal interview, (3) passage reading,(4) word reading, (5) reading of minimal pairs, and(6) repetition of minimal pairs. Students were given
breaks between tasks for resting and preparation.
All tasks were administered in a soundproof
recording room and recorded by a professional MD.
Apart for the task of conversation in pairs, all thetasks were administered to students individually.
After the completion of all the oral tasks, astructured interview was conducted with eachparticipant.
3.4
Methods of data transcription andanalysis
The scripts of conversations and interviews were
worked out and all the words which had initials /n-/and /l-/ were identified. The pronunciation of words
with /n-/ and /l-/ in each task by each participant
was transcribed. All data were transcribed by threeresearch assistants. The transcriptions were thenrandomly checked by the investigator and aphonetician. Spectrographic analyses were required
when the acoustic properties of /n-/ and /l-/produced by the participants were difficult to
identify. In a few cases, the initials /n-/ and /l-/ were
not clearly pronounced, and those data were notincluded in the analysis.
After the sound identification, the mean
percentage of the production of /n-/ words in eachtask by each group was worked out. One-way

67Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

ANOVA and post-hoc Scheffe test was used tocompare the results of four reading tasks (i.e.
passage reading, word reading, minimal pairreading and minimal pair repetition tasks) of thethree proficiency groups. The Proportion Test,
which is a significance test of two proportions of
two independent samples, was used to compare theresults of two spontaneous conversational tasks (i.e.
conversation and interview) between each pair of
proficiency groups.

4

4.2.

Replacement of /n-/ by /l-/ in differenttasks
As shown in Figure 2, in the two casualconversational tasks (i.e. conversation andinterview) which required students to attend more
to informational content than to accurate
pronunciation, a high percentage of /n-/ words(about 65%) was replaced by /l-/.
80
70

Results and discussion
Percentage

The replacement of /n-/ by /l-/ by thethree proficiency groups
Figure 1 shows that all the three groups substituted/l-/ for /n-/, and this result indicates that L1
phonological transfer takes place.

43.5

50

35.5

40
30

21.9
14.7

20

60

Percentage

67.4

60

4.1

50

66.7

10

49.5

0

40.4

Conver sation

40

Interview

Passage
Reading

Word
Reading

Task

34.9

30

Reading of Minimal
MinimalPair
Pairs
Repetition

Figure 2: Mean percentage of words withreplacement of /n-/ by /l-/ in each oral task

20
10
Elementary
Intermediate
English learners English learners

In contrast with the two casual conversationaltasks, in the passage reading task, the inaccuracy
rate of pronunciation of /n-/ words decreased
sharply to 43%. This is due to the fact that thepassage reading task of careful and formal style
does not require participants’ attention to the speech
content, but only to pronunciation. In turn, thesubstitution of /n-/ by /l-/ was relatively lessfrequent in the word reading task than in thepassage reading task. This is because whenlearners read the word list, they paid very close
attention to the pronunciation of each word. The
minimal pair reading task of much more careful
and formal style raised learners’ high degree andlevel of awareness of the distinction between /n-/and /l-/, and therefore it was not so likely that /n-/
was substituted by /l-/. As shown in Figure 2, only
about 20% of words with /n-/ were replaced by /l-/in the minimal pair reading task. In the minimal
pair repetition task of the most careful style,because learners had a chance to listen to the model
pronunciation of each pair of words before theyread them aloud, it was least likely for learners tomispronounce /n-/ as /l-/.

Postintermediate
English learners

Subject groups

Figure 1: Mean Percentage of words withreplacement of /n-/ by /l-/ by the three English
proficiency groups
The results of one-way ANOVA show that there
were significant differences between the results ofthe four reading tasks of the three proficiency
groups (F (2, 58) =3.72, p<0.05). The post-hoc
Scheffe tests indicate that there was a significant
difference between the elementary group and theintermediate group, and between the elementaryand post-intermediate group, in respect of thereplacement of /n-/ by /l-/ in the four reading tasks,
while a significant difference was not foundbetweentheintermediate
group
and
post-intermediate group. The same significance test
results were obtained from the Proportion Test on
the two casual conversational tasks between groups.
All the significance test results show that L1
interference in terms of the replacement of /n-/ by/l-/ was less evident in the intermediate andpost-intermediate groups than in the elementarygroup. But the post-intermediate learners did not
produce more accurate pronunciation thanintermediate learners, indicating that phonologicalfossilization occurred.

4.3

Learners’ awareness of the distinction
between /n-/ and /l-/
The results of the structured interview show that
more than half of the participants had incidental orplanned learning of making a distinction between/n-/ and /l-/ in English lessons. 18% of participants
68Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

importance of early development of phonologicalawareness in L2 learning. As shown in this study,
phonological awareness plays an important role in
the production of accurate pronunciation in L2.
Minimal pair pronunciation practices could bedesigned to raise learners’ phonological awarenessbetween two similar sounds. Focused language
input should be provided with learners to arouse
their attention to the fossilized sounds.
We propose that subconscious phonologicalawareness raised by the provision of L2 focusedlanguage input and practice, together withconscious learning of L2 phonology and phonetics
can further enhance accurate pronunciation in the
L2. Using the production of /n-/ and /l-/ in English
by Cantonese speakers as an example, if thedifferences of manner of articulation and phonetic
features between these two sounds are explicitly
introduced to learners, it will be less likely for themto substitute /l-/ for /n-/. /n/ and /l/ are both alveolar,
but /n/ is a nasal sound and /l/ is a lateral. When the/n-/ sound is produced, the soft palate is lowered,
which opens a passageway into the nasal cavity andair continually escapes through the nose. When the/l-/ sound is produced, air comes out from the twosides of the tongue and learners could be able tofeel the airflow.
Furthermore, as reflected in our study,
pronunciation accuracy varies with speech styles.
We are more likely to find the occurrence of L1
negative phonological transfer in casual speech thanin careful speech. In the training of L2
pronunciation, different speech styles could be used.
We could make use of learners’ existing
phonological variations in different speech styles
for sound perception and distinction training. We
aim not only at learners’ accurate pronunciation in
careful reading, but also at high pronunciation
accuracy in casual speech, such as casualconversation and interview. The high accuracy incasual speech indicates the complete acquisition of
L2 phonology.

in intermediate and post-intermediate groups (butnone in the elementary group) reported that they
were aware of making a distinction between /n-/and /l-/ in spontaneous speech. About 20%, 35%
and 45% of participants in each group started to beaware of making a distinction between /n-/ and /l-/when doing passage reading, word reading andminimal pair reading tasks respectively. All thelearners reflected that their awareness of making a
distinction between /n-/ and /l-/ was lowest in
spontaneous casual production (i.e. conversationand interviews), and highest in the minimal readingtasks.
Our learners’ responses in the structured
interviews and the results of the oral tasks indicatethat no matter which proficiency group the learners
belonged to, they were less likely to suffer L1
interference when their phonological awareness ofmaking a distinction between /n-/ and /l-/ wasincreasingly raised.
4.4.

Replacement of /l-/ by /n-/ by the three
proficiency groups
When students were more aware of making a
distinction between /n-/ and /l-/, and more aware of
not producing /n-/ as /l-/, the phenomenon of
hypercorrection of /l-/ appeared (i.e. replacement of/l-/ by /n-/.) As shown in Figure 3, students weremost likely to replace /l-/ by /n-/ in the minimal pairreading and repetition tasks which raised the mostphonological awareness. But the percentage ofwords with this hypercorrected replacement in these
two tasks was not high - about 10 to 15%.
16
12.5

14

14.1

Percentage

12
10
8

4.9

6
4

1.7

1.5

6

0
Conver sation

Interview

Passage
Reading

Reading of
MinimalPairs

Conclusion

This study shows that L1 phonological transfer inrespect of the replacement of /n-/ by /l-/ appeared in
the English interlanguage of Hong Kong Cantonese
speakers. The occurrence of L1 phonologicalinterference negatively correlated with learners’
English proficiency. The replacement of /n-/ by /l-/might become a natural and habitual formation, andtherefore even more advanced learners also
incorrectly pronounced /n-/ as /l-/ in casual
production. Furthermore, the extent of L1
phonological interference varies with different
speech styles which require different amounts ofattention to pronunciation, and raise different

2
MinimalPair
Repetition

Task

Figure 3: Mean Percentage of words withreplacement of /l-/ by /n-/ in each oral task
5
Implication
This study has implications for the pedagogy of L2
phonology. The findings of this study highlight the69

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Cantonese.
In Kirkpatrick, A. (Ed.).
Englishes in Asia: Communication, identity,
power
and
education.
Melbourne:
Language Australia. 191-200.
Labov, W. (1972).
Sociolinguistic pattern.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Ochs, E. (1979). Planned and unplanned discourse.
In Givon,T. (Ed.) Syntax and semantics, Vol.
12: Discourse and semantics. New York:
Academic Press. 51-80.
Rutherford, W. & M. Sharwood Smith (1988).
Consciousness raising and universal
grammar. In Rutherford, W. & M.
Sharwood Smith (Eds.) Grammar andsecond language teaching. New York:
Newsbury House.107-116.
Schmidt, R. W. (1990) The role of consciousness insecondlanguagelearning.
Applied
Linguistics. 11,2,129-158.
_____________(1995). Consciousness andforeign language learning: A tutorial on therole of attention and awareness in learning.
In Schmidt, R. (Ed.) Attention andawareness in foreign language learning.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii, Second
Language Teaching and Curriculum Center.
1-63.
Tarone, E. (1982). Systematicity and attention ininterlanguage.
Language
Learning.
32,69-82.
________ (1983). On the variability ofinterlanguage systems. Applied Linguistics.
4, 143-163.
________ (1988). Variation in interlanguage.
London: Edward Arnold.
Yeung, S.W.H. (1980).
Some aspects ofphonological variation in the Cantonese
spoken in Hong Kong. M.A. Thesis.
University of Hong Kong.

degrees and levels of phonological awareness.
There is an interaction between L1 phonologicalinterference and L2 phonological awareness. Whenphonological awareness in the L2 is increasingly
raised, L1 phonological interference is less likely toappear. The findings of this study shed light on thepedagogy of L2 phonology.
References
Au, Y.A. (2002). Markedness theory and syllable
structure difficulties experienced by
CantoneselearnersofEnglish.
Unpublished PhD thesis, University ofReading, Reading.
Bauer, R. S. (1982). Cantonese sociolinguistic
patterns: Correlating social characteristics
of speakers with phonological variables inHong Kong. PhD dissertation, University ofCalifornia, Berkeley.
__________ (1997). Modern Cantonese phonology.
New York: Mouton.
Bialystok, E. (1978). A theoretical model of second
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Bolton, K., & Kwok, H. (1990). The dynamics ofthe Hong Kong accent: Social identity andsociolinguistic description. Journal of
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Bourgerie, D. S. (1990). A Quantitative Study ofSociolinguistic Variation in Cantonese.
PhD Dissertation, Ohio State University,
Ohio.
Chan, Y.W. (2000). English and Cantonese
PhonologyinContrast:
Explaining
Cantonese
ESL
learner’sEnglishpronunciation problems. Language, Culture
and Curriculum. 13, 67-85.
Ellis, R. (1987). Interlanguage variability innarrative discourse: Style shifting in the useof past tense. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition. 9, 1-20.
_______(1994). The study of second language
acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University
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Ho, M. T. (2004). A sociolinguistic investigation of
Cantonese in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
Unpublished PhD Thesis, University ofEssex, Essex.
Hulstjin, J., & Hulstjin, W. (1984). Grammaticalerrors as a function of grammaticalconstraints and explicit knowledge.
Language Learning. 34, 23-43.
Hung, T. (2000). Towards a phonology of Hong
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English phonology and the influence of

Acknowledgement
The work described in this paper was supported by
the GRF grant from RGC Hong Kong (Project No.
CityU 1438/05H), and by CityU SRG Grant(7001657). The whole research investigated themerging of /n-/ with /l-/ in Hong Kong Cantonese,
Putonghua and English. This paper only reported
the results regarding Hong Kong English.

70

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Raising Awareness of English Prosody among Thai University Students
Soisithorn Isarankura

Language Institute, Dhurakij Pundit University
soisithorn@yahoo.com

Equally, mastery of prosody is essential if nonnative
speakers are to make themselves understood (Taylor,1993). Errors in prosody can lead tomisinterpretation of speaker’s intention or evenserious miscommunication.
Despite its importance, prosody has been aneglected feature in English language instruction.
A few possible reasons that account for the neglect
could be that prosody is too complicated and that it
appears to be unteachable and thus possibly
unlearnable (Greenwood, 2002; Silveira, 2002).
The lack of attention to prosodic features has
resulted in limited knowledge about how tointegrate appropriate instruction and EFL materials
into EFL classrooms.

Abstract
This paper examined the extent to which theteaching of prosody improved the performance andintelligibility of nonnative speaker’s speech.
Thirty Thai students’ speech samples were drawn
from a pool of audio-recordings of 108 first-year
English-major students in an English Phonetics
course. Based on scores of three pronunciation tests,
speech data of fifteen students who scored highest
and fifteen students who scored lowest wereselected and placed in the High and Low groups.
The students recorded their speech of 50 isolated
words and a short text before and after thethree-week instruction of English prosodic features.
The results revealed that both groups showedstatistically significant improvements in theirpronunciation of prosody. The high group mademost improvement in their performance on pausing,whereas the low group showed the greatest degreeof improvement in word stress on individual words.
The data showed that L1 transfer decreased andintelligibility increased significantly in the highgroup, but in the low group these results were notstatistically significant. The information gained
from the study suggests that although someprosodic features may be more challenging thanothers, it presents an argument in support ofincorporating prosody in EFL classes for intelligible
pronunciation.

1

Background

As prosody includes a number of complicatedfeatures, it helps to have some understanding ofsome of the basic concepts regarding these features,and we shall look briefly at these first.
Prosody, also known as suprasegmentals,
refers to features that typically extend more than thelevel of individual sounds like consonants andvowels. English prosodic features mainly include
stress, rhythm, pausing and intonation. Thesefeatures are characterized by the prominent qualityof pitch, duration, and loudness.
Pitch is determined by the fundamental
frequency of the sound made by the vibration of the
vocal cords and causes us to hear notes and sounds
as relatively ‘high’ or ‘low’.
Stress functions at both the word level and thesentence level. Word stress refers to the way inwhich greater prominence in pitch, duration andloudness is placed on a certain syllable than others
in a word (Roach, 2000). Different languages
have different systems of word stress placement.
English, for example, manifests a free stress system,
whereby stress is movable and can potentially fallon any syllable of polysyllabic words. Thai is akinetic tone language and is characterized by afixed stress system. The primary stress in Thaiwords almost always falls on the last syllable.
This is why most Thai EFL learners have difficulty

Keywords
Prosody, pitch, stress, rhythm, pausing, andintonation

Introduction
Prosody—i.e. stress, rhythm, pausing, intonation,
etc.—plays a crucial role in communication(Morley, 1991; Levis, 1999; Hahn, 2004).
Anderson-Hsieh et al. (1992) maintains thatprosodyhasagreater
influenceoncomprehensibility and intelligibility than the otherelements in pronunciation—i.e. segmentals such as
consonants and vowels. A good understanding of
prosody is important for nonnative speakers toclearly interpret native speakers’ intended messages.

71Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

system of intonation contours to English discourse.
Although the important role of prosody indetermining perceived comprehensibility andintelligibility has recently been recognized among
many scholars (e.g., Munro and Derwin, 1995;
Hahn, 2004), much less empirical research has been
carried out on second language (L2) production of
prosodic features than on other language skills.
Evidence has been presented that explicit
instruction significantly improved learners’
performance on prosodic features.
Thus, theobjective of the present study was twofold:(1) to evaluate the extent to which explicit
training of prosody improves the speech
performance of Thai first-year English-major
students at Dhurakij Pundit University; and(2) to investigate the extent to which
improvements in prosodic features had an impact
on the reduction of L1 transfer and the increase of
intelligibility in L2 speech.

pronouncing English words with correct stressplacement.
At the sentence level, not all words in a
sentence receive the same amount of stress. In
English, content words (words that carryinformation such as nouns, verbs, adjectives andadverbs) are usually stressed, whereas function
words (words that carry grammatical functions suchas articles, prepositions and auxiliaries) are not,unless marked. In connected speech, sentencestress in English often introduces new information
to the discourse context or marks contrastive
information. Thai EFL learners often fail to stressnew information and de-stress old information.
Instead, they tend to stress all words with more orless equal pitch, duration and volume, without one
prominent stress to indicate new or contrastive
information. This is supported by Wennerstrom’s(1994) findings that native speakers of Thai,
Japanese and Spanish failed to use pitch movement
to signal new or contrastive information in the samemanner that native English speakers do.
In English, the combination of word andsentence stress contributes to rhythm. The stressedsyllables of the content words are aligned regularly
into rhythmic beats, which normally occur atregular time intervals. English is thus considered
to have a stress-timed rhythm. The problems inThai speakers of English appear to rise from thestress placement when Thai speakers usually placestress on almost every syllable in English including
function words.
Pausing is also important in English in that itmarks boundaries of tone groups, which serves toindicate syntactic units. A tone group contains astressed syllable, usually found on the lastprominent word assumed to be ‘new’ information
upon which the speaker wishes to draw the hearer’s
attention. Thus, pausing is important for effective
communication as far as the hearer is concerned.
Intonation is the melody of pitch changes of
the utterance. It is one of the most significant
features in English that guides the listener and helps
them to follow. Intonation functions as a signal ofgrammatical structure and marks sentence, clauseand other boundaries. Intonation is used to convey
contrasts between different question types and theways in which questions differ from statements. It
also conveys distinctive meanings as well as the
speaker’s attitude, emotion, or even social
backgrounds.
As Thai is a tone language,
intonation in Thai is a complex interplay between
tone, word stress and sentence stress.
The
problems for Thai speakers come from the transfer
of constraints of the pitch movement in different
types of Thai syllable structures into thepronunciation of English by assigning the Thai

2

MethodThe method involved selecting speech samples ofThai first-year students, rating the speech samples,
and then analyzing the samples through statisticalprocedures.
2.1
Speech Samples
The speech samples were taken from a pool ofaudio-recordings of 108 first-year English major
students in an English Phonetics course at Dhurakij
Pundit University. From this original sample,
thirty recordings were selected based on the
speakers’ scores on three previous pronunciation
tests conducted earlier in the course. Speech dataof 15 students who scored highest and 15 students
who scored lowest were selected. They wereplaced in two ability groups referred to as the Highand the Low group, respectively. These students
had minimal or no previous linguistic knowledge ofEnglish prosody prior to the study.
2.2
Native Speaker Raters
Three experienced native English speaking teachers(NESTs), one Australian, one American, and one
British, participated as native speaker raters of L2
speech.
2.3
Instrument
The test materials used in the study consisted of twoparts. The first part contained 50 individual
English words drawn from an extended text. The
second part was the full text from which the 50
words listed in Part 1 were drawn. The text was
retrieved from http://www.manythings.org/listen/sleep.html. The test material was used at the
pre-training (T1) and post-training (T2).
72Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

2.4
Data Collection
The students were asked to read and audio-record
the two parts of the test in a laboratory without the
researcher being present before and after athree-week explicit instruction of English prosodic
features. A total of six ninety-minute training
sessions of English prosody, in theory and practice,were conducted to raise the students’ awareness andhelp them understand the effective use of word
stress, sentence stress, rhythm and intonation.
Before the actual recording, the students were told
to practice their readings silently, then read the
speech material once at normal speaking rate.

3

Results and Discussions

3.1
Word Stress
The group summary of the highest and lowest
scores, the mean values and standard deviations of
the pre-training (T1) and post-training (T2) data on
word stress are presented in Table 1.
Table 1: Score Summary of Word Stress by Group
Word Stress
Group

High

2.5
Rating of Speech Samples
The two parts of the test were evaluated separately.
The first part which contained 50 isolated words
was assessed for the performance on word stress by
the researcher. Each word pronounced with correct
stress placement received 1 point, whereas words
produced with stress placed incorrectly or missing
entirely received no point. The total score for the
first part was 50.
The second part (i.e. the full text) was rated by
3 experienced NESTs. Twenty speech data of T1
and T2 were randomly distributed to each rater.
Judgments were made based on a 5-point scale (1 =poor, 5 = excellent) for the performance on 3
prosodic features, referred herein as Discourse
Prosodic Features—i.e. sentence stress and rhythm,
pausing, and intonation. As sentence stress andrhythm contribute closely to each other and are
difficult to identify separately, it was decided thatboth be rated as one feature. The total score forthe evaluation of these 3 aspects was 15.
In addition to the discourse prosodic features,the 3 native speaker raters were also asked to judge
the students’ performance with regard to first
language (L1) transfer and intelligibility on a
5-point scale. For intelligibility, 1 is low and 5 ishigh. For the effect of L1 transfer, 1 denotes poor
performance due to excessive transfer of L1, and 5
represents near-native performance as a result of thestudents’ success in eliminating the influence of L1
from their speech production.
Prior to the evaluation, the raters were given
an intensive training session, in which they wereasked to rate eight speech samples, using
headphones in a laboratory. Each rater assigned
scores for each of the 5 aspects to the 8 speech dataon a separate score sheet. Scores were comparedand disagreements over the judgment were resolved
through discussion. Then, each rater was asked toindividually listen to 20 recordings in their own
time, and each completed a separate score sheet.

Low

T1
T2
Diff
T1
T2
Diff

Highest
Score
(50)
46
50
4
40
46
6

Lowest
Score
(50)
34
42
8
15
23
8

Mean
Score

Std.
Deviation

42.43
47.07
4.53
32.6
40
7.40

0.975
0.621
6.653
5.819
-

The broader range of scores and the higher standard
deviation in the low group indicate a wider withingroup variation among the low-ability students.
The higher mean score difference in the low group(i.e. 7.40 > 4.53) suggests that the low-groupstudents had a greater degree of improvement inword stress than the students in the high group as aresult of the intervention. However, one mustcaution the possibility of a ‘ceiling effect’experienced among the high-ability students as
many of them already obtained a high score at
pre-training (T1). From the tabulation of scores at
the individual level, 12 students in the high group
scored more than 40 at T1. Among these, 8
students scored 45 and above. At T2, 2 students
obtained the full score of 50, while 5 students madeonly one error after the training. In the low group,
the highest score at post-training (T2) was only 46.
It is important to note, however, that many students
in the low group, particularly those who obtained avery low score at T1, made a surprisingly large
improvement at T2. Seven students placed stresscorrectly at T2 on at least 8 words more than they
did at T1, whereas in the high group, the degree of
improvement was lower.
The range ofimprovement in the high group was between 2 and8, with the mean value of 4.53. The range waswider in the low group—i.e. between 2 and 15, withthe mean value of 7.40. The t-test was used toinvestigate whether the improvement in each groupwas significant and the results revealed that bothgroups made a statistically significant improvement
at the .05 level.
3.2
Discourse Prosodic Features
Table 2 shows the score summary of the discourse
prosodic features (sentence stress and rhythm,
pausing, and intonation) performed in connected73Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

demonstrated the greatest degree of improvement in
the performance on pausing (i.e. mean difference =0.74) and the lowest degree of improvement insentence stress and rhythm (i.e. mean difference =0.27). This suggests that, while pausing appeared
to be picked up more easily after the training among
the high-ability students, they found stress andrhythm in connected speech to be the mostchallenging of all discourse prosodic features. In
examining T1 and T2 scores in the high group at theindividual level, no students deteriorated in theirperformance on pausing at post-training, but forrhythm and intonation, one student backslid toward
non-targetlike pronunciation at T2.

speech at T1 and T2 by group.
The broader range of scores at T1 in the highgroup (i.e. scores ranging from 4 to 12, with themean value of 8.33) and at T2 (i.e. scores ranging
from 6 to 14, with the mean value of 9.93) and thehigher standard deviation indicate a wider withingroup variation among the high-ability students intheir pronunciation in connected speech.
Table 2: Score Summary of Discourse Prosodic
Features by Group
Discourse Prosodic Features
Group

High

Low

T1
T2
Diff
T1
T2
Diff

Highest
Score
(15)
12
14
2
9
10
1

Lowest
Score
(15)
4
6
2
3
3
0

Mean
Score

Std.
Deviation

8.33
9.93
1.6
5.53
6.53
1.0

2.769
2.314
2.167
1.922
-

Table 3: Mean Score of Four Prosodic Features by
Group
Group

High
Group

In contrast to word stress, the average improvementin the high group was greater than that in the lowgroup (i.e. 1.6 > 1). It is important to note that theoverall improvement in the performance of the lowgroup on discourse prosodic features in connectedspeech was lower than their improvement on the
pronunciation of word stress. This could suggestthat sentence stress, rhythm and intonation at thediscourse level are more challenging for the
low-ability students than word stress at the level ofisolated words. This is in line with Benrabah’s(1997) report that word stress seems to be the mostaccessible feature of all prosodic aspects. He
suggested that word stress should therefore receivea high priority and serve as a starting point inpronunciation teaching.
The mean differences of 1.6 and 1 in the highand low groups were tested and the t-test scores
revealed that both groups made statisticallysignificant improvement in the performance of
discourse prosodic features at the .05 level.

Low
Group

Mean

Mean
Mean
Diff
Mean
Mean
Diff

Word
Stress (5)Stress andRhythm (5)Pausing(5)

Intonation
(5)

T1

T2

T1

T2

T1

T2

T1

T2

4.25

4.7

2.93

3.2

2.66

3.4

2.73

3.33

0.45

3.26
0.74

0.27

4.0

1.8
0.40

0.74

2.2

1.8

2.33
0.53

0.60

1.93

2.0

0.07

In the low group, the mean score differencesindicate that the improvement was greatest in theperformance on word stress (i.e. mean difference =0.74) and lowest in the pronunciation of intonation(i.e. mean difference = 0.07). This suggests thatthe low-ability students found word stress to be themost accessible aspect, while intonation appeared tobe the most challenging feature for them. The
results at the individual level show that 4 students
in the low group deteriorated at T2 in theirperformance on intonation as did 2 students in the
pronunciation of sentence stress and rhythm. Thisis probably due to the students’ lack of discourse
comprehensibility, resulting in their difficulty
understanding the effective use of intonation.
Further, insufficient knowledge of word classes inEnglish is likely the source of difficulty for the
low-ability students in putting sentence stress oncontent words which constitutes proper stress-timed
rhythmic patterns. As all students made some
progress on word stress and no students deteriorated
in the pronunciation of pauses, these two featuresappear to be an area of maximum overlap ofteachability and communicative importance.
To summarize the data in Table 3, theordering of improvements (from highest to lowest)
in the pronunciation of prosodic features in eachgroup is shown below:
High: Pausing > Intonation > Word Stress >Sentence Stress and Rhythm

3.3

Word Stress and Discourse Prosodic
Features
In order to investigate the order of improvements inthe students’ performance on the four prosodic
features, the mean differences between T2 and T1
in both groups on each feature are presented inTable 3. Please note that because the score on
word stress was not reported on the same scale aswere the three discourse prosodic features rated,each raw score on word stress was divided by 10 toequate the scale rated on each discourse feature.
The mean value was then calculated based on theequal score of 5.
As Table 3 indicates, the high-ability students
74

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Low:

improvement in the low group was not significant.
This implies that L1 transfer appears to pose agreater impact on the low-ability students. Aninteresting point to note here is that although thestudents in the low group improved significantly intheir pronunciation of prosody, this does notnecessarily mean that they could manage to reducethe influence of the L1 sound system when
pronouncing L2 speech. This suggests that, forlower-ability students, more time and effort may benecessary to alleviate the effect of L1 transfer.

Word Stress > Pausing > SentenceStress and Rhythm > Intonation

Table 4: Score Summary on Four Prosodic Features
by Group
Group

High

Low

T1
T2
Diff
T1
T2
Diff

Four Prosodic Features
Highest Lowest
Mean
Std.
Score
Score
Score Deviation
(20)
(20)
16.5
7.8
12.5873.019018.5
10.2
14.6402.4136
2.053
2.0
2.4
12.4
4.5
8.793
2.431513.9
6.4
10.533
2.1757
1.740
1.5
1.9
-

3.5
Intelligibility
Table 6 presents the group summary of scores on
intelligibility at T1 and T2.

If we add up the scores of all prosodic features to
examine the overall progress in the two groups, as
shown in Table 4 above, we find that the broader
range of score and higher standard deviation in thehigh group indicate a wider within group variation
among the high-ability students in the
pronunciation of English prosody. The mean score
differences of 2.053 and 1.740 show that the highgroup made a greater improvement than the lowgroup. The results from the t-test scores revealed
that the improvements in both groups were
statistically significant at the .05 level.

Table 6: Score Summary of Intelligibility by Group
Group

High

Low

Table 5: Score Summary of L1 Transfer by Group
Group

High

Low

T1
T2
Diff
T1
T2
Diff

Mean
Score

Std.
Deviation

2.47
3.20
0.73
1.80
1.93
0.13

1.060
1.014
0.561
0.799
-

Mean
Score

Std.
Deviation

2.87
3.60
0.73
2.20
2.27
0.07

1.060
0.986
0.941
0. 961-The standard deviations displayed in Table 6 showthat there was a wider within group variation in thehigh group than in the low group. The mean score
difference between T2 and T1 was higher in thehigh group (i.e. 0.73 > 0.07), indicating that there
was some improvement among the high-ability
students, but the improvement was lower in the lowgroup. When examining whether the improvement
was significant in each group, the t-test results
revealed that the improvement in the high groupwas statistically significant at the 0.5 level, whereas
in the low group the improvement was not
significant. As this study investigated theperformance of more than one prosodic feature in
relation to intelligibility, the results do not allow
conclusions to be drawn as to which feature mostaffects intelligibility and which does not. Because
the students in the high group made significant
improvements in all prosodic aspects as well as the
reduction of L1 transfer effect, this might serve tojustify the increase in intelligibility in their speech.
In the low group, however, the results showed thatthe students’ performance on prosodic features were
judged by native speakers to improve significantly,
but their improvement on these features did not
help to significantly reduce the influence of L1
transfer on the students’ speech, nor did it help tosignificantly increase intelligibility.
As therelationship between each prosodic feature andintelligibility is so complex, further research is

3.4
L1 Transfer
The group summary of scores at T1 and T2 on L1
transfer is presented in Table 5.

L1 Transfer
Highest Lowest
Score
Score
(5)
(5)
4
1
5
2
1
1
3
1
3
1
0
0

T1
T2
Diff
T1
T2
Diff

Intelligibility
Highest Lowest
Score
Score
(5)
(5)
4
1
5
2
1
1
4
1
4
1
0
0

The data in Table 5 show broader ranges of scoresand higher standard deviations at both T1 and T2 in
the high group, suggesting that the high-ability
students varied more in terms of applying the L1
sound system in their speech production.
However, on the whole, the high groupdemonstrated a greater improvement than the lowgroup in their attempt to eradicate L1 influence
from their speech, as shown by the higher meanscore difference of 0.73 in the high group as
opposed to 0.13 in the low group. The meandifferences were tested and the results from thet-test revealed that the high group made statisticallysignificant improvement at the .05 level, but the75Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

more research will follow which further
investigates what aspects of prosody are morecritical than others so that teachers can examine
existing practices and develop more informed
method of teaching pronunciation in EFL contexts.
The present article proposes an argument in supportof incorporating English prosody into EFL
classrooms for intelligible pronunciation.

needed which investigates the extent to which eachfeature has an impact on intelligibility and also on
the reduction of L1 transfer.
The findings of this study have shown what
aspect of prosody seems to evince the most andleast improvements in the high and low groups as aresult of the intervention. From the speech data of
the individual students in this study, cases were
found when no changes occurred at T2, and somestudents even deteriorated in their performance onsome prosodic aspects. Macdonald et al. (1999)
argued that these cases are, in fact, not uncommon.
Indeed, an initial lack of improvement or even somedeterioration in performance does not necessarily
indicate a failure of method. The process of L2
learning depends to a large extent on an individual
experience and personality. Some students may
not perceive a single learning event as beneficial asothers; some may not be as fast at learning as theirpeers. Although the improvement may not occur
immediately, the phenomenon may evidence thelearning process at work. For some students, theimprovement may start to be noticeable at somelater time.
Generally, most EFL teachers expect thechange in performance to happen immediately
following some classroom activity in connection
with the language aspects being focused. Whenno immediate improvement occurs, many teachers
often doubt the technique or materials they use.
Some may consider the intervention as a failure andwant to abandon the activity altogether.
This
experiment, as well as many others, was conducted
to examine the change in the performance
immediately following the intervention. Little
research has yet been conducted on measuring thedelayed effect, whereby favorable changes may
occur after an initial lack of improvement or evendeterioration in performance.
It should beinteresting to examine the delayed effect of thefeature(s) covered in earlier classes. Also, itshould equally be interesting to investigate theretention (long-term improvements) on the students’pronunciation of L2 feature(s) as a result of the
training at some later time.

4

References
Anderson-Hsieh, J., Johnson, R., & Koehler, K.
(1992). The relationship between native
speaker judgments of nonnative pronunciationand deviance in segmentals, prosody, andsyllable structure. Language Learning,
42/4:529-555.
Benrabah, M. (1997). Word-stress – A source of
unintellibility in English. International
Review of Applied Linguistics in Language
Teaching,35/3:157-165.
Greenwood, J. (2002). The role of teaching
English pronunciation: Issues and approaches.
International Conference IPBA 24-26,
September 2002.
Hahn, L. (2004). Primary stress and intelligibility:
Research to motivate the teaching ofsuprasegmentals. TESOL Quarterly, 38/2:201223.
Levis, J. (1999). Intonation in theory and practice,revisited. TESOL Quarterly, 33/1:37-63.
Macdonald, D., Yule, G. & Powers, M. (1994).
Attempts to improve English L2 pronunciation:
The variable effects of different types of
instruction. Language Learning, 44/1:75-100.
Morley, J. (1991). The pronunciation component inteaching English to speakers of otherlanguages. TESOL Quarterly, 25/3:481-521.
Munro, M.J. & Derwing, T.M. (1995). Foreign
accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility inthe speech of second language learners.
Language Learning, 45/1:73-97.
Roach, P. (2000). English Phonetics andPhonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Silveira, R. (2002). Pronunciation instruction
classroom practice and empirical research.
Linguagem & Ensino, 5/1:93-126.
Taylor, D.S. (1993). Intonation and accent inEnglish: What teachers need to know.
International Review of Applied Linguistics inLanguage Teaching, 31/1:1-21.
Wennerstrom, A. (1994). Intonation meaning in
English discourse: A study of nonnative
speakers. Applied Linguistics, 15/4:399-420.

Implications of the Study

The findings of this study provide several
implications. First, teachers should attempt toshow their students that prosody plays an essential
role in communication. Second, the teacher’s goal
should also be to help students select areas forpractice based on empirical findings. This study
has made a small contribution toward that goal byoffering a means for teachers to select areas ofprosodic features and set pedagogical priorities forthe student to practice. Indeed, it is hoped that76

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Has English Ability of the Japanese Improved?
―Mext’s National Curriculum Standards and Embarrassment
for English Teachers and Students
Katsura Yuasa
Kyoto Prefectural Kizu High School
kyjapan1961@yahoo.co.jp

Abstract
1

It is often said that communicative English abilityof the Japanese is inferior to that of other Asians.
Although the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports& Science repeatedly revise guidelines of English
education at secondary schools to improve it,
preferable result has not been obtained so far,according to scores of Test of English as a Foreign
Language (TOEFL). This report discusses the
English education at secondary schools in Japanand inquires the reason why their ability has not
improved.

From Grammar-Translation Method to
Communicative Method

In Japan, foreign languages have traditionally beentaught through the grammar-translation method.
This is because the primary purpose of learning aforeign language was to absorb advanced
knowledge and culture from foreign countries, notfor mutual communication. The first languagethat Japanese studied was Chinese. Centuries ago,
precursors invented a way to understand written
Chinese with some attached signs which help
readers modify the word order to make it same as inJapanese. (The word order of Chinese is S+V+O
like English while Japanese uses S+O+V, Japanesealso has Chinese characters as well as its native
characters, Hiragana and Katakana.) Dutch
emerged as another influential foreign language inthe 18th century but English replaced it in 19th
century, due to the beginning of the trade with the
USA and Britain.
Whatever languages theylearned, the Japanese have continued to read themas the same way to read Chinese. It is true thatmany Japanese people still read English bymodifying the word order and translate in theirminds.
Nevertheless, communication in English has
been becoming more and more necessary forJapanese since the globalization after World War
Ⅱ. Those who had keenly realized their lack ofcommunication competence in English blamed it on
the grammar and translation method through which
they were taught in their school days. Thismethod, which requires students to memorize alarge volume of vocabulary and to translate
numerous English sentences led to the popularbelief that Japanese people are good at reading andwriting English but poor at listening and speaking.
The criticism toward the traditional way ofteaching English influenced MEXT to begin
developing English learner’s communicativecompetence by revising the curriculum standards in1989 (They were implemented at junior schools in1993 and senior high schools in 1994). Its mainfeature was the introduction of three new courses:
Oral Communication A, B, C. This is not to saythat this drastically changed all the English classes

Keywords
Communicative English ability, The National
Curriculum Standards, TOEFL, Secondary Schools
Education

Introduction
It has been criticized that communicative English
ability of the Japanese is inadequate compared withother non-English-native speakers including
Koreans and Chinese. The criticism is mainly
directed toward school education and its
supervising body, the Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports & Science (MEXT). (All theJapanese school curriculums and education are
based on MEXT’s teaching guidelines called “theNational Curriculum Standards.”) Many Japanesepeople think that they cannot use English eventhough they have learned English for 10 years: 3
years at junior high school (lower secondary
school), another 3 years at senior high school(upper secondary school) and 4 years at college.
These critics claim English teachers shouldemphasize more on communication in English,
especially listening and speaking, instead ofgrammar and translation, as was emphasized intheir school days. Accepting the criticism, the
MEXT revised the curriculum standards in 1998 tostress communicative activities in English. It does
not mean that English education in Japan has
dramatically changed but communicative approachis gradually being adopted. Nevertheless, therevision has not necessarily caused preferable result
for English learners. On the contrary, there has
been a negative effect on students’ lack of linguisticknowledge of grammar and vocabulary.
77

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

regions English is either used as a second language
or as one of the official languages since they were
all once ruled by Britain or the USA. In addition,some countries like Bhutan have few examinees.
Considering these conditions, we should compare
the score of Japanese with those of examinees from
China and the Republic of Korea, both of which are
non-English-speaking countries and have a large
number of examinees.

sinceteachers
could
notabandonthegrammar-translation method, concerned that manycolleges entrance examinations still required minutegrammatical knowledge and translation skills. It istrue, however, that the new guideline led manyteachers to adopt a communicative approach
together with the traditional method.
MEXT, however, was not satisfied with theoutcome since the criticism toward English
education had not subsided. In 1999, new national
standards were announced for implementation atjunior high schools in 2002 and at senior highschools the following year. With each revision,emphasis on communication in English has become
stronger. Overall objectives of foreign language
education for senior high school excerpted from the
National Curriculum Standards in 1982-1993 read“To develop student’s abilities to understand andexpress in foreign languages, and to deepen theinterest in language as well as understanding waysof life and thinking of foreign people.” Comparedwith this, the present one (2003-2012) is morecommunication oriented :“to develop student’s
practical communication abilities such as
understanding information and the speaker’s orwriter’s intentions, and expressing their own ideas,
and deepen the understanding of language andculture, and fostering a positive attitude toward
communication through languages.”

Table 1: Top 10 Countries and Regions, China,
Republic of Korea and Japan in TOEFL
Internet-based Tests
Rank Country or
Rank
Country or
RegionRegion1
Singapore(100) 8
Bangladesh(82)2Malaysia(88)Philippines(88)4Pakistan(87)India (87)12

Bhutan(85 )Sri Lanka(83)

13
27

6
7

Note: Figures in (9Hong Kong(80)10Indonesia(79)Kyrgyzstan(79)Korea, Republicof (78)China(76)Japan(66)) are average total scores

Source: Test and Score Data Summery for TOEFL
Internet-based Tests, 2009 (ETS)

Table 2: Scores of Japanese, Koreans and Chinese
R
L
S
W
Total
Japanese 16
16
16
18
66
Koreans* 20
19
18
20
78
Chinese
20
18
18
20
76

2 What the New National CurriculumStandard Has Brought
Has the succession of revisions of National
Curriculum every decade brought a preferable result
for English learners? We rarely hear that Japanesecommunicative competence in English has
improved and on the contrary the criticism toward
English education is still rampant. Critics ofEnglish education often cite the score of the Test ofEnglish as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), claimingthat scores of Japanese examinees is near thebottom among Asian countries.
Here is the ranking of TOEFL iBT(Internet-based Test) mean score Asian countries
based on January 2008-December 2008 test data.
Compared with the traditional paper-based test,
which cannot test speaking ability, iBT can test allof four skills: reading, writing, listening andspeaking, though it contains ‘integrated tasks’,which combine speaking with reading and listening,
and writing with reading and listening.
According to Table 1, the average score ofJapanese examinees ranks the 27the out of 30 Asian
countries and regions, followed only by Macau,
Cambodia and Lao. A close look at the ranking at
the ranking shows that in the top 9 countries andNote: Koreans*: people from Republic of Korean
R: reading L: listening S: Speaking
W: writing
Source: Test and Score Data Summery for TOEFL
Internet-based Tests, 2009 (ETS)What this comparison clearly shows that thescore of the Japanese is behind those of the Koreans
and the Chinese in all of the four categories:
reading, listening, speaking and writing. This iscontrary to the popular belief that Japanese are goodat reading and writing English but poor at listening
and speaking it.
The section with the widest gap between
Japan and the other two counties is not the speaking
or the listening section, but the reading one. If weexamine the paper-based test, the result is almost
the same. It is said that Japanese scores used to bebetter than Korean score by the 1960s but they fellbehind in the 1970s. At present Japanese arebehind in all three sections: Listening, Structure &Written Expression and Reading: Chinese andKoreans are far better in Structure & Written
expression and Reading than Japanese.

78

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

of education. The rising criticism obliged MEXT
to revise the national curriculum standards again to
be implemented in a few years.
Here are major points for change in English
education.
1. Elementary schools will introduce English(most of them have already started in reality).
2. Junior high schools will increase English
classes from 3 hours to 4 per week.
3. Compulsory words to be learnt at juniorhigh school will increase from 900 to 1200 and thesame vocabulary and grammatical points aretaught repeatedly.
4. English courses for senior high school will
be revised as follows.
Present Courses (~2012)English Ｉ・Ⅱ
Oral CommunicationＩ・Ⅱ
Reading
Writing
New Courses (2013~)
Communication English BasicＩ・Ⅱ・Ⅲ
English ExpressionＩ・Ⅱ
English Conversation

Kumiko Torikai, Professor at graduate schoolof Rikkyo University analyzed TOEFL scores by
the following age groups: 40s, 30s, 20s, 19-22 and
16-18.
Table 3: TOEFL Score Ranking by Age Group
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
1st
J*

30’s

20’s

40’s

19-22

16-18

K*

16-18

30

20

19-22

40

C*

20

19-22

30

40

16-18

Note: J*: Japanese, K*: Koreans, C*: Chinese
Kumiko Torikai, TOEFL, TOEIC Nihonnjin noeigoryoku(TOEFL, TOEIC& English Ability of Japanese)

She suggested that the two younger Japanesegroups are lower in score than the others, while for
Koreans the youngest group (16-18 years old)
achieves the highest scores. As for Chinese thegroup in the 20’s obtains the highest scores and thesecond youngest (19-22 years old) earns the second
highest. This data shows that despite the fanfare
surrounding the introduction of the new Oral
Communication Courses, the young people who
were taught English after the revision of theeducational guidelines had the lowest scores of allages.
It is impossible to determine one specificreason why the score of Japanese has not improved,
however, some possible reasons can be cited asfollows.
1. The time allotted for reading has decreasedin the classroom due to the increase in time forlistening and speaking.
2. The ability to grasp sentence structure has
diminished since rapid reading is emphasized
instead of intensive reading and because lessemphasis is being placed on grammar.
3. Emphasis on guessing the meaning of
unknown words from the context and a movementaway from memorizing vocabulary has decreased
reading ability in the long term.
4. Not all of Japanese examinees seriously
aim study aboard. Some of them take TOEFL toevaluate their English ability and motivatethemselves. It is natural that their scores are notvery high.

3

5. The guideline for senior high school
suggests that English should be taught in English
in principle.
Though MEXT is inclined to continue toreinforce communication in English as a whole, itaims at increasing linguistic knowledge, such as
vocabulary and grammar for junior high students,
realizing that the current relaxed guidelines have
led to a lack of linguistic knowledge, and not the
improvement of listening and speaking skills. At
senior high school, however, all English courses
will be communication-oriented and aimed at
fostering a positive attitude toward communication
through English. School teachers suspect now that
it will be more difficult for students to acquireenough basic linguistic knowledge required forcommunication in English and college entrance
examinations.
The most controversial revision is No. 5
above, which means that ‘a direct method’ will be
adopted so as to give students more chances to use
English.
Although the idea itself iscommendable and a lot of schools have already
implemented the method, many teachers suspectthat it will be difficult to adopt the policy uniformly
across all upper secondary schools in Japan for suchreasons as students’ abilities and the requirement ofdetailed grammatical knowledge and translatingskills for college entrance exams requiring. A
questionnaire conducted with approximately 100 3rd
graders of Kyoto Prefectural Kizu High School

The Next Revision of the National
Curriculum Standards.

The criticism of the recent decline in academic
standards has been leveled not only against English
education but against subjects other than English.
The critics claims that today’s decline is caused by
the current guidelines, which are based on the morerelaxed education policy (yutori kyouiku)
implemented to ease the previous cramming system
79Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

communicative English at Japanese high schools,
the truth is that fewer and fewer colleges are
requiring examinees to have translation skill andtrivial grammatical knowledge. In the end, it is
the English teachers who actually control theclassroom and English education rather than the
National Curriculum Standards.

(17-18 years old) shows that over the half of them
oppose the revision according to the following
graph.
Table 4: “Do you agree or disagree with theidea that English should be taught in English?”Based on the Questionnaire for 3rd graders of
1 Agree7%
5 Disagree
33%

References
ETS, TOEFL Internet-based and paper-based Tests
January 2008-December 2008 Test Data. ETS,
Available from: URL http://www.ets.org/toefl
Kumko Torikai, (2002) TOEFL, TOEIC Nihonnjino eigoryoku (TOEFL, TOEIC& English
Ability of Japanese), Kodansha, Tokyo
The Ministry of Education (1977) Koutougakkou
gakushu shidouyoryo shinkyutaisho hyou
(Senior High School National CurriculumStandards), the Ministry of Education, Tokyo
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports &Science(2008)
Chugakkou
Gakushu
Shidouyoryo
Shinkytaisho
Hyou(Comparison between the Present and New
Junior High School National CurriculumStandards) 2009
Available from

2 Ratheragree
11%

4 Ratherdisagree23%

3 Cannotdecide26%

Kyoto Prefectural Kizu High School

According to the questionnaire, students who
agreed said that they could improve their listening
skills and acquire English expressions andvocabulary subconsciously. Others worry that
their understanding of English would decrease,classes would not proceed smoothly, and that theymight lose their motivation to keep up with theteaching if they couldn’t follow it. The ‘direct
method’ is a good way to teach a foreign language
to help students get into the habit of thinking in thetarget language without translation if they are
motivated to learn it. Some claim that students will
become successfully accustomed to the method
quickly even if they are first confused with it.
Actually many teachers have adopted this method,while others suspect that it might increase thenumber of the students who hate English because
not all students are sufficiently motivated to keep
up with classes taught only in English. We canassume that the adoption of the ‘Direct method’ has
to be left to each school’s judgment.

http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/new-cs/youryou/
chu/index.htm

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports &Science, (2008) Koutougakkou gakushu
shidouyoryo
shinkyutaisho
hyou(Comparison between the Present and New
Senior High School National CurriculumStandards)
2009
Availablefrom
http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/new-cs/yo
uryou/index.htm

Conclusion
The revision of National Curriculum Standards
approximately every decade has not necessarily
improved the English ability of Japanese people sofar. It is undeniable that every revision has some
defects and whatever revision is made, improving
English ability in a very short time is impossible.
English teachers have to be aware of the necessityof expanding students’ knowledge of grammar andvocabulary to improve their communicativecompetence in English and too therefore, muchemphasis on speaking and listening should be
avoided. Although college entrance examinations
have been said to be one of the barriers to fostering

80Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Epistemic Modals by Korean University Students: Comprehension vs.
Production
Hera Chu

English Department, Yong In University, Korea
e-mail: hera_chu@yahoo.co.kr

Abstract

competence combined with semantic competence of

Epistemic modals (EM) refer to the expressions

EM is essential in the actual uses of EM.

presenting a writer’s or speaker’s evaluation of, andthe degree of confidence in the knowledge being

Key words

described. Much research on EM has recently been

epistemic

done in English as foreign language settings.

competence, production

modals,comprehension,

syntactic

However, it tends to be limited in describing thelearners’ production of EM, especially their

Introduction

preferences of different epistemic grammatical andEpistemic modals are used to express the degree oflexical forms. Without researching how exactly

speaker or writer commitment to the truth of thelearners perceive EM, the results of EM production

proposition expressed in their utterance (Coates,

cannot fully explain the process of acquiring EM as

1983; Palmer, 1990). Semantically, they involve

well as their preferences on epistemic devices. Thus,

notions of possibility and necessity, and logicalthisprobability of a conclusion. Examples of epistemic

study

exploresthecorrelation

betweenproduction and comprehension of EM by 49 Korean

modal uses are as follows,

university students. Two kinds of production test
were administered. The participants were first asked

1) You must be John’s wife. (Necessity)

to describe or respond to a situation open to various2) It may rain tomorrow. (Possibility)interpretations so that EM can be used for3) He can’t be from the U.S. He doesn’t speak

deduction. Then they were also asked to rewrite

English. (Logical probability)

sentences using appropriate EM. Semantic contrast
pairs of EM were designed and used for theMarking the above-mentioned meanings requires

comprehension test. Correlation results suggest theraising personal opinions and making evaluations

semantic distinction ability of EM may develop inon what he/she says or write. And in this process,epistemic modals with other epistemic devices suchadverbials (e.g. certainly, probably), mental verbs

parallel with syntactic competence of EM. Syntactic

81Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics(e.g. think, guess, suppose), and adjectives (e.g.

1.2

Procedures

possible, likely) become a linguistic means to show

Two types of tests involving comprehension andone’s thoughts such as personal opinions andproduction of epistemic modals were given to theevaluations (Biber et al., 1999).

participants. The production test was administered

Despite this value of EM as one of the mostprior to the comprehension test. The participants

important communication means, modal verbs,

were first asked to write their answers freely inparticularly EM, are often considered redundant.

response to a situation about which various

There have been a number of studies on clarifying

interpretations can be made. As the questions in thisthe concept of EM in EFL 1 , but research on EM in

production

terms of how learners understand and produce EM

participants to use a certain degree of epistemic

has not been very brisk. Or it tends to be limited insense in their answers, it was expected their ability

describingEM,

to use epistemic modals in their writing would be

especially their preferences of different epistemic

revealed. However, there was no guarantee that they

grammatical and lexical forms (Chu, 2007; Oh,

would bring their epistemic evaluation into their2007). However, without researching how exactly

answers relying solely on the modal verbs, if not atlearners perceive EM, the results of EM production

all.

the

learners’ production

of

test

were

designed

to

lead

the

cannot fully explain the process of acquiring EM as

In order to examine the participants’ ability to use

well as their preferences on epistemic devices. Thus,

modals only in their sentence, a rewriting task was

thisbetweendesigned. In this test, the participants had to rewrite

production and comprehension of EM by 49 Koreansentences using one of the seven modal verbs given.

university students.

The sentences given for the rewriting task included

study

exploresthecorrelation

expressions that could be replaced by modal verbs,
namely, modal verb substitutes such as possible,

1 Methods

perhaps, and I’m sure etc. The focus of this test was
1.1 Participantsonwhether

they

were

capableofmakingForty-nine students enrolled in Yong In University,

grammatically correct sentences using a right form

Korea participated in this study. Their level ofof modals as well as selecting the most appropriate

English proficiency varied from high elementary tomodal for the sentence they have. Thus, two types

intermediate.

of production tests, the free writing task and therewriting task were administered.
One week after the production task, the same1

EM is considered one of the most difficult areas for
EFL students to grasp due primarily to the multiple
meanings attached to them. Modal verbs can be
categorized into two by meaning: epistemic and deontic
modals. Deontic modals mark the notions of obligationand permission (Palmer, 1986).

participants were asked to complete the gap fromthe two modal choices given (a possibility vs.
necessity contrast pair) according to the context to82

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

figure out their ability to understand the relative100

strength of probability of epistemic modals.

As in

80

the rewriting task, the comprehension task was

60

designed in a way that the participants can infer the40

epistemic degree of modals from the modal verb

20

HC
LC

0

substitutes given in the sentence.

Modal Production

F
1.3 Research Questions

igure 1: Percentage of modal production by

1) To what extent does comprehension of EM

comprehension score

correlate with its production?
2) On what conditions is the comprehension ability

On the whole, only eight participants usedof EM transferred to the production ability of EM?

epistemic modals 17 times in their free writing task
(production test), and seven out of them belonged tothe high comprehension group. In other words, only

2 Results & discussion

one student in the low comprehension group
2.1 Comprehension vs. free-writing task

expressed his opinion using modals.

A mean score of the comprehension test was 9.65

As assumed, however, 20 participants turned out

out of 15. Of a total of 49 participants, 25

to never employ any of the epistemic devices

participants above the mean score (here above 10

including modals regardless of their scores acquired

for the convenience) were classified as a highin the comprehension test. Considering the mean

comprehension (HC) group, and the rest of thescore of the comprehension test, it seems obvious

participants as a low comprehension (LC) group.

that the epistemic modal production ability of theparticipants in this study lags behind their

Table 1. Mean score by comprehension groupN

MeanHigh comprehension group

25

11.48

Low comprehension group

24

7.75

comprehension ability of epistemic modals.

2.2 Comprehension vs. Rewriting Task

The high comprehension group had a mean score ofComprehension scores seem to have a meaningful

11.48, while the low comprehension group had arelation with the scores obtained in the rewriting

mean score of 7.75.

task.

With relation to modal production in the free

to choose the right form of a modal judging fromwriting task, the comprehension score showed athe modal substitution information was greater inpositive relation as in Figure 1.

the high comprehension group, although the gap inIn the rewriting task, the participants’ ability

the mean score between the two groups was only83Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

one point (3.4> 2.4 out of 6 points. Here, the scoreindicates the number of right modal choices only).

Grammatically correct sentences appeared almost

However, 10 participants out 15 in the highonly in the rewriting data of the participants whocomprehension group scored less than 3, getting

belonged to the high comprehension group. More

only the half right. Similarly, 11 participants (out ofthan half of the participants (60%) in the high24) from the low comprehension group scored overcomprehension

3. The results here are not compatible with thegrammatical sentences using a right form of modals

scores obtained in the comprehension test. In otherin their all sentences. Even when the wrong form ofwords, semantic distinction abilities of modals inmodals was selected and employed in the rewriting

the comprehension test do not seem to correspond

test, the participants in the high comprehension

to

the

group were able to construct right sentences using

comprehension test, the key to choosing the rightmodals 40% of the time. Although as pointed above,

modal lied on the ability to make contrasts between

the results obtained between in the comprehension

possibility and necessity forms. So to speak, the test

test and in the rewiring test in terms of the ability torequired only dichotomy logic, whereas thedistinguish the relative strength of epistemic modals

rewriting task provided participants with a wider

wererange of epistemic modals (e.g. could, might, may,comprehension

should, must, can’t), possibly leading to higher

appeared to relate closely to the syntactic ability toconfusions.

make modal constructions.

those

of

the

rewriting

test.

In

somewhat

group

were

able

inconsistent,
ability

of

to

make

the

semantic

epistemic

modalsMore meaningful in the results of the rewriting
test was the degree of grammatically correct

2.3 Comprehension vs. Production Test

sentences made by the participants in the two

Epistemic modals appeared only 17 times in thecomprehension score groups as shown in Figure 2.

data of the free-writing task, 11 times of whichwere detected in the writings of the participants

100

who belonged to the high comprehension group and80

the group who scored high in the rewriting task.

60

grammaticalsentences

Four times of modal uses appeared in the free40

ungrammaticalsentenceswriting data of the high comprehension group and20

the group who scored low in the rewriting task. The

0

HC

LC

last 2 times were used in the low comprehension
F

igure

2:

Percentageofgrammaticalgroup.

vs.

Considering the results, it is suggested that

ungrammatical sentences in the rewriting test by

epistemic modal verbs are more likely used whencomprehension scorethe participants have reached a certain level of both84

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

a semantic and syntactic grasp of modals. In thisof the 20 participants who never used any epistemic

analysis, it is also possible to suggest that thedevices in their free writing task in more detail, of

semantic distinction ability of epistemic modals

them, 11 participants were low in their scores of themaycomprehension

developinparallel

with

its

syntactic

test.

The

rest

9

participants

competence, but which ability was achieved first isbelonged to the high comprehension group anduncertain. However, relying only on pure semantic

were not able to use modals successfully most ofknowledge without the syntactic understanding of

the time in their rewriting sentences. The reason for

how modals are used in sentences does not promise

this could be due to the lack of confidence in their

the emergence of EM in the production.

own use of epistemic devices rather than their

Other forms of epistemic devices used in the freelacking

writing task are limited in the use of mental verbs

considering they are adult learners who are already(e.g. I think, I guess) and adverbials (e.g. maybe,cognitively mature.

perceptiononepistemic

notions,

certainly). They are used 63 times all together,approximately 3 times higher in the number of use

3 Conclusion

than epistemic modal verbs. Mental verbs andWithadverbials used for epistemic sense are known to becomprehension score showed a positive relation. On

less complex than modals as they are often used

the whole, only eight participants used epistemic

more likely to be a conversational device or anmodals in their free writing task, and seven out of

isolated rote member of a complicated systemthem belonged to the high comprehension group.

rather than a feature showing a genuine mental state

However, approximately 40% of the participantsof the writer or speaker (Parafragou, 1998). These

never employed any of the epistemic devices

other epistemic devices were used almost twice as

including modals regardless of their comprehension

high in the high comprehension group (42 times) asscores. Considering the relatively high mean scorein the low comprehension group (21 times).

of the comprehension test, it seems obvious that theConsidering that epistemic modals were usedproduction ability of EM by the participants of thisalmost only in the free writing task by thestudy lags behind their comprehension ability ofparticipants of the high comprehension group, theEM. The reason for this could be due to the lack ofresults can suggest that a high degree of perception

confidence in their own use of epistemic devices

and adoption of epistemic modals results in therather than their lacking perception on epistemic

higher chances of using other forms of epistemic

notions.

devices.

The semantic comprehension ability of epistemic

relation

to

modal

production,

the

Nonetheless, as mentioned above, overall 20

modals appeared to relate closely to the syntactic

participants (45%) didn’t use any of the epistemic

ability to make modal constructions. Grammaticallymarkers in the free writing task. Looking at the data

correct sentences appeared almost only in the85Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Coats, J. (1983). The semantics of modal auxiliaries.

rewriting data of the participants in the highLondon: Cloom Heim.

comprehension group.
Epistemic modals appeared 65 % of the time in the

Oh, S.Y. (2007). A Corpus-based Study of

production data of the participants who belonged to

Epistemic Modality in Korean Learners'

the high comprehension group and the group who

writings in English. English Teaching, 62 (2),scored high in the rewriting task. The results can

147-176.

show that epistemic modal verbs are more likely

Papafragou, A. (1997). Modality in language

used when the participants have reached a certain

development:

level of both a semantic and syntactic grasp ofevidence. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics

modals. In other words, for EM to appear, the

9. 1-31.

reconsideration

of

the

Palmer, F. (1986). Mood and Modality. Cambridge:

semantic distinction ability of epistemic modals

CUP

ought to develop in parallel with its syntactic

Palmer, F. (1990). Modality and English Modals.

competence.

(2nd ed.). London & New York: Longman.

Other forms of epistemic devices were used in thefree writing task approximately 3 times higher thanepistemic modal verbs. These other epistemic
devices were used almost twice as high in the highcomprehension group as in the low comprehension
group. Considering that epistemic modals wereused almost only in the free writing task by theparticipants of the high comprehension group, theresults can suggest that a high degree of perception
and adoption of epistemic modals results in thehigher chances of using other forms of epistemic
devices.

References
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., &Finegan, E. (1999). The Longman Grammarof Spoken and Written English. London:
Longman.
Chu, H. (2007). EFL learners’ Critical Thinking in
Computer-mediated Discussions.

aEnglishTeaching 62(2), 119-139.

86

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Analysis of Listening Test Items in Korean CSAT
Haeng Jung

Honam University
hjung58@daum.net

This study was aimed to analyze the listening test
items of the College Scholastic Ability Test
(CSAT) in Korea and also to explore in what ways
they have been developed to measure students’ real
listening abilities. To get to the goal, first of all, thetest items of each year from 1994 to 2009 wereanalyzed in terms of 5 categories such as language
functions,
topics,situations,
text
type,
factual/inferential understanding. Then they were
itemized and described under each category in atable to show the changes as the years go by. And
the frequency of the items under each category wascompared. Finally the changes were examined
whether they were made toward the promotion of
the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in
Korean secondary classrooms.

portion of the listening test increased almost double
to 17 items (34%) from the test of 1997 up to now
as of the test for 2009 CSAT. With the increase of
the number of the test items, CSAT listening test
has also been developed featuring more varied
communicative functions and topics.
This study was aimed to analyze the listening test
items of the CSAT and also to explore in what ways
they have been developed to measure students’ real
listening abilities. To get to the goal, first of all
CSAT English listening test's characteristics were
examined. Then the teachers' perceptions about the
CSAT listening test and its effects on English
teaching and learning were explored. Finally theactual aspects of English teaching and learning
practices in secondary English classrooms inassociation with the test were probed.

Keywords
language testing, listening test, washback

2. Method
2.1. Research questions

Abstract

This study was aimed to investigate thecharacteristics of the Korean CSAT English
listening test through the item analysis and also tofind out the test effects on English teaching andlearning in a secondary school context. The
following research questions were posed for the
purpose of the study.

1 Introduction
The English listening test was introduced as apart of the English test in the College Scholastic
Ability Test (CSAT) in Korea for the first time in
1994. It was considered an innovative change of the
English test in a highly competitive CSAT test
towards
themeasurement
of
the
oral
communicative abilities even though the items were
not many. The test was introduced in attempt not
only to raise the awareness of the importance ofstudents' English oral communicative abilities inEnglish learning but also to lead to the teachers'
integration of teaching of listening into English
classes and eventually to the change of the English
teaching in secondary schools in Korea fromexclusively written English to oral English as wellby assessing students' listening abilities in the
CSAT (Cheng, 2005; Watanabe,2000)
The CSAT listening test has been implemented
for 15 years from 1994 to 2009. There have beensome changes in numbers and the types of the test
items. The number of the listening test items
comprised only 8 in the tests of 1994 and 1995 andit increased to 10 in the test of 1996. And finally the

1.
2.

3.

What are the CSAT English listening test's
characteristics
What are the teachers' perceptions about thelistening test and its effects on English
teaching?
What are the actual aspects of English teaching
and learning practices in secondary English
classrooms in association with the test?

2.2. Data Collection
To answer the research question 1, the test itemsof CSAT English listening tests conducted over 13
years from 1994 to 2006 were collected andanalyzed in terms of 5 categories such as language
functions, topic, situation, text type, andfactual/inferential understanding. For the researchquestion 2, a questionnaire was employed. A
questionnaire consisted of 5 subparts such as basic

87Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguisticsof the listening test items comprised only 8 in thetests of 1994 and 1995 and it increased to 10 in thetest of 1996 and finally the portion of the listening
test increased almost double to 17 items (34%)
from the test of 1997 up to now as of the test for2006 CSAT.
With the increase of the number of the test items,
CSAT listening test has been featuring more varied
communicative functions and topics since 1997.
Table 1, the result of the item analysis of 2000
CSAT English listening test, indicated that the test
appeared to have a tendency to be morecommunicative by including authentic texts such asrecorded message, advertisement, announcement,
and lecture.
In addition, the test was developed to integrate aspeaking skill into a listening though it was tested
indirectly through multiple-choice technique within
the limit of a paper test. And there appeared 4 or 5
test items at the end that ask students to listen tosome conversations or passages and choose themost appropriate dialogue which would come next.
Moreover the number of items that would ask
students' inferential understanding increased andstudents were supposed to employ a high-level
thinking skill to infer intention, situation, reason,
purpose, main idea, or relationship from the context
while they were listening.
3.2. Teachers' Perceptions toward the Listening
Test
As shown in Table 2, as to the items of 1, 2, 3,
and 4 pertaining to the test's contribution to
students' learning of listening, teachers reported thatthe existence of the listening test in CSAT incurred
students' motivation in listening (4.25) and also
positively affected student's learning of listening(4.18) and listening ability (3.85) and led to thedevelopment of students' communicative ability(3.47). However, as to the items such as 5, 6, 7, and8 about the test's validity and reliability, they
showed a mediocre degree of satisfaction. Theirlevels of agreement were for reliability (3.26),
contents (3.15), item type (3.07), and current test
(3.02)

information about respondents, overall perceptionsof the test, its effects on teaching contents, teachingactivities, and teaching materials. For the researchquestion 3, the data were obtained through a total of
8 class observations that were randomly selected
and observed for 2 different teachers' classes at 4
different schools.

2.3. Data Analysis
To examine the characteristics of the CSAT
English listening test, test items from 1994 to 2006
were analyzed in terms of 5 categories such as
language functions, topics, situations, text type,factual/inferential understanding. They were
itemized and described under each category in atable to show the changes as the years go by. Also
the characteristics of the listening test werecompared with objectives of listening skills ofnational curriculum.
Quantitative data from questionnaires were
processed with the SPSS (version 12.0) for
descriptive statistics and frequency analysis. For
teachers' perceptions about the test and its effects
on listening contents of the questionnaire, 8 items
were given and answered on a 5 point-likert scale,ranging from 1 to 5 (1= strongly disagree,
5=strongly agree) depending on their degree ofagreement. Mean score for each item wascalculated and compared among items in the same
subpart.
Qualitative data from Classroom observation
journal written in terms of teaching skills, practicetime, materials and activities were also analyzed
under each category.

3. Results
3.1. Characteristics of CSAT English Listening
Test
When CSAT English listening test was
introduced in 1994 as a way of promoting
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in
Korean secondary classrooms, it seemed to be
attempted very cautiously since a big change in thehigh-stakes test on short notice could impose a big
burden on students as well as teachers. The number
Table 1: Item analysis of 2000 CSAT listening test
Item
1
2
3

Function
Describing
peopleMeeting
peopleExpressing
feeling

Topic

Situation

Text Type

Photo

Classroom

Conversation/Picture

Flightschedule

AirportConversation

Feeling

Conversation

88

Factual/Inferential(Question)
Factual(people)Inferential(place)Inferential(feeling)

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

4

Understanding
message

Message(favor)AnsweringmachinePassage(recorded message)

5

Shopping

Money

Sports shop

Conversation

6

Suggesting

Transportation Train station

Conversation

7

Talking about family Family

8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

Understanding
topic
Understanding
situation
Understanding
purposeComparing

Conversation

Sleeping
Exercise

LectureAppreciation

Show

Passage(lecture)
Passage(announcement)

Train schedule Train station

Conversation

Job

Conversation(advertisement)

Understanding
TV shows
reasonMatching the picture
Situationwith a dialogue
Library
Checking out
use
AskingWork
information
Finding
Direction
direction
Speaking
after
listening

Advertise

Conversation
Picturedescription

Conversation(pictures)

Library

Conversation

StreetConversation

StreetConversation
Passage(situation)

Factual(calling
purpose)Inferential(money)Factual(Transport)
Factual(reason)Inferential(topic)Inferential(relation)
Factual(purpose)
Factual(reason)Factual(reason)Inferential(situation)
Inferential(next thing)
Inferential(next thing)
Inferential(next thing)
Inferential(next thing)

Table 2: Teachers' perceptions or attitudes toward the test
Items

Mean

SD

1. The test helps students develop communicative ability.

3.47

.53

2. The test helps students develop listening ability.

3.85

.65

3. The test promotes students' learning of listening.

4.18

.87

4. The test enhances students' interests or need in listening.

4.25

.72

5. Contents of the test items are valid.

3.15

.74

6. Types of the test items are valid.

3.07

.65

7. The tests are reliable.

3.26

.68

8. The test should be continued as it is.

3.02

.64

(N=385, 1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly agree)classes. A total of 8 classroom observations werecarried out.
The classroom observation journal was written interms of language skills, practice time, materials
and activities being used in the classes. With regard
to language skills being taught in the regular
English classes, it was described that reading was
the main stream and most of the class time wasspent for reading. On the contrary, it was notable

3.3. Teaching Aspects in the Secondary
English Classrooms
To find out the actual aspects of teaching oflistening in secondary English classrooms,
classroom observation was carried out. Each one ofschools in 4 different areas (metropolitan city, city,
county, town) was randomly selected. For every
school, one class was chosen from regular English
classes and the other one was singled out from extra
89Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

activity-based tasks in a regular class by a teacher
but with test preparation books, imitation copies of
the CSAT listening test, in a self-study classthrough school broadcast system.
Based on the above conclusions, several
suggestions for CSAT English listening test can bemade to bring more beneficial effects to English
teaching and learning in secondary schoolclassrooms. First, the types of listening test items
need to be varied. Currently the test tends to heavily
rely on the type of 'listen and choose'. However, in
reality listening is likely to take placeaccompanying with other responses such as 'listen
and act' 'listen and fill in the form' and 'listen andsay'. If the test includes different types of test items
that are similar to the listening of real life, teachingactivities for English listening in a classroom will
be varied too.
Secondly, listening test items should be
developed incorporating other language skills sothat speaking or writing skills can be dealt with
together in a classroom. If the test contains
integrative test items like 'listen and say' or 'listen
and write', teachers will prepare their students to dowell on the test items that require overall language
skills. It will affect English teaching aspects ofsecondary schools in which regular class time isspent in mostly reading and other language skills
are hardly covered. It is expected that the
integrative test will eventually contribute topromoting students' speaking and writing skills in
addition to listening.

that listening was taught briefly during the
introduction stage of each unit sometimes together
with speaking, while writing skill was rarely
covered.
Nevertheless, observation of English classes
outside of regular English classes indicated that
listening could not be neglected since it is tested in
CSAT. Students were forced to study listening,utilizing morning self-study time before regularclasses began or taking away recess time after lunch.
Mostly about 20 or 30 minutes were allocated forlistening practice almost every day through a school
broadcasting system. As for the listening material,
EBS listening test preparation books withaccompanying CD with them were the most popular,
since they were made imitating CSAT listening test
format and students could be drilled on the same
type of test items as the CSAT listening test.

4. Conclusion and Suggestions
This study was designed to investigate thecharacteristics of the Korean CSAT English
listening test and its effects on English teaching andlearning in a secondary school context. The data
were collected through the analysis of test items, aswell as questionnaire and observation.
The analysis of the development of CSAT
listening tests and the test items indicated that thelistening skill was likely to play more importantpart in CSAT English test and the test graduallytended to include more characteristics as aCommunicative Language Test. It was clear that thetest items covered more variety of communicative
functions, or topics and the situations and the texts
were adopted from authentic language life.
Interestingly, the characteristics of the CSAT
listening test seemed to influence the 7th National
Curriculum that was implemented from 1998 in asecondary school. It is notable that the test
objectives and contents are fairly compatible withthe ones about the listening stipulated in the
curriculum. This result leads to the conclusion thatthe test had effects on the curriculum and in part
contributed to promotion of Communicative
Language Teaching in a secondary classroom.
In another way, some other empirical evidences(Kim & O, 2002; Jung 2008) proved that thelistening test had some impacts on teaching andlearning practices. Questionnaire analysis indicatedthat the teachers perceived the listening test had apositive effect on students' motivation, learning oflistening, and listening ability, while they showed amediocre degree of satisfaction about the test
reliability, contents, types. Finally, the analysis of
the class observation journal manifested thatteaching of listening took place not with some

References
Cheng, L. (2005). Changing language teaching
through language testing: a washback study.
Studies in Language Testing, 21. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Jung, H. (2008). The washback effects of English
listening test in Korean CSAT on secondary
school English learning and teaching. The
Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 16(3),143-162.
Kim, D. J, & O, K. (2002). Washback on 12th
grade English classes of the English tests
within Korean university entrance exams.
English Teaching, 57(3), 303-329.
Watanabe, Y. (2000). Washback effects of the
English section of Japanese university entrance
examination on instruction in pre-college level
EFL, Language Testing Update 27, 42-67.

90Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The Development and Validation of the In-house Can-do Statements for
Required Writing Courses
Kahoko Matsumoto

Foreign Language Center, Tokai University,
mkahoko@tsc.u-tokai.ac.jp
English writing education in Japan still focuses on
local-level textual aspects (vocabulary, grammar
and mechanics) more than global ones such asorganization, content and logical development.
Concurrently, teachers spend much time correcting
such local-level mistakes, so many classrooms arerather teacher-centered.
On the other hand, the concept of Can-dostatements (CDSs) as an integral part of theCommon European Framework of Reference(CEFR) are based on functional, practical use oflanguage and at the same time, designed to tap“student language awareness” (Council of Europe,2001).
The application of CDSs to college writing
education seems to solve the above two problems;
creating the objectives that lead to real-life needs ofEnglish writing in the globalizing world, andmakingthecollege
instruction
more
student-centered and raising learner awareness onwhat is required in meaningful written
communication, namely more attention to content,
organization and flow of discourse.
Yet, we cannot apply CEFR’s writing CDSs
which espouse the borderless European situations.
directly to our EFL situations, where the types andconditions of communication as well as the learning
environment are different. Thus, an attempt wasmade to create a localized/modified CDSs for auniversity writing course, after a year-long close
validation process, both quantitative and qualitative.

Abstract
This is an interim report on the process ofdeveloping the Can-Do Statements (CDSs) for
required writing courses at a Japanese university
and the results of their validation. In an EFL
situation like that in Japan, some modifications or
adjustments of the original CEFR statements werenecessary in order to fully realize the purpose andeffects of CDS conceptualization. Since the limited
exposure to English makes some CEFR statements
unrealistic/infeasible and adds more importance tothe role of written communication, an attempt wasmade to develop an EFL version of “localized”
CDSs for Japanese college writing courses targeted
to different levels of students’ proficiency.
This presentation focuses on, firstly, thechallenges faced in the development of localized
CDSs that both comprehensively and systematicallysupport a specific curriculum, namely EFL required
writing courses at a Japanese university. Secondly,
the insights gained from the year-long process ofdeveloping and validating in-house CDSs will be
discussed. It is hoped that the results, thoughtentative, may shed light on the future possibilities
of using CDSs in an EFL environment, where theproficiency in written communication is a moresignificant factor than in the ESL counterpart inestablishing a successful career in the globalizing
world.

Keywords

1.

Can-do Statements university writing education
validation process EFL situations

Overall study design

A detailed validation was conducted, bothquantitative and qualitative, with various aspects ofvalidity in mind that Weir delineated in his 2005
article for Language Testing First, a series ofadjustments were made by reflecting the results ofpre-questionnaires given to teachers and students
soliciting their responses to the first draft of CDSs
(inductive validation). Then, the student self-checklists and teacher assessment scales were developed
based on the modified CDSs (as course objectives).

Introduction
In this ICT-driven, globalizing world, English,
especially its writing mode has become a dominantmedium of communication in all venues; thusincreasing importance has been added to English
writing education (Warschauer, 2000). However,91

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

In developing teacher assessment scales, the resultsof various past studies on the advantages anddisadvantages of using holistic and analytic scales
were referred to (Weigle, 2002).
Next, the pilot test was conducted to validate
the localized CDSs in three different orientations;those of users, curriculum constructors, andassessors. The actual teaching was done based on
the syllabi covering the in-house CDSs, also using
the student self-check lists and teacher assessment
scales. The results of post-questionnaires, classobservation and interviews with both students andteachers were used to further modify the CDSs
(deductive validation).

2

The present experiment

In this presentation, the validation results of
one genre (unit) of our planned CDS-based
curriculum, namely, “expository writing with good
supports” was reported as a representative part ofour on-going study.
Table 1
CDS-based teacher assessment sheet for theintermediate level (for expository writing unit)
Ｗｒｉｔｉｎｇ Ａｓｓｅｓｓｍｅｎｔ Ｓｈｅｅｔ (for Ｉｎｔｅｒｍｅｄｉａｔｅ-level)＜１＝This student cannot do this at all ２＝poor ３＝fair ４＝good 5＝excellent＞

1.1
1.1.1

Inductive validation
Pre-questionnaire to students and teachers
Approx. 300 students in the university’s 3
placement levels (Basic, Intermediate andAdvanced) answered the pre-questionnaire to checkthe appropriateness and difficulty level of eachCan-do statement. Also 15 teachers who teach themwere requested to check the validity of all the CDSs
including appropriateness, applicability anddifficulty level.
Based on the responses both from students
and teachers, a series of modification was made to
the original Can-do lists for 3 levels.
1.1.2
Preparation of the pilotingFirst, the curriculum was developed based on
the Can-do objectives that include various genres ofwriting; narrative, expository, argumentative, andwork-related functional ones. Then, the teachingmaterial, in the forms of both existing textbooks
and customized supplements were collected and/or
produced. Secondly, student self-check lists andteacher assessment scales were developed for
different genres of writing and for 3 different levels.
Basically, the evaluative points in teacher
assessment scales correspond to the items in thestudents’ check-lists, but extra attention was paid tomake student check-lists easy and simple without
the use of technical expressions (see examples:
Table 1 and Appendix 1 both are created based on
the same CDSs for expository writing).

1. Organization
This student can write either a long paragraph (more than 200 words) with clear distinction bet.
topic sentence, supporting detail and conclusion(ending), or a short essay with clear distinction bet.
introduction, body and conclusion.

1--------2--------3--------4--------5
2. Content
This student can include sufficient knowledge/facts relevant to the thesis statement to keep readersinterested.

1--------2--------3--------4--------5
3. Idea Development
This student can develop ideas in a step-by-step manner from general to specific.

1--------2--------3--------4--------5
4. Cohesion/Consistency
This student can establish cohesion between sentences and consistency among ideas in a shortessay (or a long paragraph).

1--------2--------3--------4--------5
5. Quality of support and reasoning
This student can use proper supporting statements/examples for the thesis at the paragraph level.

1--------2--------3--------4--------5
6. Sociolinguistic control
This student can use expressions appropriate to the topic, fulfill situational requirements andaddress the audience appropriately.

1--------2--------3--------4--------5
7. Grammatical control
This student can use multiple-clause structures including simple subordinate clauses and thosewith simple relative pronouns.

1--------2--------3--------4--------5
8. Conjunctions/transitions/discourse markers
This student can use typical conjunctions/transitions correctly.

1--------2--------3--------4--------5
9. VocabularyThis student can use high-frequency vocabulary understandable words and idiomatic language
most of the time.

1--------2--------3--------4--------5
10. Mechanics
This student can use correct punctuation most of the time.

1.2

Deductive validation
A series of pilot test was planned strategicallyso that the piloting wouldn’t disrupt the present
teaching as required the syllabus of each course.
For each pilot test dealing with a different genre ofwriting, all the aspects of CDS-based curriculum
were tested for its validity, reliability and feasibility,
using both quantitative and qualitative analyses.

1--------2--------3--------4--------5

2.1
2.1.1

Experimental Design
Subjects and procedure
Nine classes of 3 different levels were used
for the experiment with approx. 320 students.
Teachers were provided with class objectives
pertaining “expository writing with good supports”
with teaching material. Each class was taught
according the given plan for 4 times. The piloting92

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

procedure is as follows.

teacher (who taught the class).

1. Students responded the self-check lists.
2. Pre-writing test was given in the first class.
3. 4 classes were taught based on the given
objectives and using the teaching material
provided.
4. Post-wiring test was given in the last class (The
topics given are of parallel nature for pre- andpost-tests)
5. Students responded the same self-check lists
again.
6. Teachers assessed the students’ pre- andpost-writings using the given assessment sheets.
7. Teachers
responded
open-ended
postquestionnaire based on the actual teaching to
the Can-do objectives and class observation.
2.1.2
Analysis
The following statistical analyses wereconducted and the overall project evaluation was
done, reflecting teacher feedback and the interviews
with selected students.

4

Implications and future study

We are now in the process of further
modifying the “expository writing “ CDSs used inthis experiment based on different insights gainedby both quantitative and qualitative validation.
The same process has been going on in othergenres (units) of writing. The difficulty we have
faced throughout this process of developing the“localized” CDSs and the curriculum/assessment
scales based on them is the judgments of where to
draw the line when different kinds of validity are in
conflict with each other.
Also, even greater challenge lies in thedecision-making that encompasses the limitations
derivingfromfeasibility/practicality
andmaximization of students’ interests, motivation andachievements.
5

1. Comparison between the students’ responses tothe self-check lists before and after the
instruction
2. Comparison between the scores of teacher
assessment of pre- and post-writing tests
3. Correlations between students’ self-assessment(by self-check lists) and teacher assessment

Appendices

Appendix A
Student check-list for expository writing(intermediate level)
Student check list for expository writing

でき
ない

できる
あまり まあでき
できるない(Intermediate Level)１

明確にトピックセンテンス（主題文）、それをサポートする詳細や支 ○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

持文、結論文が区別された長いパラグラフ（２００語以上）が書ける

3

Results2

thesis statement（主題）に関連した十分な量の知識や事実を、読み ○手が興味を持つように組み込んで書ける。

3

The following results were obtained so far.
1. There were significant differences in the averagescores of both student self-check list and teacher
assessment given before and after the experiment.
However, some items (CDSs) representing
local-level aspects of writing, notably grammaticaland vocabulary control, showed less differencescompared to global-level items.
2. Though significant improvements were exhibitedby the students at all levels, those in the advanced
class rated their own improvements less than the
counterparts at intermediate and basic levels. Thismight be caused by their increased awareness,hence sensitivity to different aspects of writing.
3. As to the students’ improvements obtained interms of the scores of teacher assessment,
lower-level students showed more improvements
than higher-level ones.
4. Though there was no significant difference
among the scores of teacher assessment within thesame level, the differences between pre- and poststudent check lists (in other words, theimprovements perceived by the students
themselves) seem to have been affected by the

自分のアイディア（内容）を段階的に、一般的なものから具体的なも ○のへと発展（展開）するように書ける。

4

文と文をギャップがないようにつなぎ、文章全体についても一貫した ○考え（主題）で書ける。

5

パラグラフレベルにおいて、thesis（主題）をきちんとサポートする ○適切な支持文や例を使うことができる。

6

トピックやその文章の状況に合う適切な表現を使うことができ、読み ○手に十分意図を伝えることができる。

7

簡単な従属節や関係代名詞を含む文（＝複数の節をもつ文）を書くこ ○とができる。

8

典型的な接続詞やつなぎ言葉（＝高校で習う程度）を正確に使うこと ○
ができる。

9

一般的によく使われる（＝頻度の高い）単語やイディオムをたいてい ○の場合使うことができる。

10

句読点（＝パンクチュエーションだけでなく、大文字の使用、段落の ○最初を下げることなども含む）については、ほぼルールに沿って正確に使える。

References
Council of Europe (2001). Common European
Framework of Reference for Languages:
learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge
University Press.
Warschauer, M. (2000). The changing global
economy and the future of English teaching.
TESOL Quarterly, 34(3). pp. 511-535.
93

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Weigle, S. C. (2002). Assessing Writing. Cambridge
University Press.
Weir, J. C. (2005). Limitations of the Common
European Framework for developing
comparable examinations and tests.
Language Testing, 22(3), pp.281-300.

94

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Evaluating a Newly Developed Index for Readability
Measurement of Japanese EFL Textbooks 1
Toshiaki Ozasa1 and George R S Weir2

1
2

Faculty of Business Administration, Fukuyama Heisei University,

Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde
tozasa@heisei-u.ac.jp, george.weir@cis.strath.ac.uk

the following expression (Diff) was used.

Abstract
The aims of the present study were (1) toempirically evaluate the validity of a newly
developed readability index, Ozasa-Fukui Year
Level, Ver. 2.1, by correlation analyses, and (2) tocompare the readability data of fourteen Japanese
EFL textbooks measured by the new index and by
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level.
The correlation
analyses revealed that Ozasa-Fukui was the mostpowerful in differentiating the readability of 84 EFL
sentences. It also emerged that the coefficient
between Ozasa’s criterion and Flesch- Kincaid was
remarkably high - much higher than that of Flesch
Reading Ease. The comparative analyses revealed
that Ozasa-Fukui was more powerful indifferentiatingBook
1
texts,
andthat
Flesch-Kincaid
wasratherpowerfulindifferentiating the texts of higher years.

Diff = 0.0993*words + 0.4232*syllables +1.0518*worddiff + 0.0612*idiomdiff + 0.1919

In this development, a new readability criterion was
employed, which was based on an assessment of
916 textbook sentences by three experienced
Japanese EFL teachers well familiar with the EFL
textbooks and teaching at middle-grade schools inJapan. The non-linear function thus produced
proved to be the highest in explanatory power(r2=.8217) against the solutions of four non-linear
methods (Ozasa, Fukui & Hosokawa, 2008; Ozasa,
Weir & Fukui, 2008). It was:
NewDiff = 4.6579 *exp(-17.7116*0.3716^Diff) + 1[Diff = 0.0993 * words + 0.4232 * syllables + 1.0518 *worddiff + 0.0612 * idiomdiff + 0.1919]

Keywords

1

Evaluating validity, readability indices, Japanese
EFL textbooks, Ozasa-Fukui Year Level,
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level

Aims of the present study

With these findings as background, a new project
was launched to evaluate the validity of the index
through correlation analyses and comparative
analyses.
More specifically, the present study aims (1) toevaluate the validity of the new index, Ozasa-Fukui,
by correlation analyses, and (2) to measure thereadability of fourteen Japanese EFL textbooks
using the new index and Flesch-Kincaid Gradelevel(hereafter,
Flesch-Kincaid),
andquantitatively compare the results.

Introduction
In 2008, we developed the Ozasa-Fukui Year Level,
Ver. 2.1 (hereafter, Ozasa-Fukui), a new readability
index with its application software attuned forJapanese EFL texts. This new readability index
is a non-linear function with four variables,
sentence length, word length, textbook-based worddifficulty and textbook-based idiom-difficulty. It
was developed, using the subjective readability
evaluation of three sets of representative EFL
textbooks of Japan as a dependent variable and thelinear function of the four variables as anindependent variable. As an independent variable,

2

Two analyses

2.1
Analysis 1
In Analysis 1, coefficients of correlation werecomputed among the three measurements by
Ozasa-Fukui, Flesch-Kincaid, and Flesch Reading
Ease, and professional readability judgment of 84
English sentences extracted from five Japanese EFL
textbooks, Columbus 21 English Course, Vols. 1, 2
and 3, junior high school English textbooks, and_______________
1
The present study is funded by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific
Research ((c)1, No. 19520535) of the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science. The authors wish to express theirheartfelt gratitude for the financial support to the Japan Society
for the Promotion of Science.
95

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Ministry English Readers) （Education Ministry,1889）[Seisoku]
５）Standard Choice Readers（Shobido, 1902）[Choice]６）Kanda’s New Series of English Readers (Revised
Edition)（N. Kanda, 1903）[Kanda NSER]
７）The Globe Readers（Y. Okakura, 1907 [Globe]８）New English Drill Books（K. Kumamoto, 1907 [NE
Drill]
９）Girls’ Taisho New Readers（U. Tsuda & K.
Kumamoto, 1916）[Taisho]10）The Standard English Readers（H. E. Palmer,
1926-27） [Standard P]11）The Standard English Readers（T. Takehara, 1932
[Standard T]12）Girls’ Pacific Readers（T. Sawamura, 1939) [Pacific]13）New Jack and Betty: English Step by Step (1,2,3)（K.
Hagiwara, et al, 1952, New High School English (1,2) K. Hagiwara, et al, 1952）[Jack & Betty]14）Sunshine English Course (1,2,3) （T. Shimaoka, et al,1996）, Sunshine English Course (1,2) （S. Tsuchiya,
et al, 1997）[Sunshine]

Voyager English Course, vols. 1 and 2, senior highschool English textbooks.
The readability
evaluator was the present first author (Ozasa), a
specialist in Japanese TEFL, current author of
junior high school English textbooks and former
author of senior high school English textbooks.
Table 1: Correlation among Ozasa’s Judgment,
Ozasa-Fukui YL, Flesch RE and Flesch-Kincaid GL
Ozasa’s
O-F YLF RE
F-K GL
Ozasa’s
1
0.9041-0.4396
0.7137O-F YL
0.90411-0.5279
0.7743F RE-0.4396-0.5279
1-0.916F-K GL
0.71370.7743-0.916
1

Table 1 shows the correlations with Ozasa’s
judgment and Ozasa-Fukui, Flesch Reading Easeand Flesch-Kincaid. As is clear in the table, thecoefficient of correlation between Ozasa’s criterion
and Ozasa-Fukui was the highest among the threecorrelations; the coefficients were 0.9041 between
Ozasa’s criterion and Ozasa-Fukui, -0.4391
between Ozasa’s criterion and Flesch Reading Ease,and 0.7137 between Ozasa’s criterion and FleschKincaid.
These results clearly indicate that Ozasa-Fukui
was the most powerful in differentiating thereadability of selected 84 EFL sentences. It isnoteworthy that the coefficient between Ozasa’s
criterion and Flesch-Kincaid was also remarkably
high, much higher than that of Flesch Reading Ease,
indicating a high validity of the index in measuring
the readability of textbook English.

2.2

Table 2 shows the results of the readability analysisof the fourteen Japanese EFL textbooks, measured
with Ozasa-Fukui, while Table 3 lists the results of
the readability analysis of the same corpora,measured with Flesch-Kincaid.
Table 2:

Ozasa-Fukui Year Level (Books 1-5)

Union
National
DeningSeisoku
ChoiceKanda NSERGlobe
NE Drill
TaishoStandard P
Standard T
Pacific
Jack & Betty
Sunshine

Analysis 2

Using this newly developed index (Ozasa-Fukui),and the widely used Flesch- Kincaid metric, thefourteen sets of textbooks were measured andanalyzed. In this analysis the textbook corpora
were ‘cleaned’ by deleting irrelevant parts of thetexts - conversation, poems, etc. - and by tagging
irrelevant parts of the text - titles, headlines, etc. so that the system would not include them in its
measurements.
The fourteen sets of English textbooks, each ofwhich consisted of five textbooks, totaling 70 books,
were as follows. (The abbreviations in brackets
are the textbook identifiers used in the present
paper.)

Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5
4.32
6.96
6.46
6.87
7.04
3.45
4.64
5.38
6.37
6.80
6.37
6.50
6.45
6.66
6.95
3.13
4.13
6.33
6.93
7.32
3.37
4.83
5.85
6.27
6.73
1.64
3.00
5.02
6.87
6.46
3.30
5.01
6.31
6.06
6.18
2.10
4.11
4.97
6.13
6.42
2.91
3.45
4.68
5.58
6.48
3.05
6.40
6.53
5.82
6.70
3.08
5.10
5.99
6.32
6.52
2.35
4.00
4.64
5.41
6.77
1.90
2.90
3.91
5.12
5.53
1.38
3.09
3.66
4.91
5.23

These tables seem to indicate that the measurementsof both indices were generally effective in
differentiating the readability of these textbook
texts. In both of the measurements, the readability
values increased progressively from Book 1 toBook 5 in eight textbooks, National, Seisoku,
Choice, NE Drill, Taisho, Standard T, Pacific andSunshine.
However, it should be noted that these resultscannot be accurately compared since these two
indices use their own scale, different from eachother. In order to overcome this deficiency, thevalues of the two measurements were statisticallytransformed into a standardized distribution of M=0
and SD=1.

１）Sanders’ Union Readers（C. W. Sanders, 1861 - 63）[Union]２）New National Readers（C. J. Barnes, 1883-84）[National]
３）English Readers: The High School Series（W. Dening,1887 [Dening]４）Seisoku Mombusho Eigo Tokuhon (Education96

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 3:

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (Books 1-5)

Ozasa-Fukui Year Level Standardized

Table 4:
Readability Measurement
Ozasa-Fukui Year Level, Standardized

Ozasa-Fukui Year Level, Ver. 2.1

Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5
Union
2.75
9.39
7.55
8.25
8.85
National
1.11
2.98
5.31
7.64
8.81
Dening
7.60
8.35
8.35
8.34
9.55
Seisoku
1.46
3.52
6.74
8.79
9.43
Choice
0.99
3.64
5.83
7.68
8.62
Kanda NSER
0.55
1.88
4.27
9.05
7.70
Globe
2.17
3.81
6.92
6.67
7.46
NE Drill
1.30
3.50
3.76
5.62
8.15
Taisho
1.02
1.62
3.79
5.53
7.84
Standard P
2.56
7.74
7.97
7.12
8.95
Standard T
1.58
3.94
6.06
7.46
7.88
Pacific
1.66
3.39
4.09
5.70
8.47
Jack & Betty
1.37
2.37
5.21
6.72
5.06
Sunshine
2.79
3.25
4.10
5.20
5.80

2.00

Union

1.50

National
Dening1.00

Seisoku

0.50

ChoiceKanda NSER

0.00
-0.50

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5Globe
NE Drill-1.00

Taisho-1.50

Standard P
Standard T-2.00

Pacific-2.50

Jack & Betty-3.00

Sunshine

Figure 2: Readability Measurement of OzasaFukui Year Level, Standardizedof

Flesch=Kincaid Grade Level Standardized
2.00
Flesch=Kincaid Grade Level
StandardizedBook 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5
Union
-0.51
1.16
0.84
1.10
1.21
National
-1.06
-0.31
0.16
0.78
1.06
Dening
0.78
0.87
0.83
0.97
1.15
Seisoku
-1.26
-0.63
0.76
1.14
1.38
Choice
-1.11
-0.19
0.46
0.72
1.01
Kanda NSE -2.21
-1.35
-0.07
1.10
0.84
Globe
-1.16
-0.08
0.75
0.59
0.66
NE Drill
-1.92
-0.65
-0.10
0.63
0.82
Taisho
-1.40
-1.06
-0.28
0.28
0.85
Standard P
-1.32
0.80
0.89
0.44
0.99
Standard T
-1.30
-0.02
0.54
0.75
0.88
Pacific
-1.76
-0.71
-0.31
0.18
1.04
Jack & Bet
-2.04
-1.41
-0.77
-0.01
0.25
Sunshine
-2.37
-1.29
-0.93
-0.14
0.06

1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
-0.50

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

-1.00
-1.50
-2.00
Books

Book 4

Book 5

Union
National
DeningSeisoku
ChoiceKanda NSERGlobe
NE Drill
TaishoStandard P
Standard T
Pacific
Jack & Betty
Sunshine

Figure 3: Readability Measurement of FleschKincaid Grade Level, Standardized

Table 5: Readability Measurement of FleschKincaid Grade Level, Standardized

Table 6 and Table 7 show the standardized
readability measurements of the two readability
indices of the Book 1 texts of the fourteen sets inquestion. In order to compare the differentiating
power of the indices, the fourteen textbooks werearranged in declining order and differences werecomputed between the neighboring textbooks. For
example, in Table 6, the -0.16 in the cell of thelowest row and the third column from the left wascomputed by subtracting the value of Kanda NSER(-2.21) from the value of Sunshine (-2.37). In thisanalysis it was assumed that the more the number ofgreater differences there were, the more powerful
was the differentiation power of the measurement.
As is clear in these tables, with Ozasa-Fukui,eight differences were greater than 0.09, while with
Flesch-Kincaid seven were greater, which suggeststhat Ozasa-Fukui might be slightly more powerfulthan Flesch-Kincaid, with the Book 1 measurement.
The sum total of the differences for eachindex was -3.16 and -2.60 respectively, which also
implies that Ozasa-Fukui is more powerful indifferentiation than Flesch-Kincaid.
It is also interesting to note that themeasurement values of National and Sunshine forthe two indices were remarkably different and thisshould be examined from a qualitative perspective.

Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5
Union
-0.99
1.46
0.78
1.04
1.26
National
-1.60
-0.91
-0.05
0.81
1.25
Dening
0.80
1.08
1.08
1.07
1.52
Seisoku
-1.47
-0.71
0.48
1.24
1.47
Choice
-1.64
-0.66
0.15
0.83
1.18
-1.80
-1.31
-0.43
1.33
0.84
Kanda NSE
Globe
-1.21
-0.60
0.55
0.46
0.75
NE Drill
-1.53
-0.72
-0.62
0.07
1.00
Taisho
-1.63
-1.41
-0.61
0.03
0.89
-1.06
0.85
0.94
0.62
1.30
Standard P
-1.42
-0.55
0.23
0.75
0.90
Standard T
Pacific
-1.39
-0.76
-0.50
0.10
1.12
-1.50
-1.13
-0.08
0.47
-0.14
Jack & Bet
Sunshine
-0.98
-0.81
-0.49
-0.09
0.13

Table 4, Table 5, Figure 2 and Figure 3 show thestandardized readability measurements of the two
indices. Since these tables and figures use thesame standardized scale, it is possible to compare
the measurements of the two indices. Intuitively,
it seems that with Books 1 and 2, the Ozasa-Fukui
measurement is more powerful in differentiation
and, in contrast, with higher books, Flesch-Kincaid
is more powerful than Ozasa-Fukui. To get aclearer picture of the features, however, it isnecessary to compare these data in detailmethodically for each book.

Table 6:
97

Book 1, Ozasa-Fukui Year level,

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

differentiation than Ozasa-Fukui, for the Book 3
measurement.

Standardized
O-F
Book 1Dening
0.78
Union
-0.51
National-1.06
Choice
-1.11
Globe
-1.16
Seisoku-1.26
Standard T-1.30
Standard P-1.32
Taisho-1.40
Pacific-1.76
NE Drill-1.92
Jack & Bett
-2.04
Kanda NSE
-2.21
Sunshine
-2.37

-1.30
-0.55
-0.05
-0.04
-0.11
-0.03
-0.02
-0.09
-0.35
-0.16
-0.13
-0.16
-0.16

Table 8:Book 2, Ozasa-Fukui Yea Level,
Standardized
O-F
Book 2Union
1.16
Dening0.87
Standard P
0.80Standard T
-0.02
Globe
-0.08
Choice-0.19
National-0.31
Seisoku-0.63
NE Drill-0.65
Pacific-0.71
Taisho-1.06
Sunshine-1.29
Kanda NSE
-1.35
Jack & Bett
-1.41

Table 7: Book 1, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level,
Standardized
F-K
Book 1Dening0.80
Sunshine
-0.98
Union
-0.99
Standard P
-1.06
Globe
-1.21
Pacific-1.39Standard T-1.42
Seisoku-1.47-1.50
Jack & Bett
NE Drill-1.53
National-1.60
Taisho-1.63
Choice-1.64-1.80
Kanda NSE

-1.78
-0.01
-0.07
-0.14
-0.19
-0.03
-0.04
-0.03
-0.03
-0.07
-0.03
-0.01
-0.16

-0.29
-0.06
-0.82
-0.06
-0.11
-0.12
-0.32
-0.01
-0.07
-0.35
-0.23
-0.06
-0.06

Table 9: Book 2, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level,
Standardized
F-K
Book 2Union
1.46
Dening
1.08
Standard P
0.85Standard T
-0.55
Globe
-0.60
Choice-0.66
Seisoku-0.71
NE Drill-0.72
Pacific-0.76
Sunshine-0.81
National
-0.91
-1.13
Jack & Bett
-1.31
Kanda NSE
Taisho-1.41

Table 8 and Table 9 show the standardized
readability data of the Book 2 texts of the fourteen
sets measured with the two readability indices. As
is clear from the tables, seven differences weregreater than 0.09 both with Ozasa-Fukui and with
Flesch-Kincaid, which suggests that the two indiceswere equal in their differentiation for the Book 2
measurement.
The sum total of the differences for each index
was -2.57 and -2.87 respectively, which suggeststhat Flesch-Kincaid is slightly more powerful indifferentiation than Ozasa-Fukui.
It is also to be noted that the measurement
values of National were remarkably different
between the measurements of the two indices,which should also be carefully examined from aqualitative perspective.
Table 10 and Table 11 show the standardized
readability measurements of the Book 3 texts of the
fourteen sets measured using the two readability
indices in question. As is clear in the tables, with
Ozasa-Fukui, six differences were greater than 0.09,
and with Flesch-Kincaid seven differences werealso greater than 0.09, which suggests that
Flesch-Kincaid is slightly more powerful in

-0.38
-0.23
-1.40
-0.05
-0.06
-0.04
-0.01
-0.04
-0.05
-0.10
-0.23
-0.18
-0.10

Table 10: Book 3, Ozasa-Fukui Year Level,
Standardized
O-F
Book 3Standard P
0.89
Union
0.84
Dening
0.83
Seisoku
0.76
Globe
0.75
Standard T
0.54
Choice0.46
National
0.16
Kanda NSE
-0.07
NE Drill-0.10
Taisho-0.28
Pacific-0.31
Jack & Bett
-0.77
Sunshine
-0.93

-0.04
-0.01
-0.08
-0.01
-0.20
-0.09
-0.30
-0.23
-0.03
-0.18
-0.03
-0.46
-0.16

The sum total of the differences for each index was-1.81 and -1.69 respectively, which suggests that
Ozasa-Fukui is slightly more powerful indifferentiation than Flesch-Kincaid.
Here the98Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

further point that should be examined from aqualitative perspective.

conclusions obtained through the two kinds ofanalyses prove to be mutually contradicting as todifferentiating power.
It is also to be noted that the measurement
values of Jack & Betty was remarkably different
between the two indices – a further point thatshould be examined from a qualitative perspective.

Table 13: Book 4, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level,
Standardized
F-K
Book 4
Kanda NSE
1.33
Seisoku
1.24
Dening
1.07
Union
1.04
Choice0.83
National
0.81Standard T
0.75
Standard P
0.62
Jack & Bett
0.47
Globe
0.46
Pacific
0.10
NE Drill
0.07
Taisho0.03
Sunshine-0.09

Table 11: Book 3, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level,
Standardized
F-K
Book 3Dening
1.08
Standard P
0.94
Union
0.78
Globe
0.55
Seisoku
0.48
Standard T
0.23
Choice0.15
National-0.05
Jack & Bett
-0.08
Kanda NSE
-0.43
Sunshine-0.49
Pacific-0.50
Taisho-0.61
NE Drill
-0.62

-0.14
-0.16
-0.23
-0.07
-0.25
-0.08
-0.19
-0.04
-0.35
-0.06
0.00
-0.11
-0.01

Table 14: Book 5, Ozasa-Fukui Year Level,
Standardized
O-F
Book 5
Seisoku
1.38
Union
1.21
Dening
1.15
National
1.06
Pacific
1.04
Choice1.01
Standard P
0.99Standard T
0.88
Taisho0.85
Kanda NSE
0.84
NE Drill
0.82
Globe
0.66
Jack & Bett
0.25
Sunshine
0.06

Table 12: Book 4, Ozasa-Fukui Year Level,
Standardized
O-F
Book 4
Seisoku
1.14
Union
1.10
Kanda NSE
1.10
Dening0.97
National
0.78Standard T
0.75
Choice0.72
NE Drill
0.63
Globe
0.59
Standard P
0.44
Taisho0.28
Pacific
0.18
Jack & Bett
-0.01
Sunshine
-0.14

-0.10
-0.17
-0.03
-0.21
-0.01
-0.07
-0.13
-0.15
-0.02
-0.36
-0.03
-0.03
-0.12

-0.04
0.00
-0.13
-0.18
-0.03
-0.03
-0.09
-0.04
-0.15
-0.15
-0.11
-0.18
-0.13

-0.18
-0.06
-0.09
-0.02
-0.03
-0.02
-0.11
-0.03
-0.01
-0.03
-0.15
-0.41
-0.19

Finally, Table 14 and Table 15 show thestandardized readability of the Book 5 texts of the
fourteen sets measured with the two indices. As isclear from these tables, with Ozasa-Fukui, sevendifferences were greater than 0.09, and with
Flesch-Kincaid five differences were greater than
0.09. This suggests that Ozasa-Fukui is more
powerful in differentiation than Flesch-Kincaid for
the Book 5 measurement.
However, the sum total of the differences foreach index was -1.32 and -1.66 respectively, whichsuggests that Flesch-Kincaid is more powerful indifferentiation than Ozasa-Fukui. This means thatthe two kinds of obtained data are contradictory toeach other in terms of differentiation.
It is also to be noted that the readability valuesof Standard P were remarkably different between
the measurements of the two indices, which shouldbe meticulously examined from a qualitative
perspective.

Table 12 and Table 13 show the standardized
readability measurements of the Book 4 texts of the
fourteen sets measured with the two readability
indices. As is clear from these tables, sevendifferences were greater than 0.09 both with
Ozasa-Fukui and with Flesch-Kincaid, whichsuggests that Ozasa-Fukui is as powerful indifferentiation as Flesch-Kincaid with the Book 4
measurement.
However, the sum total of the differences foreach index was -1.28 and -1.42 respectively, whichsuggests that Flesch-Kincaid is slightly more
powerful in differentiation than Ozasa-Fukui.
It is also to be noted that the measurement
values of NE Drill and Jack & Betty wereremarkably different between the two indices– a99Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Japanese EFL textbooks will be used as data,
instead of fourteen sets of textbooks as in thepresent analysis, and will be closely analyzed bothfrom quantitative and qualitative perspectives, withreference to the professional judgment of EFL
teachers.
The time has come to provide our readability
index for public use so that it may be freely usedand evaluated by users around the world.
Feedback obtained from these users could greatly
enhance our new readability index.

Table 15: Book 5, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level,
Standardized
F-K
Book 5Dening
1.52
Seisoku
1.47
Standard P
1.30
Union
1.26
National
1.25
Choice1.18
Pacific
1.12
NE Drill
1.00Standard T
0.90
Taisho0.89
Kanda NSE
0.84
Globe
0.75
Sunshine
0.13
Jack & Bett
-0.14

3

-0.04
-0.18
-0.04
-0.01
-0.07
-0.06
-0.12
-0.10
-0.01
-0.05
-0.09
-0.61
-0.27

References
Anagnostou, N. K. & Weir, G. R. S. (2006). From
corpus-based collocation frequencies toreadability measure. ICT in the Analysis,
Teaching and Learning of Languages(ICTATLL Workshop), 21-22 August, 2006,
33-46.
Ozasa, T., Fukui, M. & Hosokawa, M. (2008).
Development of a readability index attuned
for Japanese EFL texts. Proceedings of
4th International Workshop in ICT in the
Analysis, Teaching and Learning of
Languages, September, 2008, University of
Sri Lanka, 60-66.
Ozasa, T., Weir, G. R. S. & Fukui, M. (2008).
Toward a readability index for Japaneselearners of EFL. Conference Program of
the 13th Conference of Pan-Pacific
Association of Applied Linguistics, 20-22
August, 2008, University of Hawaii,
Manoa, U. S. A., 59-62.
Ozasa, T., Weir, G. R. S. & Fukui, M. (2007).
Measuring readability for Japaneselearners of English. Proceedings of the
12th Conference of Pan-Pacific Associationof Applied Linguistics, 122-125.
Weir, G. R. S. & Ritchie, C., (2006). Estimating
readability with the Strathclyde readability
measure. ICT in the Analysis, Teachingand Learning of Languages (ICTATLL
Workshop), 21-22 August, 2006, 25-32.

Conclusion and remaining issues

In the present study, the coefficients of correlations
were computed between Ozasa’s readability
judgment (criterion) and the measurements ofOzasa-Fukui, Flesch- Kincaid and Flesh Reading
Ease, and the results were compared among thefour coefficients.
The results revealed that
Ozasa-Fukui was the most powerful in differentiating
the readability of the selected 84 EFL sentences. It
also emerged that the coefficient between Ozasa’s
criterion and Flesch-Kincaid was remarkably high,much higher than that between the criterion and
Flesch Reading Ease, suggesting a high validity ofFlesch-Kincaid in measuring the readability ofJapanese EFL textbook English.
Table 16:

Summary of Analysis 2
Book No of Diff Sum of Diff
1
OF
OF
2
=
FK
3
FK
OF
4
=
FK
5
OF
FK

Further, as is clear in Table 16, Analysis 2 revealed
that Ozasa-Fukui was more powerful indifferentiating Book 1 texts, and that FleschKincaid was generally powerful in differentiating
the texts of higher years. In general, however, we
could not quantitatively distinguish the two indices.
The analyses carried out in the present study
were two-fold, a criterion based analysis andcriterion-less comparison of the two types ofmeasurements.
The criterion-based analysis
succeeded in producing a clear-cut conclusion as to
the relative efficiency of the three indices inquestion.
In contrast, the criterion-lesscomparison could not produce a persuasive or
consistent conclusion as to the relative efficiency of
the two indices analyzed.
In the next study, only one or two sets of100

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Verb form usage in Japanese EFL Texts
George R S Weir1 and Toshiaki Ozasa2

1

Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde
2

Faculty of Business Administration, Fukuyama Heisei University

george.weir@cis.strath.ac.uk, tozasa@heisei-u.ac.jp

Previously, we conducted a frequency analysis on
the vocabulary in these textbooks (Weir and Ozasa,
2008). This used the Posit textual analysis toolset(Weir, 2007) in order to shed light upon thefrequency of use for individual words andmultiword sequences across the specified textbook
series. Based upon the high degree of hapax
legomena (as summarized in Table 1), we noted that
only a small proportion of words were considered
important enough to merit frequent use.

Abstract
In the present paper, we report a test of ourassumption that three sets of historical EFL
textbooks exhibit priority of grammatical over
vocabulary consideration. This test is performedby profiling the use of verb forms in the three
textbook series.
Evidence of a managed
application of verb forms across the volumes of the
textbook series reflects a focus upon grammaticalcontrol in textbook design. Coupled to our earlier
results on vocabulary profiles, this corroborates ourview that the considered textbooks exhibit anemphasis of grammar over vocabulary.

Table 1: Percentages of hapax legomena
1-gram2-grams
3-grams
4-grams

Keywords
Japanese EFL textbooks, historical linguistics,
textual analysis, grammar control

National
44.80
76.68
92.15
97.99

Globe
50.48
79.84
94.23
98.76

JandB
48.38
76.49
91.29
96.62

One might assume that careful textbook design
would address vocabulary coverage, as well as
grammatical considerations. Furthermore, one
might expect more frequent use of those words thatwere considered more important than others. Yet,the figures from Table 1 show that almost half of
the individual words in each of the textbook series
are used only once. This led us to propose that theword frequency profiles may result from priority ofconsideration to grammatical construction rather
than vocabulary.
The present paper reports on our efforts tosubstantiate this view of the considered textbook
series.

Introduction
Japan has a long history of EFL teaching and has
witnessed a variety of approaches to EFL textbook
design (Ozasa & Erikawa, 2004).
From anhistorical perspective, we seek to determine
whether there are discernible commonalities in the
linguistic characteristics displayed by successive
EFL textbooks. This diachronic approach builds
upon earlier work at the University of Hiroshima
and the development of the Hiroshima Corpus ofhistorical EFL textbooks (e.g., Weir & Ozasa,
2007).
The present study contrasts three EFL textbook
series used in Japan at three different historicalperiods. The first series, Barnes' New National
Readers, was published in 1883-84 and is taken to
represent the ‘early’ period of ESL teaching inJapan. The second textbook series, Okakura,
Yoshisaburo, The Globe Readers, was published in1907 and is taken to represent the ‘middle’ periodof ESL teaching in Japan. The third textbook series,
Jack and Betty: English Step by Step, was publishedin 1948 and represents ‘recent’ ESL teaching inJapan.
In the following, we refer to thesetextbooks as ‘National’, ‘Globe’ and ‘JandB’,
respectively.

1

Approach

In seeking support for our view that emphasis upongrammar control may underlie the content of theconsidered textbooks, we sought to analyse verb
form usage across each textbook series.
Specifically, we look for telling variations infrequency of verb usage as evidence of a managed
application of verb forms. Such evidence reflects
a focus upon grammatical control in textbook
design.

101

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguisticsof the Globe series is shown in Figure 1 (below).

For each book in each textbook series we analyse
the frequency of specific verb instances (verbtokens), e.g. how many times ‘ran’ appears, andverb types (i.e., how many different verbs occur).
These results are also classified by verb form (partof speech). Seven verb forms are considered: base,past, past participle, gerund, present 3rd, present not
3rd and modal auxiliary.
Table 2: Summary data for Globe Book 1
Input filename
Total words (tokens)
Total unique words (types)
Type/Token Ratio
Number of sentences
Average sentence length
Number of characters
Average word length

globe-1.txt
1598
452
3.53
250
6.39
8183
5.12

Figure 1: Detailed token data for Globe Book 1
Each of the textbook series comprises five books
and on the basis of such data for each book in eachof the three textbook series, we look for evidence ofgrammar control. Specifically, is there indicationin the usage pattern of verbs across books in a
textbook series to suggest verb management?

For each book in a textbook series, the Posit textual
analysis toolset provides extensive data includingsummary details of the input text as well as totals
for part of speech (POS) form tokens and POS form
types. Tables 2 and 3 show such summary data forBook 1 of the Globe series.

2

2.1
Overall verb density
The first step is to consider the overall density ofverbs across the books of each textbook. This ismeasured by determining a proportion of all verb
forms against all word forms. For National, thisreveals the distribution shown in Figure 2, below.

Table 3: Summary POS data for Globe Book 1
Nouns
Verbs
Adjectives
Adverbs
Prepositions
Determiners
Personal pronouns
Possessive pronouns
Interjections
Particles

POS Types
184
105
63
37
22
13
12
6
2
0

Results

POS Tokens

429
298
110
107
119
142
210
38
4

35.0

34.0

33.0

32.0

31.0

30.0

29.0

0
28.0

27.0

The Posit tools also provide more detailed
information on each part of speech, such as theseven verb forms considered in this analysis.
Table 4 shows the totals for types of each verb form
in Book 1 of the Globe series.

Book1

Book3

Book4

Book5

The x-axis considers each book in turn while they-axis (on a scale of 0% to 35%) measures thepercentage of all word forms accounted for by theverb forms in the book. In this case, we can notethat the largest proportion of verbs appears in Book
2 (34.1%), while the smallest proportion appears inBook 5 (29.4%). Notably, we can determine thatthe maximum variation in verb proportion across all
five books is only 5%.
Considering similar measures for Globe, we get
the results shown in Figure 3 (below). This
indicates that the maximum density of verbs is29.9% (Book 2) and the minimum is 23.2% (Book1). This exhibits a variation of 6.9%.

Table 4: Verb form type totals for Globe Book 1
base_form
gerund_form
past_form
past_participle_form
present_3rd_form
present_not3rd_form
modal_aux
total

Book2

Figure 2: Verb distribution for National

34
2
20
7
15
23
4
105

The most detailed level of data analysis provided by
the Posit system indicates the number of tokens foreach verb form. A sample of this detail for Book 1
102

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

100000

35.0

90000
30.0

80000
70000

25.0

60000
20.0

50000
40000

15.0

30000
10.0

20000
10000

5.0

0
National
0.0
Book1

Book2

Book3

Book4

Figure 3: Verb distribution for Globe

35.0

30.0

25.0

20.0

15.0

10.0

5.0

0.0
Book2

Book3

Book4

JandB

2.2
Verb form usage
In order to gauge any changes in emphasis (orde-emphasis) toward specific verb forms, we graphthe frequency of occurrence of our seven verb
forms in each of the books (in each series) as aproportion of the total verb forms in each book.
(We have used verb types, although the results are
similar in nature using tokens instead).
The proportion of verb forms in each book of
National is given in Figure 6. The x-axis clusters
the results for each of the five books in the series
against our seven verb forms. The y-axis indicatesthe percentage for each verb form against all verb
forms, with a scale of 0% to 40%.

The overall verb density for JandB is illustrated in
Figure 4 (below).

Book1

Globe

Figure 5: Tokens per book for each textbook series

Book5

Book5

Figure 4: Verb distribution for JandB

40.0

35.0

For the JandB textbook series, the maximum verb
density is 31% (Book 4) and the minimum density
is 19.7% (Book 1), giving a variation of 10.3%.
The point of these indications for verb density is
to emphasise that the density is fairly consistentacross the three textbook series, with an overallvalue for each series of ~30%.
This indicatesthat the verb density is not influenced by variationsin the size of each textbook (measured by numberof words).
Figure 5 (below) indicates the progressive
increase in word tokens across the books in eachseries. (The y-axis scale is 10,000 words per
segment.) All three textbook series, have more
words in each successive book (as the books grow‘more difficult’), yet this has little influence on theverb density.
With this in mind, we move to consider the
proportion of all verb types in each book againstverb types for the seven verb forms (base, past, past
participle, gerund, present 3rd, present not 3rd andmodal auxiliary).
By noting the changing
proportions of different verb forms against the total
number of verbs in each book we can map anychanges in emphasis (or de-emphasis) towardspecific verb forms as we progress through books in
any textbook series.

30.0

25.0

20.0

15.0

10.0

5.0

0.0
Base form

Past

Past part

GerundPresent3rd

Presentnot3rd

Modalaux

Figure 6: Verb form usage in National
For National, several trends are distinct in thisprojection. Firstly, some verb forms progressively
diminish in their proportion from Book 1 through toBook 5 in the series. This is true for the base form,
present 3rd (with the exception of Book 1), present
not 3rd, and modal auxiliary. Secondly, one verb
form (past) remains fairly constant across the fivebooks. Thirdly, some verb forms progressively
increase in their proportion across the five books.
This is true for the past participle and gerund forms.
The proportion of verb forms in each book of
Globe is given in Figure 7. As with National,
several trends are distinct in the projection for
Globe. Firstly, some verb forms progressively
diminish in their proportion from Book 1 through toBook 5 in the series. This is true for the base form,
present 3rd (with the exception of Book 5), present103Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

not 3rd, and modal auxiliary. Secondly, some verb
forms have no clear overall increase or decrease.
This is true for past and gerund. Thirdly, someverb forms progressively increase in their
proportion across the five books. This is true forthe past participle and gerund forms (althoughgerund has a spike in Book 2).

For Globe, there is progressive reduction in
proportion of base form verbs, present 3rd, present
not 3rd, and modal auxiliaries from Book 1 to Book
5. Although the results are less 'smooth’ for thisseries, there are progressive increases in the
proportion of past, past participle and gerund forms.
For Jack and Betty, there are clear reductions in
the proportion of base form verbs, present 3rd,
present not 3rd and modal auxiliaries from Book 1
through to Book 5. The past form and gerund are
fairly static across all books in the series. At thesame time, there is a progressive increase in the
proportions of past participles.
Worthy of additional note is the fact that thetrends are largely similar across the textbooks.
This is an interesting result given the different
historical periods represented by these EFL
materials.
Furthermore, the results may be
indicative that lower proportions of base form,
present and modal auxiliaries and higher
proportions of past participles (and gerunds) aremarkers of EFL texts in general.

35.0

30.0

25.0

20.0

15.0

10.0

5.0

0.0
Base form

Past

Past part

GerundPresent3rd

Presentnot3rd

Modalaux

Figure 7: Verb form usage in Globe
The proportion of verb forms in each book of JandB
is shown in Figure 8. As with the other two
textbook series, several trends are distinct for JandB.
Firstly, some verb forms progressively diminish intheir proportion from Book 1 through to Book 5 inthe series. This is generally true for the base form,
present 3rd, present not 3rd, and modal auxiliary.
Secondly, two verb forms (past and gerund) show
no distinct trend across the five books. Thirdly,
the past participle verb form progressively increases
in proportion across the five books.

4

Summary

We have considered the changing proportion ofseven verb forms across the books of threehistorical Japanese EFL textbook series and foundevidence of a managed application of verb forms
across each of these textbooks.
There arediscernible trends in verb usage and these trends arestrong evidence of grammar control across books ineach textbook series.
In addition, since each of the historical textbook
series exhibits similar trends in verb usage, across
sixty-five years, we take this as indication of an
enduring view on the contribution made bydiffering verb forms to the complexity of EFL
learning materials.

30.0

25.0

20.0

15.0

10.0

References
Ozasa, T. & Erikawa, H. (2004). Eigo Kyokasho no
Rekishiteki Kennkyu [A Historical Study ofEnglish Textbooks]. Tokyo: Jiyusha.
Weir, G.R.S. (2007). The Posit Text Profiling
Toolset. Proceedings of the 12th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, Thailand.
Weir, G.R.S. & Ozasa, T. (2007). Estimating
naturalness in Japanese English textbooks.
Proceedings of the 12th Conference of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, Thailand.
Weir, G.R.S. & Ozasa, T. (2008). Multiword
vocabulary in Japanese ESL Texts.
Proceedings of the 13th Conference of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, Hawai’i.

5.0

0.0
Base form

Past

Past part

GerundPresent3rd

Presentnot3rd

Modalaux

Figure 8: Verb form usage in JandB

3

Conclusions

Across each of our three textbook series we canrecognise trends in verb usage. For National,
there is a progressive reduction in the proportion ofbase form verbs, present not 3rd, and modal
auxiliaries from Book 1 through to Book 5. At thesame time, there is a progressive increase in the
proportions of past participle and gerund forms. The
present 3rd form also shows a decreasing pattern(with the exception of the change between Book 1
and Book 2) while the past form is fairly static in
proportion across the five books in the series.
104Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Conjunctive Adverbials in English Academic Writing by Chinese
Speakers: A Corpus Approach
Tung-Yu Kao1 and Li-Mei Chen2

Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, National Cheng Kung University
1

dodofishletter@hotmail.com, 2leemay@mail.ncku.edu.tw

contending conjunctive adverbials (hereafter, CAs)
performing certain textual relations would be more
prominent in certain genres (Connelly, 2006;
Lannon, 2007; Morenberg & Sommer, 2008; Reid,
2000). For instance, the words or phrases, such as
firstly, next, and in addition, are thought to appear
more in the process genre, indicating progressive
relations in the text. However, while there are manymechanisms other than CAs able to convey
different textual relations, few empirical studies
were conducted to quantitatively prove whether thedifference in the occurrence of CAs in different
genres is at a significant level.
In view of the research potential of CAs and theirdiscourse application, the present study aims atinvestigating the distribution of textual relation
performed by CAs and their misuse patterns acrossgenres and time by answering the following threeresearch questions:
1. Does the distribution of textual relation
performed by CAs vary according to different
genres at a statistically significant level?
2. Does the distribution of textual relation
performed by CAs in written register vary
according to different genres at a statisticallysignificant level?
3. Does the distribution of textual relation
performed by CAs in spoken vary according todifferent genres at a statistically significant
level?

Abstract
The present study aims to investigate the
distribution of textual relations performed by CAs(conjunctive adverbials) across different genres
based on the corpus compiled in the AWTA project.
In this study, forty-five pieces of articles, written by
5 college students, with each student contributing 9
articles of different genres in three years, wereselected and analyzed in terms of the seven textual
relations and six misuse patterns of CAs. The resultshows that there exists a preferred distribution of
textual relations signaled by CAs and free fromgenre time influences. This suggests that the ability
to think logically for composing an article is inrelation to cognition development, and that once theability reaches its maturation it would not be
subject to other factors. These obtained results cancontribute to self-learning resources and teachingmaterial design. For the former, the annotated data
can provide authentic data for learners’ reference
while, for the latter, the findings regarding CAs canoffer a new perspective for teachers to teach writing
and to arrange their teaching materials other thanrhetoric approach.

Keywords
Conjunctive adverbials, English academic writing,
Chinese speaker, corpus approach

Introduction
The dominance of English makes English writing a
crucial platform on which people from different
language backgrounds can communicate. From a
research point of view, the ability to publish
academic articles in English has become an
indispensable skill for researchers in order to gain
more circulation. Given the trend, it becomesmandatory for English majors to receive academic
writing training in college.
Due to the demand to teach English academic
writing and cultivate this ability, many textbooks on
writing are published, but it is found that most
textbooks on writing concentrate on introducing
various genres to learners, presupposing and

1

Classifying framework

The significance of CAs lies in the fact that they
direct the interpretation among sentences in text,
which leads to the attempt to classify textual
relations explicitly indicated by CAs. According toHalliday and Hasan (1976), additive, adversative,
causal, and temporal were the four types of textual
relations regulated, with various subdivisions ineach type. Later, Quirk et al. (1985) revised
Halliday and Hasan’s four-type system as a systemof seven types, namely, listing, summative,
appositional, resultive, inferential, contrastive, andtransitional. In addition, Granger and Tyson (1996)
105

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

designated one more textual relation, corroborative,
for the kind of CAs convey writers’ attitudes towardand comments on the previous text in the following
text.
The present study based its classifying
framework for textual relations on Quirk et al’s
(1985), except combing resultive and inferential
into one category and including the corroborative
textual relation. The merit of the framework is thatmost related studies took the same modified
framework so that the study is reduplicable.
Although the most related studies did not combine
resultive and inferential into one category, the low
occurring ration or even the zero occurrence(Altenberg & Tapper, 1998; Tankó, 2004) makes thecategory collapse have little impact on across-study
comparison. Table 1 gives the definition and someexamples of each kind of CA sorted by the textual
relation it conveys.

2

The writing samples investigated and the analytic
tools employed in the present study were based on
the AWTA project (http://awta.csie.ncku.edu.tw),which aims at compiling a learner corpus providing
inter-sentential information in hopes of developing
automated discourse-correcting technology.
Based on the learner corpus compiled in the
AWTA project, 45 writing pieces by 5 college
students were selected in this study for analysis,
with one student contributing 9 pieces which belong
to 9 different genres. The nine genres are
Comparison-Contrast, Cause-Effect, Description,
Definition, Narration, Classification, MultipleStrategies, Argumentation, and Problem-Solving.
After analyzing the selected data and tallying thecounts, all the obtained figures were further
analyzed via two-way within-subjects ANOVAs toanswer the proposed research questions. A
significant level of p<.05 was chosen.

Table 1: Classification of Textual Relations of CAs
TextualRelation

Definition

Methodology

Example3

Mark the next unit ofFirst, in addition,
Listing
discourse.
thenShift attention to another topic. now, in theTransition-almeantime
Provide an example or anin other words, for
Appositive
equivalent.
exampleConclude the information.
in conclusion, to
Summative
summarize
Resultive/ Mark the second part of theaccordingly, then,Inferential discourse as the result.
as a result
Show incompatibility between however, on theContrastive
information.
contrary
Corrobora- Express attitudes toward orin fact, of course,
tivecomments on the text.
actually

Results and discussion

All the raw occurring counts of Cas weretransformed into the occurring counts per 1000
sentences. The purpose of the transforming the raw
counts is to evade the influence stemming fromdifferent data sizes of different genres.
By observing these data, it is found that there
seems to exist a norm distribution of textual
relations performed by CAs without differentiating
registers and CAs in written register. In this
distribution, the listing and contractive relations are
the two most frequently occurring types of CAs
while the summative and transitional relations are
the two least frequently occurring types. The rest of
the textual relations are in the middle. Although few
textual relations are performed by spoken CAs, thelisting relation appears to be the most frequently
occurring kind in the spoken CA form.

Given the preliminary classifying framework for
textual relations performed by CAs, the present
study also take the issue of register into account.
Take the following excerpt for example. Bothsentences criticize the disadvantages of purchasingsome patented software for teaching, with the CA
besides serving the Additive relation to signal one
disadvantage plus another. While the textual
relation between the two sentences is correctly
expressed, besides, in fact, is considered informal,
and should be avoided in formal writing.

3.1

Does the distribution of textual relation
performed by CAs vary according todifferent genres at a statisticallysignificant level?
After calculating a two-way within-subjects
ANOVA, the results show that there is nointeraction between textual relation and genre (F(48,192)=1.070, p=0.366) as well as no main effectfrom genre (F(8, 32)=1.697, p=0.137). However,there does exist a main effect from textual relation(F(6, 24)=10.476, p<0.05).
With a closer look at which pair of textual
relations have significant differences, thedistribution of textual relations is found to conformto the norm of Listing (M=23.596, SD=6.625) and

If teachers want the students to buy the software fromthe publisher, it will cost students extra money. Besides,
even if the students buy the software, teachers still can’t
make sure that they make good use of it.

Therefore, in this classifying framework, the use of
CAs would be labeled based not only on the textual
relation performed but also on the register of the
CAs.

106

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

frequently in the spoken CA form.

Contrastive (M=14.153, SD=2.199) being the mostfrequent.
Resultive/Inferential(M=6.953,
SD=0.610), Appositive (M=4.849, SD=1.369) andCorroborative (M=4.073, SD=0.917) occupying thesecond most frequent, Summative (M=1.200,
SD=0.565) and Transitional (M=1.147, SD=0.512)
are the least frequent.
The reason of presenting the distribution withdifferent compartments rather than in a linear
sequence lies in the fact that these compartments
differ significantly in terms of frequency but that
there is no significant difference between textual
relations within the same compartment. For
example, the occurring frequencies of the listing
and contrastive relations are, except the resultive
relation, significantly different from the otherrelations and have the highest and second highest
frequencies, yet the two are not significantly
different from each other.

3.4
General discussion
The obtained results examine whether the
distribution of textual relations performed by CAs
is under the influence of genre. After running a
two-way ANOVA, it is found that genre has no rolein impacting the distribution of textual relations
performed by CAs, and it remains a norm
distribution across genres. That is, Listing andContrastive
are
the
most
frequent.
Resultive/Inferential, Appositive and Corroborative
are the second most frequent. Summative andTransitional are the least frequent, whichcorresponds to Field and Yip’s (1992), Liu andBraine’s (2005), Chen’s (2006) studies as well as
Tankó’s (2004), Altenberg and Tapper’s (1998) and
Shen’s (2006) studies. However, with a closer look,the distribution norm fails when written CAs are
isolated for analysis, and only the listing relation isconstantly performed by spoken CAs.
This lack of genre influence might be in related
to textual-relation-creating mechanism. Textual
relations in text can be manifested by various
mechanisms, such as discourse-organizing words.
Moreover, CAs can be easily paraphrased bydiscourse-organizing words. (McCarthy, 1991;
Winter, 1977; Yu, 2007). As shown in the following
example, the CA in (1) can be paraphrased as thenoun phrase in (2), and the listing relation is still
conveyed. Thus, only focusing on the textual
relations performed by CAs may not show
dominant textual-discoursal organization in genres.

3.2

Does the distribution of textual relation
performed by CAs in written registervary according to different genres at a
statistically significant level?
Through a two-way within-subjects ANOVA, it isfound that there is no interaction between textual
relation and genre (F(48, 144)=0.969, p=0.537) as
well as no main effect from genre (F(8, 24)=2.062,
p=0.082). However, there does exist the main effectfrom textual relation (F(6, 18)=8.585, p<0.05).
The results show that there is no distribution
norm of textual relations of written CAs. Most of
textual relations do not differ from one another to asignificant level. Take the listing and transitional
relations as an example. The former does not
significantly differ from any textual relations while
the latter only differs from the contrastive andresultive/inferential relations, which is very
different from what happens in the distribution of
textual relations of CAs without differentiating
registers.

There are many reasons causing global warming.
1) Firstly, the amount of carbon dioxide is three times
than it was.
2) The first reason is that the amount of carbon
dioxide is three times than it was.

On the other hand, textual relations on their own
present a constant distribution norm, suggesting
there is a preference for employing certain textual
relations. For example, the transitional andsummative relations occur least frequently at asignificant level. This is understandable in that thetwo relations serve opening and closing functions
which only appear at the beginning and at the end
no matter how long a textual unit is.
Last but not least, although the distribution normof textual relations is discovered in CAs, it is nottrue when CAs are divided into written and spoken
registers. This may suggest that the distribution of
textual relations is some natural development incognition while register is learned througheducation.

3.3

Does the distribution of textual relation
performed by CAs in spoken registervary according to different genres at a
statistically significant level?
The scarce occurrence of spoken CAs indicates it is
not suitable for running statistical analysis becauseof many zero occurrences in textual relations.
However, it is found through these raw figures that,in most genres, few textual relations are performedby spoken CAs except the listing and contrastive
relations. Moreover, the occurrence of thecontrastive relation is limited, with only one or two
examples. It is the listing relation that appears most107

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

4

adverbial connectors in advanced Swedishlearners' written English. In S. Granger (Ed.),
Learner English on Computer (pp. 80-93).
London: Longman.
Chen, Cheryl Wei-yu. (2006). The use of CAs in theacademic papers of advanced Taiwanese EFL
learners. International Journal of Corpus
Linguistics, 11(1), 113-130.
Connelly, M. (2006). Get writing: Sentences andparagraphs. Australia: Thomson Higher
Education.
Field, Y. & Yip, L. (1992). A comparison of Internal
conjunctive cohesion in the English essay
writing of Cantonese speakers and native
speakers of English. RELC Journal, 23, 15-28.
Granger, S. & Tyson, S. (1996). Connector usage inthe English essay writing of native andnon-native EFL speakers of English. World
Englishes, 15, 17-27.
Halliday, R. & Hasan, D. (1976). Cohesion in
English. New York: Longman.
Lannon, J. M. (2007). The writing process: A
concise rhetoric, reader, and handbook. New
York: Longman.
Liu, M. & Braine, G. (2005) Cohesive features inargumentative writing produced by Chinese
undergraduates. System, 33, 623-636.
McCarthy, M. (1991) Discourse Analysis for
Language
Teachers.
UK:
Cambridge
University Press.
Morenberg, M. & Sommers, J. (2008). The writer's
options: Lessons in style and arrangement.
New York: Pearson Longman.
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. & Svartvik, J.
(1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the
English Language. London: Longman.
Reid, J. M. (2000). The process of composition.
White Plains, NY: Longman.
Shen, T.-C. (2006). Advanced EFL Learners’ Use of
CAs in Academic Writing. MA Thesis, Taiwan:
National Taiwan Normal University.
Tankó, G. (2004). The use of adverbial connectorsinHungarianuniversity
students'
argumentative essays. In Sinclair, J. M. (Ed.),
How to Use Corpora in Language Teaching(pp. 157-181). Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.
V.
Winter, E. O. (1977). A clause-relational approach
to Eenglish texts: A study of some predictive
lexical items in written discourse. Instructional
Science, 6, 1-92.
Yu, Hsueh-ying. (2007). Discourse grammar for
academic reading: Textual relationships.
English Teaching & Learning, 31(2), 159-197.

Conclusions and implications

The present study aims to investigate the
distribution of textual relations performed by CAs.
There are two major findings. Firstly, there is a
distribution norm of textual relations performed by
CAs free from influence of genre and time. It isinferred that the preference results from humancognition once the cognitive development iscompleted. Secondly, time has a role in impacting
the use of CAs in different registers. Over time, theuse of CAs in written register is increasing whilethat of CAs in spoken register is decreasing.
Given these obtained results, the contribution of
the present study is three-fold. Firstly, this study
follows the specifications formatted in the AWTA
project, which makes the analyzed data withannotations for CAs serve as authentic samples forlearners’ reference and training data for developing
automateddiscourse-detecting
technology.
Secondly, the results provide a new perspective on
introducing CAs and the textual relations they
perform. For instance, the distribution norm of
textual relations performed by CAs across genres
and time suggests that students are cognitively
prepared to acquire and apply the type of language
forms. The traditional textbook arrangement inwhich CAs are introduced by one textual relation
after another in different genres is worthy of second
thought.
For further research on textual relations, it issuggested to enlarge the sample size and researchscope for investigation. Although it is found there
exists a distribution norm of textual relations
performed by CAs, which is free from the influenceof genres and time, some conditions may have arole in the obtained results. Firstly, to avoid
instruction influence, only five participantsqualified to submit their writing samples.
Nevertheless, with such a small sample size, theinferential power may not be enough and thus
undermines the results. Therefore, getting theresults from a different statistic design with a large
sample size to compare with the results in thepresent study may consolidate the findings.
Secondly, the mechanisms to realize textual
relations are by no means limited to the CAs
investigated in the present study. Whether the
distribution norm of textual relations found in thepresent study still occurs after including the derived
and paraphrased forms of CAs (McCarthy, 1991;
Winter, 1977; Yu 2007), such as preposition
expressions
withreferencesanddiscourse-organizing words, is another direction forfurther research.
References
Altenberg, B. & Tapper, M. (1998). The use of108

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

An Acoustic Study of English Language Learning Transfer fromJapanese: a case study in CNN English Conversation
Yi-jun Liu
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, National Cheng Kung University

fakemaki118@yahoo.com.tw
Several acoustic features occurring in Japanese andEnglish can be illustrated as follows. Firstly,
Japanese is regarded as pitch accent language andthe use of pitch to mark certain syllables in the
speech, which is similar to English. However,English is stress accent language, characterized byhigher pitch, longer duration and greater intensity,
which distinguish from Japanese that is limited tothe change of pitch from a H tone to a L tonearound the accented syllable(Beckman and
Pierrehumbert, 1986a: 256).Secondly, phonemic
length contrast determines the lexical meanings inJapanese language, which does not exist in English
since the duration only operates at the phonetic
level by exhibiting the longer in stressed syllables.
Thirdly, English is classified as a stress-timed
language, in which the fundamental isochronous
unit of timing is the stress foot, while Japanese isclassified as a mora-timed language (Ueyama,
2000: 9).
This study explores the language transfer on
acoustic features when Japanese speakers areinterviewed in English conversation. Two groups
involve native English speakers and Japanese
speakers in order to examine their differences interms of intonational structures and discourse
language in conversation. There are three objectives
intended to be achieved in this research. Firstly,
make a comparison of these two groups on
intonational structures aspect. I will focus on the
point that Japanese speakers how to manipulate thevowel duration in post-nuclear position as well as
the temporal organization of function words.
Secondly, exhibit their different communicationstyles in two groups by probing into discourse
functional characteristics, such as reactive-tokes, orthe accent marking topic. Thirdly, discover theextent of language transfer on different proficiency
of English, which ground on the notion that
communication styles relative to cultural
knowledge is difficulty to remove (Chang, 2007).

Abstract
Many studies investigate the effects of native
language on second language learning, which is
restricted to segmental level. Japanese and English
are typologically different in terms of prosodic
properties. The salient common feature between
English and Japanese lies in the accent, but it
operates in different ways in these two languages
The aim of this study is to examine the languagetransfer of Japanese speakers in English
conversation in terms of suprasegmental area anddiscourse
functional
characteristics.
Oneexperiment involves two groups in this study–native American English speakers and Japanese
speakers. The collected data is derived from CNN
conversation. The experiment will investigate theprosodic differences between English and Japanesegroups in post-nuclear position as well as temporalorganization of function words in English
conversation. As to discourse language, theexperiment will make a comparison of reactive
tokes as well as accent marking on topic. In
addition, the extent of langue transfer in different
proficiency of Japanese speakers in English
conversation will be probed further. The results ofthis study reveal the langue transfer is relative tofirst language. The comparison between two
languages
providesseveralpedagogicalimplications.

Keywords
language transfer, accent, post-nuclear position,
temporal organization reactive-tokes

Introduction
When learning Japanese and English, I find several
differences, especially acoustic features, between
these two languages. In the process of the second
language acquisition or third language learning, it is
not surprising that the native language would havethe influence on the target language. This raises the
motivation to conduct the research regarding
language transfer to achieve better understanding
for these two languages.
109

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

1

1.2
Discourse functional characteristics
As to discourse language in conversation, English
speakers often feel that Japanese speakers are so
irruptive since Japanese people like to provide more
emotional supports when the speakers are in
progress. The emotional support presents one typeof back-channel feedbacks with the feature of anon-lexical vocalic form. Emotional support serves
as a ‘continuer’, for purpose of revealing interest or
claiming understanding, which frequently occurs inJapanese’s non-primary speakers. On the other hand,
English non-primary speakers are more inclined toutter a short lexical phrase or word, such as ‘good’,‘really’ ‘exactly’, in conversation, called as
Reactive Expression (Clancy, Thompson, Suzuki
and Tao 1996). I suppose that the discrepancy of
discourse functional characteristics in conversation
reveals the contrast communication style, which isrelative to cultural background knowledge. In myview, this aspect concerned with cultural
perspective is difficulty to get rid of regardless of
their English proficiency. This domain is exactly I
want to discover.
Beckman and Venditti (2000) find that Japanese
have the tendency to utilize the NP-wa to
re-introduce the topic again together withprominence by probing into the spontaneous speechof Japanese language corpus. On the contrary,
English speakers view the re-introduced topic as old
information without putting accent on it. Moreover,as the experiment about language transfer
conducted by Wennerstrom (1996) indicated thatJapanese group is prone to put equal prominence oneach item notwithstanding the importance indiscourse context. In response to the above finding,I think Japanese may have their communicative
strategy to signal the relationship between old and
new information, which entails more attention to
examine.

Literature review

1.1
Intonational structure
Accented considered the most salient similarity
between English Japanese only differs in how word
stress is realized in creating characteristic stresspatterns of each language (Ohata, 2004: 10).
English is stressed accent language so that stressedsyllables exhibit the longer duration, change ofpitch and greater intensity (Ueyama, 2000: 9).
Whereas, Japanese accented words is merely
characterized by the change of pitch. Accordingly,
this difference distinguishes stress accent from pitchaccent language (Japanese). The notion of stressaccent in English contributes to the unstressedvowel “shwa /Ə/”, which is not correlated toJapanese. I think vowel duration may be difficulty
items for Japanese to learn. According to theexperiment conduced by Ueyama (2000), it
indicates that advanced Japanese learners of English
have trouble making the vowel duration different inpost-nuclear position since advanced learners
employ the fundamental frequency, which iscorrelated to Japanese lexical trait, as the tool
beneficial for lengthening vowels. However, in
post-nuclear position, fundamental frequency
totally disappears in English so that advanced
Japanese learner may encounter the problem of
producing a durational contrast between stressed
and unstressed vowels (Ueyama, 2000). I predictthat fundamental frequency will have a positivetransfer, while the vowel duration may be difficulty
for all levels of Japanese people. Thus, I willcompare different proficiency levels of Japaneselearners of English after a contrastive focus in
English conversation to confirm if this langue
feature is the most challenge for every level ofJapanese speakers in learning English.
In case of English stress-timing, complex syllable
structures tend to be regarded as stressed syllables,
while simple structures, such as function words(CV) will be found in unstressed syllables.
Therefore, English speakers tend to cliticize
function words so that the duration of function
words are reduced as unstressed syllables of content
words. On the other hand, Japanese function
morphemes should be attached to content words,
which rightly received no accent.
Japanese is mora-timed language so that thefunction morphemes are not be subject toshortening (Ueyama, 2000:110). I suggest thisdifference concerning with the temporalorganization of function words may be neglected inclasses, encouraging me to explore this subtle
feature.

2

Method2.1
Subjects
There are two groups participating in this study.
One consists of two native English speakers whoboth grow from New York city. The other embraces
two native Japanese speakers who exhibit different
English proficiency in CNN interview conversation.
Paris Hilton (female) , a famous American socialite
and Howard Schultz (male), a chairman ofStarbucks form American English group. Hamasaki
Ayumi (female), a famous Japanese singer andYoshizo Shimano (male), a CEO of bicycle
corporation construct Japanese English group.
Hamasaki Ayumi often engages code-switching inJapanese so that Ayumi is classified as beginninglevel, as compared to Yoshizo Shimano who has
110Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

better command of English in CNN interview
conversation.

2.3
Measurement
Software Parrat was utilize to analyze thefundamental frequency and vowel duration.
Fundamental
frequency
determines
tonalorganization, such as intonational structure. Vowel
duration is manipulated in different ways in two
languages.

2.2
Data collection
Data collection is mainly derived from the book“ Master Listening with CNN Nwes-- Interviews
with Celebrities”, including American groupsubjects and Yoshizo Shimano. The CNN
conversation of Hamasaki Ayumi is obtained fromthe internet:

3

Data analysis

3.1
Intonation structure
The findings can be displayed in the figure 1, 2, 3,
and 4.

http://www.veoh.com/videos/e1749709ab7Nnnr.
Therefore, the data in this study are authentic.

Figure 1. Male American English Speaker

Figure 2. Male Japanese Speaker111Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Figure 3. Female American Speaker

Figure 4. Female Japanese Speaker
have an irruptive style as I predict, which may
result from their different occupation. Hamasaki
Ayumi is a famous singer so that she should exhibit
her lively personality, whereas Yoshizo Shimano is
a CEO so that he would be careful in personal
conducts. Besides, I think this phenomenon canprobably be explained by their educational
backgrounds. As to the accent marking, I findJapanese speakers influenced by native language,
they are prone to put the topic in the initial positionof sentences with prominence. The topic is alreadymentioned in the previous. Consequently, I find thatthe language transfer is not restricted to theprosodic properties, which also contains the transferfrom Japanese syntactic structure. Specifically,
Japanese language involves the pattern “NP-wa” tore-introduce the topic, which is actually exhibited in

The results indicate Japanese speakers havedifficulty producing a durational contrast in
post-nuclear position. However, the change of pitch
can be positively transferred in Japanese English.
Advanced subject (Figure 2) is inclined to perform
post-nuclear deaccentuation more reliably. Thisconfirms the findings Ueyama (2000). As for thefunction words, Japanese speakers, especially, lowlevel subject, tend to extend the duration of function
words as compared to American English speakers.
Therefore, we discern that the language transfer ishighly relative to the influence of native language.
3.2
Discourse functional characteristics
Hamasaki Ayumi really provided more emotional
supports, such as non-vocalic back-channels in
conversation. By contrast, Yoshizo Shimano did not112Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

English may contribute to the misinterpretation ofEnglish native speakers. For instance, when
Japanese speaker fails to lower the pitch at the endof a sentence, the utterance might be perceived as acontinuation of the speech. This example ofmisinterpretation could be the most problems forJapanese learners in English communication. I
consider this problem could occur in Taiwaneselearners, which entails more attention to investigate.
Thirdly, the degree of langue transfer would be
more in low-level subject in terms of intonaitonal
structures and discourse language. The mostcommon as well as difficulty learning items shouldbe the reduced the function words and duration
contrast in post-nucleus position. I assume that the
suprasemgmental features may be the ignored
domains in Japanese English teaching. Moreover, I
find that English speech performed by Japanese
speakers may be staccato-like, which may bedifficulty for American English speakers tocomprehend. The fact of staccato characteristic
influenced by their native language mora-timed also
corresponds to Taiwanese English due to asyllable-timed feature in Mandarin. I suggest
English instruction for Japanese as well as
Taiwanese learners should emphasize thedevelopment of the awareness for stressed syllables,
namely, loudness, vowel length and clarity, andpitch, and cultivate the ability of recognizing thestress-timed rhythm in English.
Furthermore, even if the communication style isnot so significantly influenced by native language
when observing the advanced subject, I recommend
the cultural knowledge should be incorporated into
English instruction, which is really ignored in
Taiwanese English teaching. Cultural knowledge
introduced into English teaching would cultivate
the students’ international perspective so that they
can learn how to be tolerant different culturally
communication styles.

Japanese English.
3.3
The extent of language transfer
Advanced subject, Yoshizo Shimano, is more
native-like since he could produce more contrast
duration and do not perform the irruptive
communication style. However, two Japanese
speakers cannot have the ability to cliticize function
words in English, especially low-level subject.

4

Discussion and conclusion

The study is aimed to examine the langue transfer
of Japanese performed by Japanese speakers in
English CNN conversation. The findings can besummarized as follows. Firstly, in the aspect ofintonational
structures,Japanesespeakers
regardless their English proficiency, have difficulty
producing durational differences after contrastive
focus. As to the change of pitch, advanced subject
do well in suppressing F0 contrast after acontrastive focus than the beginning subject.
Accordingly, the results can be supported from
Ueyama’s experiment (2000). The reduced function
words could be challenge for Japanese speakers,
which reflect on the fact Japanese speakers,
especially low-level subject (Hamasaki), tend toextend the duration of function words. This languetransfer phenomenon can be explained by the natureof Japanese language that is a mora-timed language.
In addition, Japanese grammatical morphemes are
suffixes certainly attached to words. Consequently,
it poses the difficulty for native Japanese speakers
to cliticize English function words (Ueyama 2000:
121).
Secondly, in the area of discourse functional
characteristics, it is surprising that the advanced
speaker do not reveal the irruptive style by offering
emotional support in progress when interviewing.
However, the Japanese communication style can befound in Ayumi’s conversation. I think this result is
not inconsistent my hypothesis may come from thelimitation of the sample sizes, backgroundknowledge of subjects, such as their occupation,
educational backgrounds and so on. The accent
marking on the old information really occurs inJapanese English. As compared to advanced speaker,
low level subject like to re-introduce the oldinformation in the beginning of sentences withprominence. This sentence pattern is equal to theemphasize sentence –NP- wa, which exhibits thelanguage transfer not only comes from the prosodic
properties but also result from the syntactic
structures. Compared to English speakers, Japanese
subjects fail to display the wider pitch range inEnglish intonation patterns. As Ohata suggested(2004), the narrow pitch movement of Japanese

5

Reflections

According to behaviorism, langue learning is aprocess of habit formation. When learning a new
language, we are tried to get rid of the influences ofnative language or other familiar languages. Thisphenomenon reflects on my third language learningof Japanese. Sometimes, I am really afraid of myEnglish pronunciation with Japanese accent. The
notion of behaviorism reflects on the impression of
the public that the master of Japanese will decrease
the English proficiency, after all, there are manydifferences between these two languages, whichraises the motivation to do this study regarding thelangue transfer from Japanese on English learning.
This study involving the comparison between
EnglishandJapanese
improves
better113

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Beckman, M. E. & Venditti, J. J. (2000). Tagging
prosody and discourse structure in elicited
spontaneous speech. Proc. of Science andTechnology Agency Priority Program
Symposium on Spontaneous Speech (pp.
87-98). Tokyo.
Clancy, P. M., Thompson, S. A., Suzuki, R., & Tao,
H. (1996). The conversational use ofreactive tokens in English, Japanese, andMandarin. Journal of Pragmatics, 26,355-387.
Gundel, J & Torsten, F. (2001). “Topic and Focus.”
Handbook of Pragmatic Theory. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Katagiri, Y. (2007). Dialogue functions of Japanese
sentence-final particles ‘Yo’ and ‘Ne’.
Journal of Pragmatics, 39, 1313-1323.
Ohata, K. (2004). Phonological differences between
Japanese and English: Several potentiallyproblematic areas of pronunciation forJapanese ESL/EFL learners. Asian EFL
Journal, 6(4), Article 5. Retrieved
December
9,
2008,
from
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/december_2004_KO.php.
Chang, S. J. (2007) A Graphic Approach to
Teaching
Communication-Concerned,
Culture-General Constructs: Its Rationale,
Design and Application. English Teachingand Learning, 31(1): 1-42.
Ueyama, M. & Jun, S-A. (1998). Focus realizationin Japanese English and Korean English
intonation. In Hajime Hoji (Ed.), Japaneseand Korean Linguistics 7. CSLI: Stanford
University Press.
Ueyama, M (2000). Prosodic Transfer: An Acoustic
Study of L2 English vs. L2 Japanese.
Doctoral dissertation, University ofCalifornia at Los Angeles.
Venditti, J. J. (2005). The J_ToBI model ofJapanese intonation. In Sun-Ah Jun (Ed.),
Prosodic Typology: The Phonology ofIntonation and Phrasing (pp.172-200).
Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
Ward, N. & Tsukahara, W. (2000). Prosodic features
which cue back-channel responses inEnglish and Japanese. Journal of
Pragmatics, 32, 1177-1207.
Wang, L.S. (2008). Master listening with CNN
news—interview with celebrities. Taipei:
LiveABC Interactive corporation.
Wennerstrom, A. (1994). Intonational meaning in
English Discourse: A study of non-native
speakers. Applied Linguistics, 15(4),400-420.

understanding of these two languages. I am moreaware of some similar features, such as accent,stress, how to manipulate in these two languages. I
discern the language transfer of Japanese people on
English learning from this research so that I can pay
more attention to these language transfers fromJapanese. Moreover, I learn the factors inducing
these language transfers. This is to say I reallyachieve the comprehensive understanding ofEnglish and Japanese. In fact, learning English, I
think it is difficulty to control the vowel duration instressed or unstressed syllables, which also occurs
in Japanese people since Japanese and Mandarin
Chinese are not classified as stress-timed language.
Through this research, I get several insights about
how to control the vowel duration of English. On
the other hand, when learning Japanese, pitchaccent, a trait of accent word poses difficulty on me.
I do not know how to mark the pitch accent on theword. Due to this research, I finally realize the pitchaccent on Japanese word only involves the pitchchange from a H tone to a L tone. I am really glad
to be a graduate student in linguistics field so that I
can take the course of English intonation analysis,
which not only solve my English learning problems
but also improve the understanding of Japanese.
This study provides the differences of theselanguages, which is not confined to intonationl
structure aspect. I also learn the discourse area inthese two languages operates differently, whichcause a contrast communication style. I think the
discourse language aspect is relative to cultural
background knowledge, which is hard to remove
and often neglected in English teaching. Therefore,
I suggest the discourse language should beincorporated into English teaching, enable students
to discern the different communication styles andthen learn to be tolerant. In fact, many English
speakers feel Chinese people tend to be an inactive
communication style as compared to Japanese’s
irruptive style. In the future, I want to engage theinternational business secretary and thus theknowledge about different cultural communicationstyle are beneficial for me to interact orcommunicate with people from all over the worldsmoothly.
References
Beckman, M. E. & Pierrehumbert, J. B. (1986a).
Intonational structural in Japanese andEnglish. Phonology Yearbook, 3, 255-309.
Beckman, M. E. & Pierrehumbert, J. B. (1986b).
Japanese prosodic phrasing and intonation
synthesis. Proceedings of the 24th annual
meeting on Association for Computational
Linguistics (pp. 173-180). New York:
Association for Computational Linguistics.
114

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The effects of conference participationon communication apprehension
Rieko Matsuoka

School of Nursing, National College of Nursing, Japanmatsuokar@adm.ncn.ac.jp

international community. Even in such a milieu, thehigh degree of communication apprehension has
impeded the communicative competence among
Japanese learners of English.
Communication apprehension, the mental
construct defined as “an individual’s level of fear oranxiety associated with either real or anticipatedcommunication with another person or persons”(McCroskey, 1977, p. 78), has been identified as thestrongest factor in reducing the level of willingness
to communicate among Japanese college students(Matsuoka, 2006). Communication apprehension is
also identified as a psychological phenomenon
called social anxiety. People experience this social
anxiety whilst speaking in front of others, as Young(1991)
has
also
observed.
Accordingly,
communication apprehension is likely to be a
primary reason for the avoidance or disruption ofcommunication.
Using content analysis approach, meaningfulcodes or units were elicited and categorized into
concepts which seem able to explain the Japanesesense of self.
These categorized concepts
consisting of codes or units may explain the corementality of Japanese learners or Japanese sense of
self.
The focal point of this study is to find out theway in which the experiences of being interns at aninternational conference were successful in
reducing the levels of communication apprehensionof serious learners of English were able to reduce
the level of communication apprehension.

Abstract
This study examines the process by which theJapanese college students reduced their level ofcommunication apprehension through theirexperiences of working as interns at an international
conference. Data were obtained from the focus
group meeting of nine Japanese students who
volunteered to work as interns at the international
conference in 2008. A 120-minute meeting wasaudio-recorded and transcribed. Using a content
analysis approach (Krippendorff, 2004), thetranscribed data were coded into meaningful units,
which were categorized into concepts representing
the participants’ psychological features. Elicitedconcepts such as perfectionism, competitiveness,and other-directedness were discussed as thepossible causal factors of communication
apprehension.
Socio-psychologicalandanthropological studies on Japanese communication
behaviors (e.g., Kuwayama, 1992; Lebra, 2004;
Maynard, 1997) were examined for interpreting thedata. As previous studies (e.g., Matsuoka, 2006)
suggest, communication apprehension is regarded
as the strongest antecedent to willingness tocommunicate, and some studies revealed that theJapanese communication apprehension is thehighest amongst many nationalities including other
East Asian countries; therefore, the teachingprofessionals should find the ways of reducing theJapanese learners’ levels of communication
apprehension in order to raise their willingness tocommunicate. Therefore, this study has importantpedagogical implications in reducing students’communication apprehension in English.

2. Methods
2.1 Participants
Nine students majoring nursing at the national
college participated in this study. They helped theinternational conference as interns for three days in
November in 2008. Five of them were females
and four are males. Five of them (three: female;
two: male) were the third year students, whose age
ranged from 20 to 21; four of them (two: female;
two; male) were the second year students whose

Keywords
communication apprehension, content analysis,
international conference. Japanese sense of self.

1. Introduction
In this global society, English has become aninternational ‘lingua franca’ and has been regarded
as a necessary language for being a member of the115Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

analysis. The hypothesis of this study was “theparticipation as an intern at the international
conference can reduce the level of communication
apprehension.

age ranged from 18 to 19. The average age was
19.67. Four participants out of five third year
students volunteered to work as interns in 2007, andthey knew what they were expected to do. One firstyear student was a returnee and lived in the UK for
three years; the other first year student was from theinternational high school where foreign students
existed and English education was emphasized. All
three female second year students had someexperiences of traveling overseas. Two students outof the remaining four students helped at theconference in the previous year. The rest of two
students did not have any experiences of contacting
native speakers of English outside of the classroom
settings, and one of them (first year male student)
confessed he had high anxiety in speaking English.

3. Findings and Discussion
Several meaningful codes elicited from the data
seem to develop the viable factors of reducing thecommunication apprehension levels. The frequent
codes were ‘to gain many more opportunities to use
English than in their usual lives’, ‘to understand theimportance of communication even when thecommunication skills are not good enough’, ‘togain confidence of speaking English after making
themselves understand themselves’, and ‘to feel
happy and confident in speaking English’. In clear
contrast to prior studies (e.g., Matsuoka, 2006),
which revealed the Japanese overly conscious
mentality toward outside world or other people(Kuwayama, 1992; Lebra, 2004, Maynard, 1997),
these elicited codes may build up the promising
factors reducing their communication apprehension
levels.
The viable factors from these codes should be‘positive attitudes towards using English’ and ‘self
efficacy of speaking English’. Among others, these
two factors should function effectively for Japaneselearners
toreducetheircommunication
apprehension levels.

2.2 Procedure
Nine participants joined a 120-minute meeting, andthe conversation there was audio-recorded andtranscribed. The questions asked at this meeting
included a) whether they had any changes in theircommunication behaviors in English, b) what sorts
of difficulties or problems they had during theconference sessions, and c) how they felt inspeaking English. In a relaxed condition, they
were expected to express their feelings, reflecting
their experiences.
2.3 Content analysis approach
Content analysis is the research method making
valid inferences from the text (Weber, 1990). In
order to make valid inferences, Krippendorff (2004)
postulates that the following six points need to beaddressed; a) data, b) definition of the data, c) the
population of the data d) context, e) the boundaries,
and f) the target of the inferences.
The data for this present study were thetranscribed text of the conversation at thefocus-group meeting, and were defined as theexperiences as interns at the international
conference. The population of the data was theJapanese college students who are eager to improvetheir communication competence in English. The
context was the international conference where theparticipants helped as interns. The boundary ofanalysis exists in the contents affecting theparticipants’ communication behaviors in English.
Lastly the target of the inferences was to explore
the mechanism of reducing the Japanese learners’communication apprehension.
The inferences are made through coding inorder that the latent meanings should be elicitedfrom manifest contents. Then the elicited codes
are categorized into viable factors.
A hypothesis is also required for content

4. Concluding remarks
The results of the present study support the
hypothesis that the participation as an intern at theinternational conference can reduce the level ofcommunication apprehension’, and suggest that theJapanese sense of self manifested as the mentalityof ‘other-directedness’ could be defeated should the
optimal occasions of using English andexperiencing the self-efficacy be given.
Selected References
Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content analysis: An
introduction to its methodology. 2nd edition, CA: Sage.
Kuwayama, T. (1992). The reference other orientation.
In N. R. Rosenberger (Ed.), Japanese sense of self (pp.
121-151). New York: CUP.
Lebra, T. S. (2004). The Japanese self in cultural logic.
Honolulu: UHP.
Matsuoka, R. (2006). Japanese college students’Willingness to Communicate in English. Doctoral
Dissertation. Philadelphia: Temple University
Young, D. J. (1991). Creating a low-anxiety classroom
environment: What does language anxiety researchsuggest? The Modern Language Journal, 75, 426-439.

116

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Taiwanese College Students’ Perceptions of Plagiarism: Is it a CulturalIssue?
Shih-Chieh Chien

Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, National Sun Yat-sen University
chien.paul@gmail.com
indicated that they have a dissimilar cultural
understanding of plagiarism (Briggs 2003;
Juwah, 2003). The concept that plagiarism is
ethically wrong is a common view inacademia. Kollich (1983) portrays how hepursued offending plagiarists like anavenging god and explains what they havedone as deception. He regards the act ofplagiarism as an offense and makes out theneed for punishment against what he sees asa crime. In academia, plagiarism is viewed asacademic dishonesty or academic fraud. It isrelated to the unwarranted claim to theplagiarizing author’s standing that isaccomplished through false declaration of
authorship.
The emergence in concern with regard to plagiarism
in higher education is underscored in a number ofrecent articles (e.g., Ashworth, Bannister, & Thorne
1997, Carroll & Appleton, 2001, Errey, 2002). It isclear that there are different levels of understandingof plagiarism in different regions. These concerns
are supported by some recent literature. Plagiarism
is, however, not considered a problem in some othercultures. In some regions it may be acceptable, evenflattering, to copy the work of experts. In somecases it is deemed more humble than boldly
promoting their own viewpoints about something(Carroll & Appleton, 2001) and students who want
to write something particularly clearly see
paraphrasing the source as a strange thing to dowhen the source itself is written better than they
could ever reword or rewrite it in their own
language (Biggs & Watkins, 1996). The ethics ofplagiarism is associated with the ideologicalstandpoint of the ownership of texts. Scollon (1995)
indicates that in the treatment of academic
plagiarism there is an assumption of a common
ideology of thinking which presupposes that theauthor is the only creator and originator of his/her
texts. As a result, plagiarism is a violation against
the author and accordingly viewed as ethicallywrong.

Abstract
The present study aims to investigate Taiwanesecollege students’ perceptions of plagiarism. Data
were collected through semi-structured in-depth
interviews with students. In this study, it identified avariety of reasons why students may plagiarize.
Most of the students participating in this study do
not think plagiarism is a cultural issue. Rather, they
regard it as a worldwide phenomenon. There are anumber of factors that may lead to plagiarism,
including the rapid evolution of information andcommunications technology making it much easierfor students to copy and paste information via
Internet, lack of adequate study skills and improper
preparation particularly in poor time management,poor academic writing and referencing skills, lackof confidence to write in their own words due todifficulties and unfamiliarity with a foreign
language, being under lots of pressure because ofmany too hard assignments, high expectations ofgaining the best grade, utter laziness, individual
differences etc. This study suggests that education
plays a very important role in training and making
students aware of the ethos and values of academic
honesty and integrity, and the acknowledgement ofsources of information as they relate to citing otherpeople’s scholarly works.

Keywords
plagiarism; cultural; perceptions; Taiwanese

Introduction
Plagiarism, as defined in the Collins
Dictionary and Thesaurus (1991) is “toappropriate, borrow, crib, infringe, lift, pirate,
steal, thieve – from another work or author”(p. 753). The plagiarism in higher education
is becoming a nerve-racking problem as suchpractices not only undermine the quality andstandards of education but also contradicts
the rule of intellectual property rights. Somestudies have pointed out cultural factors as acause why foreign students plagiarize and117Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

1or use quotation marks to cite an author’s words
even though the author is well known and respected.
Hence it is an important step to avoid incidences ofplagiarism. In addition, in academia, plagiarism is aserious offense that can lead to punishments such asa failing score on a particular assignment or for acourse. Most of the students participating in thisstudy do not think plagiarism is a cultural issue.
Rather, they regard it as a worldwide phenomenon
and plagiarism does not to seem be unique tostudents in Asia.

Research design

The present study sought to explore whether there
are notable cultural differences in the student’s
interpretations of plagiarism and to reflect on someof the implications for teaching practice. Twenty
one college students from a national university in
Taiwan participated in the study. An explanatory
case study approach as described by Yin (1993;
1994) was the methodology used in implementing
the study. The aims of the study were to (1) explore
students’ understanding of the term plagiarism; (2)identify the factors that may cause some students toplagiarize; (3) scrutinize and identify effective
strategies and methods for conquering the factorsthat potentially cause students to plagiarize; and (4)build a knowledge base which would be helpful in
informing the pedagogical guidelines and practicesof coping with factors that cause students toplagiarize. The present study addressed thefollowing questions:
1.
2.
3.

2.2
Plagiarism in coursework
In the present study, several students stressed how
plagiarism is often unintentional owing to the way
they make notes while researching and writing theiressays. They elucidated that some students maygather plentiful electronic and non-electronic
references whilst writing the notes they prepare
when researching a particular essay question. In thisway they indicated that it was easy to lose track ofwhat is there own work and what is the work ofothers as they piece it together in their ultimate
coursework submission. In this way students
regarded some form of plagiarism as being
unintentional. For instance, a student suggested thatnot completely referencing the patchwork could
come about because of time constraints and / or thepoor time management of research projects. He
suggested that time is an issue saying that “most of
the cases arise when students are lack of time, andmerely do not have time to think about it.”Do students understand the term of plagiarism
and its influence on academic writing?
What factors influence on how students
understand plagiarism?
For what reasons do students plagiarize?

The
investigationconsistedofin-depthsemi-structured interviews with the students inorder to establish a broad understanding of theissues concerning plagiarism as perceived by them.
The questions covered the students’ level ofunderstanding of plagiarism, academic writing,referencing conventions and academic integrity, theconsequences linked to plagiarism, and students’prior educational background to help ascertain
conceptions or misconception of plagiarism.
Student participation in the interviews wasvoluntary and anonymity was ensured. All the data
were transcribed verbatim, analyzed and reported.
They were analyzed qualitatively. The results were
presented in the form of qualitative comments. The
students’ perceptions of plagiarism were theevidence to help illustrate points.

2

2.3

Ability and Plagiarism

The question of academic ability orcompetency in English and/or the topic wasseen to be associated with understanding
why some students plagiarize. On the basisof their insights gained in learning English,
several students said that, by reason ofEnglish not being the first language, that“taking a bit here and there helps withgathering meaning across. It is difficult toparaphrase if you are not a native speaker.”
Others also mentioned that there are only somany ways that issues could be written, andusually if an author had written something
clearly and you agreed with it, then there
was nothing wrong with copying this. As one
student commented, “All the ways for saying
something have already been said, and thus
we have to use the same words. But this isabout words and not concepts.” Academic
writing may be particularly challenging forstudents who do not have a solid grasp ofResults

The present study comprised of interviews
with the students in order to ascertain awide-ranging understanding of the issues
concerning plagiarism.
2.1
Students’ perception of plagiarism
In the present study, most students mentioned that
there is a need for greater understanding ofplagiarism. Based on the interviews with students, amajority of them do think it is necessary to rewrite118Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

English.

students was that plagiarism is inevitablyintertwined with student learning and development.
For example, a student commented that when
students plagiarize work well, it often stillnecessitates an understanding of the topic, andtherefore reveals a degree of learning, saying that:

2.4
Importance of Examinations
All the students in the present study held the viewthat cheating in an exam is not acceptable. One
reason for this is that as the exam is the final
evaluation then students should have, “an equalchance to prove themselves, cheating is somethingthat is immoral.” Another student agreed with thissaying that people work hard for exams, and they
are a very nerve-racking period, which results
students in resenting others that take notes into
exams or cheat to some extent. The other student
also said that the teacher’s requirements are not ashigh with exams as they are with coursework, andthus students feel less stress to cheat. In addition, as
has already been elucidated, exams often bear amuch higher percentage than coursework, and assuch the risk of being caught cheating in exams wasseen as being substantial by students. Althoughanother student echoed with the above views, shealso added “teachers are well conscious of degreesof plagiarism in coursework – while an exam they
feel that you should do it alone.”

If you take all the words/sentences fromother writers – then you need to do thework to assemble it together – you havelearned and had a certain understanding of
the subject matter, it is not merely copying.
Some students supported this point of view,
stating that being able to make an argument in acoursework, even though some of it was plagiarizedfrom a variety of sources, showed some degree oflearning.
2.7
Motivations for Cheating
One of the other reasons that may induce students
to cheat in exams or to plagiarize during theircoursework is owing to pressures arising fromaccomplishing a certain level of grades. Grades
were seen by the students to be one of the major
incentives behind cheating. The students mentionedthat competition was somehow fierce at the school.
For example, one student explained that it wasparticularly fierce and tough in certain subjects suchas English and American Literature. He went on to
explain that gaining a high grade is important if
students want to gain entry onto studying abroad. A
good grade is also important in terms of finding adecent job. Another student also indicated, “Grades
almost mean everything when students have noprior work experience. Grades are also one of thevery important things that companies judge them
on.”

2.5
Technology
Technology is an interesting theme to pursue when
exploring plagiarism in coursework. One theme
emerged, the role of the Internet in coursework.
There is a perception that over the past decade
there has been a rise in the incidences of plagiarism
at schools. This is usually due to the increase inavailability of material via the Internet. Whileplagiarism in scholarship has a long history, theease of access to materials on the Internet, wherearticles come out as electronic text, makes it easierfor students to copy and paste information directly
into their assignment, thereby exacerbating the
problem of plagiarism. Students mentioned they
made use of the Internet mainly for finding
information related to a particular academic topic.
The issue of patching should be noted at this point
as several students mentioned that some keep some
windows open at one moment in time and copy andpaste words and sentences into the essay they are
working on. They acknowledged that this wasunethical in terms of not clearly giving the credit ofothers’ work, or on the other hand, very temptingwith regard to passing it off as their own work. Thisis said to be most likely among EFL students
because of their levels of language proficiency, oramong students having problems understanding
material, or merely because of time pressures.

3

Conclusion and Implications

In conclusion, this study reveals that the practices
we deem plagiaristic are the result of several
diverse and complex influences. It is clear fromthe interviews that most of the students
think there are no significant local andcultural differences in terms of the practicesof plagiarism. On the one hand, the ideologicalbasis of the concept of plagiarism (due to learning
skills, language, time pressures, grades, coursework
evaluation etc.) could potentially offer reasons why
students may plagiarize. It is seems that thestudents agree with the generally accepted
definition of plagiarism; that of stealing
someone else’s words and sentences andpassing it off as their own, is ethically wrong.
Pedagogical models, assessment practices,

2.6
Learning and plagiarism
One interesting view that emerged amongst
119Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

writingpracticesandinstitutionalarrangements may place more weight interms of teaching students how to avoid
plagiarism. Teachers need to help students
improveacademic
writingpractices,
referencing conventions, language, and study
skills, thereby enabling them to increase
their confidence, handle academic work
better, and thus avoid incidences ofplagiarism.
Finally, this study, owing to its limited
scope, is tentative indicative of the issues atstake that may be generalizable. There is
still more work to do. For instance, moredetailed qualitative studies of writing
practices might help us to gain insights into
how ‘cut and paste’ writing and patch writing
are employed to make arguments. We need torealize what kind of learning is involved andhow to develop teaching techniques to help
the students go on to independent writing
practices. We need to have a better
understanding of the skill gap that EFL
students get there. It seems that if we wereserious about plagiarism, it would beindispensable for us to throw away theideologicalstancesanddomore
comprehensive research to understand theprocess of these practices.

Yin, R. K., (1993). Applications of case study
research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Yin, R. K., (1994). Case study research: Design
and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

References
Ashworth, P., Bannister, P. & Thorne, P. (1997).
Guilty in whose eyes: University students
perception of cheating and plagiarism,
Studies in Higher Education, 22, 2,
pp.187-203
Biggs, J. & Watkins, D. (1996). The Chinese
Learner, Comparative Education ResearchCentre, Hong Kong
Briggs, R. (2003). Shameless! Reconceiving the
problemofplagiarism.
Australian
Universities Review, 46, 1, 19-23.
Carroll, J. & Appleton, J. (2001). Plagiarism: A
Good Practice Guide, JISC, Oxford
Brookes University
Errey, L. (2002). Plagiarism: Something Fishy?
…Or Just a Fish out of Water?, OCSLD
Juwah, C. (2003). The Robert Gordon University
Seminar Series on Plagiarism.
Kolich, A. M. (1983). Plagiarism: The worm of
reason, College English, 4, 141-148
Scollon, R. (1995). Plagiarism and Ideology:
identity
inintercultural
discourse,
Language in Society, 24, 1, 1-28.
The Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus (1991).
Glasgow: Harper Collins Publishers.
120Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Importance of Teaching Gender-neutral Languagein EFL Classrooms: Students’Survey Results
Chiyo Myojin

Core Studies Department, Kochi University of Technology
myojin.chiyo@kochi-tech.ac.jp

Abstract.
The use of gender-neutral language instead of

Key words

gender-biased one is rapidly becoming important in

Gender-neutral language, Gender-biased terms,

the business and academic world. In fact,

genetic pronoun, EFL classrooms

gender-neutral words such as “human being”,“person” and “chairperson” are commonly used as

Introduction

generic meanings in English-speaking countries,

Since our language and society reflect one another, it

whereas the use of gender-biased words such as

is quite important for us as communicators to“man”, “he”, and “chairman” has been avoided

recognize and respect change in the meaning andrecently.

acceptability of words. Concern about the use of

Therefore, it seems very important for us EFL

sexist language is part of our increased awarenessteachers to equip our students with ways to avoid

that the perceived meanings of some words havesexist language by teaching it in classrooms.

changed as men and women’s roles in our society

Otherwise, our students may not be aware of such

have changed.

language and may even use it in English-speaking

The previous paper (myojin, 2004) investigatedsettings in the future. Therefore, in order to enable

how gender-related English terminology has shifted

our students to skillfully interact in authentic

lately as men and women’s roles in the society havesituations, as EFL teachers, we should have achanged. Overall, the results of the investigation

responsibility to equip our students with anindicate that nowadays, there seems to be quite

understanding of gender-biased language andremarkableappropriate substitutions for such language.

acceptability of sexist words among both English

First,

thisthemeaningandspeaking people. That is to say, as for the use of “he”

gender-neutral language should be used.

and “man” as gender-neutral meanings, most of theSecond, this paper reviewed exactly what

English speaking subjects have been trying to avoid

gender-biased terms have been replaced by

it by using several different alternatives. In addition,

what gender-neutral terms in English-speaking

somecountries recently (Myojin, 2004). Finally, thiscameraman, salesman and stewardess seem to be

examines how much EFL learners are currently

becoming dead words due to people’s deliberateaware

effort to avoid those sexist words.

gender-biased

explained

about

why

of

paper

concernlanguagebycompounds

ending

in

-man

such

as

The findings ofadministering a questionnaire survey toward

this study conclude that people are trying to change

about 66 Japanese university students.

their language to accommodate concerns about121Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

fairness to both sexes. As a consequence, theQuestion 2

movement to reduce sexism in English has been

"The - man compound words such as policeman,

becoming quite remarkable recently as men andsalesman cameraman, and stewardess have been

women’s roles have changed in both societies.

dead words these days.

However, no research has investigated how much

Instead, police officer, salesperson, photographer

EFL learners are currently aware of gender-biased

and flight attendants have been replaced. Have you

language. Therefore, this study examined how muchheard this fact before?"

EFL learners are currently aware of gender-biased
language by administering a questionnaire survey
toward first-year students at a university in Japan.

2

Results

As for the answers for Question 1, “Which pronoun
will you choose for (1

Experimentstudent has () in Sentence Each) own computer?”, theThe subjects consist of 66 1st-year students (58numbers and the percentage of pronouns that weremales and 8 females) at a technology university inchosen are as follows:

Japan.

• his .................. 11 students (2 females) out of

The following are the questions in the

66 (17%)questionnaire administered toward the students.

•her ................... 0%

Question 1"Choose an appropriate pronoun for () in
the following sentence from the choices below."
Each student has () own computer.

•his or her ......

Furthermore, the following question was asked for1. histhe 11 students (17%) who chose his:

2. her

3. his or her

21•their ................ 32

4. their(2 females)(32%)( 3 females) (48%)

Q: Have you heard that his or her has been

5. I don't know
more and more used as a generic pronoun lately?

students

Only one male student answered Yes for this

•Their has the meaning of "general person." ..... 2In•Their has the meaning of "all the students." ..... 5question, whereas 10 students answered No.

addition, as for the student who chose Yes; he was•Their has the meaning of "plural." ............4

requested to choose one from the following:•His excludes the meaning of "woman" ...............3

1. I have heard about it, but still his seems better( 2 chose Yes for Q II )as a generic pronoun.

•I don't know exactly why, but I felt .................... 4

2. I have heard about it, but I had forgot it.

•Other reasons...................3

3. Other comments:• Blank...............................3

He chose 1. from the above.
Next, the following question was asked for those

The question below was asked for those who chose

who chose her (0%) or their (48%)

his or her (32%)

Q: Why did you choose it?

her has been more and more used as a generic

The numbers of the students who chose thepronoun lately?

following answers are;7 students (33%) (1 female) answered Yes, whereas•Their is the gender neutral:Q: Have you heard that his or

14 (67%) (1 female) selected No.

.............. 8/32

122

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Furthermore, the following two questions were

• It was explained in a textbook, but the teacher

asked for those 7 students who chose Yes for the

didn'tquestion above. And the numbers of the students

myself ........................3

who selected answers for the questions are as• It was not explained in a textbook, but the teacher

follows;

explained.... 11

Q: When did you know?

• It was not explained in a textbook, nor did theA:•junior or senior high school ..... 6teacher•university

myself ........................11........................

•don't remember0.................

1

explain,and

explain,

but

I

I

•by TV ........................................ 1

A:•His or her was in a textbook and the teacher• I don't remember ....................... 2

explained ......... 3• by cartoon ..................................1•His or her was in a textbook, but the teacher• at a prep school ..........................1

explain,myself................ 1

and

found

it

it

• by reading a newspaper ........... 3

Q: How did you know?

didn't

found

I

found

it

• through daily life ........................1• common sense ........................... 1•His or her was not in a textbook, but the•Others

teacher explained.... 2.............. 2•No answer.....................................10•His or her was not in a textbook, nor did the3teacher explain, but I found it myself byreading a newspaper

Findings
Regarding the generic pronoun for “each”, 48%.............1

As for Question 2, that is:of the students chose "their", 32% "his or her", andThe - man compound words such as policeman,

17% "his". Nobody selected “her”. Overall, 88% ofsalesman, cameraman, and stewardess have been

the students have never heard that “his or her” hasdead words these days. Instead, police officer,

been more and more used as a generic pronoun

salesperson, photographer and flight attendants

lately, whereas 12% of the students have heard

have been replaced (Myojin, 2004) Q: Have you

before and most of them learned in high school.

heard this fact before?

Although 67% of the students who chose “his or

46 students (6 females) (70%) answered Yes, whileher” have never heard that it has been more and20 (2 females) (30%) chose No.

more used as a generic pronoun lately, they canMoreover, the following two questions were asked

imagine “his or her” seems preferable somehow. As

for those who chose Yes;

mentioned earlier, almost half of all the 66 students

Q: When did you know?

chose “their”, but only 3 students clearly knew that

A:• junior or senior high school ..... 40 (87%)“his” is a gender-biased pronoun and 10 students(0%)

kind of noticed that “his” was not a good pronoun(11%)

and that “their” seemed better because it includes• no answer ................................. 1 (2%)

the meaning of “gender neutral” or “general• university ................................... 0• don't remember ....................

5person”. However, the important thing is that
Q: How did you know this fact?

almost half of the students who chose “their” didn’t• It was explained in a textbook and the teacher

seem to know that “their” is not a grammaticallyexplained ........9/46

proper pronoun for “each”.
123Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

With respect to the –man words, as much as

discrimination based on gender. As a consequence,

70% (46) of the students have heard; the - manquite a few organizations, especially, academic

compound words such as policeman, salesmanorganizations prohibit gender-biased language incameraman, and stewardess have been dead words

their writing and public speaking (Ferguson, 2004).

these days. Instead, police officer, salesperson,

Therefore, it seems very important for us EFL

photographer and flight attendants have beenteachers to equip our students with ways to avoid

replaced. Regarding the students who have heard

sexist language by teaching it in EFL classrooms. If

the fact, 87% of them knew the fact in junior orteachers don’t teach gender-biased language insenior high school. 43% of them said that this wasclass at all, their students may not be aware of it

because their teachers explained it. 26% mentioned

and may even use it in their careers ofthat it was explained in the textbook. 24% of the

English-speaking settings. Then, it is possible thatstudents found it by themselves in various ways

their offensive manners like that may not besuch as newspaper, TV and cartoon.

acceptable, and may even end up reducing theirchances of succeeding in the settings. Thus, in

4Conclusion

order to enable our students to skillfully interact inOverall, 88% of all the students have never heard

authentic situations, as EFL teachers, we should"his or her" has been more and more used as ahave a responsibility to equip our students with angeneric pronoun lately. Although 67% of them haveunderstanding of gender-biased language andnever heard the fact above, they were quite

appropriate substitutions for such language.

sensitive about the gender language. That is, 67%of the students who chose "his or her" have neverReferences

heard, but they are likely to imagine "his or her"

Erlich, S., and King, R. (1998). ‘Abortion :Beyond

seems preferable. In addition, 13 out of 32 who

the Personhood Mrgument’. In J.Saul,chose "their" felt in some ways that "his" did not

Feminism,. New York: Oxford University

seem to be an appropriate pronoun for "each".

Press.

As for the –man words, unlike the results of the

Ferguson, C. (2004). Sexist Language Persists insurvey about the generic pronoun, as many as 70%

the EFL Classroom. English Teachingof the students have heard that the -man words

Forum Online.
Moulton, J. (1981). ‘The Myth of the Neutral

have been replaced by other words recently. 87%of them learned it in high school; in details, about“Man”’. In Vetterling-Braggin

half of them were explained by their teachers. In(1981::100-115).

conclusion, as for the - man words, our EFL

Myojin, C. (2004). Language and Gender: Shift instudents were much more aware that they were

English and Japanese Terminology.
The 34th Annual Convention of theCommunication Association of Japan
Saul, J. (2003). Feminism,. New York: Oxford

gender-biased terms than "his or her". This seems
to be because they have more chances to get theknowledge through their daily lives; for example, it

University Press.

is likely nowadays that we tend to avoid words like"stewardess" even in Japanese.
It is true that recently many English-speaking
countries have passed strict law prohibiting124Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Metaphorical use in lay and expert cancer discourseand conception of cancer in Thai culture
Worawanna Petchkij

Chulalongkorn University and the Royal Golden Jubilee, Thailand Research Fund
worawanna.p@gmail.com

These linguistic realizations are pervasive inEnglish and their system reflects conceptual
metaphor “Argument is war” in cognition ofEnglish speakers.
Metaphors are rich in medical and illness
discourse as well. They are useful when physicians
communicate about diseases and medicine(Fleischman, 1989; Ross, 1989) and when patients
try to communicate to others about their subjective
understanding of illness (Radley, 1993; Gibbs andFrank, 2002) The most common metaphor in
medical discourse is war or military metaphor(Fleischman, 1989) while multiple metaphors arelanguage tools when patients talk about their illness(Gibbs and Franks, 2002).
As metaphorical use is related to native
speakers’ experience and culture (Lakoff andJohnson, 1980; Kovecses, 2002), this research
paper found that some cancer metaphors in Thaicancer discourse reflect conceptual metaphors about
cancer that are different from western culture. In
addition, there are also some differences between
patients with cancer and physicians who havedifferent experiences and levels of knowledge about
cancer.

Abstract
Metaphors in everyday language are linguistic
evidence showing us how native speakers in a
culture conceptualize abstract concepts orexperiences. Metaphors are also rich in Thai cancer
discourse.
They are used as communicative tools
when patients with cancer and doctors talk about
having cancer which is a complex experience that isdifficult to understand and share verbally withothers.
This research investigates how Thaicancer patients and physicians conceptualize thedisease through their metaphorical expressions.
Conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson,1980) and the relations between culture andmetaphor suggested by Kovecses (2002, 2005) were
employed. The data were cancer metaphors inboth spoken and written cancer discourses producedby Thai patients with cancer and physicians. The
results illustrate some conceptual metaphors thatare different from what previous works found inwestern culture. Some show how Buddhist and Thai
agricultural culture influence their thought andmetaphorical use. Moreover, some conceptual
metaphors also show different perceptions between
lays who have direct experience of cancer andexperts who experience it scientifically.

1
Keywords

Methodology

This research finds out conceptual metaphors from
metaphorical use by patients and physicians in Thaicancer discourses. The variations of cancer
conceptions between these two groups and between
Thai and western cancer metaphors are also
examined.

conceptual metaphor, cancer discourse, Thai, layand expert

Introduction
According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980),
metaphors are abundant in our everyday language.
They are used systematically, conventionally andunconsciously by native speakers and their system
reflects the way we understand more abstract
concepts in term of other more concrete ones. In
other words, some words from a more concrete
domain e.g. verbs and nouns occur systematicallywithout our awareness when we talk about anothermore abstract concept. For example, words from thedomain of war always occur in natural speech when
native speakers of English talk about argument.

1.1 Data collection
Cancer metaphors used by Thai patients with cancer
and physicians were drawn from both of their spoken
and written cancer discourses. Spoken cancer
discourses were collected at three hospitals in
Bangkok. This research was approved by the ethic
committees of each hospital. Some ethicaldocuments and consent forms were also shown
to both patients and physicians to ask for their125Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

expressions about cancer that are systematic andconventional. Second, metaphorical expressions
include metaphors that are creative and lessconventional but are influenced by the underlying
conceptual metaphors in the first criterion.
When problems in identifying certain
metaphorical expressions or indicating theirconventionality occur, the researcher
consult
meanings in a dictionary and the use of these
meanings in a corpus as suggested by Semino,
Heywood, and Short (2004). The dictionary
consulted in this research is the Thai National
Dictionary (1999) and the corpus is Thai
Concordance provided by Department ofLinguistics, Chulalongkorn University.
Conceptual metaphors found in patients’ andphysicians’ cancer discourses are compared
between themselves and between Thai and English
discourses. Influences of culture on cancer
metaphors are also examined by using the idea ofvariations of metaphors in a culture and amongcultures suggested by Kovecses (2002, 2005)

permission.
1.1.1
Spoken cancer metaphors
The researcher interviewed 70 patients with cancer.
They are patients who were waiting for theirdoctors at five different out-patient departments(OPD), namely oncology, radiology, gynecology,
orthopedic and surgical. 51 of them were females
and 19 are males. Their ages range between 18-71
years old and they suffer from different kinds ofcancer. The researcher conducted a tape-recordedinterview.
The open-ended questions adaptedfrom Gibbs and Frank (2002) were used toencourage patients to talk freely about their cancer
experiences. Each interview lasted between 1.46 46 minutes; the total number of interview time is
628 minutes.
Some spoken cancer metaphors were also
drawn from Doctor-patient conversation. 9 doctors
agreed to be involved in this research. They areoncologist (1), surgeon (3), orthopedist (2),radiologist (2), and gynecologist (1). They allowed
the researcher to record their conversation withcancer patients with MP3-recorder in their
examining rooms. To get natural language data, theresearcher did not stay in the room while recording.
The sound recorded were transcribed into Thai
written language. Spoken cancer metaphors werethen drawn from transcribed patients’ interview
discourses and doctor-patient conversation.

2

Lays’ and Experts’ conceptions of cancerin Thai culture

Cancer metaphors in Thai cancer discourses
produced by Thai patients with cancer andphysicians are words from six main domains which
are germ, weed, animal, disaster, friend, and generalobject. They are used as metaphors systematicallyand conventionally in Thai cancer discourses andreflect six cancer conceptual metaphors shared in
the cognition of patients and physician as shown in
Table 1.

1.1.2
Written cancer metaphors
Patients’ written cancer metaphors were drawn from26 pocket books concerning cancer experiences
written by Thai cancer patients. Some were also
drawn from 27 articles about cancer experience ofdifferent Thai cancer patients in Chivajit, a famousalternative medicine magazine in Thailand.
Physicians’ metaphors were collected from 34
pocket books concerning cancer and its treatments
and 36 cancer articles from a health magazine,
Klai-mor, written by Thai doctor themselves.
To avoid perspectives influenced from othercultures, translations from other languages are
excluded from this study. In addition, these
physicians are both modern and alternative
medicine doctors. Patients included those undergo
modern treatment and alternative medicine.
Therefore, their metaphorical uses represent
understanding of cancer from both modern andalternative standpoints.

Table1: Thai Lays’ and experts’ conceptions ofcancerConceptual metaphors
Patients
PhysicianwithcancerCancer is a germ••
Cancer is a weed••
Cancer is a bad animal••
Cancer is a disaster••
Cancer is a friend•
×Cancer is an alien object••
According to table 1, these six conceptual
metaphors demonstrate similar ways of cancer
conceptualization among patients and physicians.
Both of them talk about cancer in terms of a germ, aweed, a bad animal, a disaster, and an alien object.
Only friend metaphors are mostly found in patients’language not physicians’
Germ metaphors are found in the context
about emergence of cancer in patients’ bodies.

1.2 Data analysis
According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and Gibbs(1994), the researcher analyzes the collected data byusing these two main criteria. First, conceptual
metaphors are reflected from metaphorical126

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Some metaphors may be universal and reflect thesame conceptual metaphors among cultures.
However, many metaphors are based on culturalconsiderations and cognitive process of various
kinds. In addition, many are non universal and theyshow variation among languages and cultures.
Kovecses (2005:4),
In English cancer discourses, war metaphors
are common among physicians and patients inwestern culture. (Gibbs and Franks, 2002; Gwyn,
1999; Penson et al, 2004; Reisfield and Wilson,
2004; Teucher, 2003) In their cognition, cancer iscompared with an enemy that both of them need tofight or destroy. In Thai culture, it is found thatcancer is compared with a friend whom patients
have to live with until the end of their life. It is agood example of how thinking of cancer in apositive way is possible in Buddhist culture likeThailand where Buddhism is the professed religionof more than ninety percent of all Thais.
Semino, Heywood, and Short (2004) studied
cancer metaphors in doctor-patients conversationfrom a hospital in the northern part of England.
They found some interesting animal metaphors thatare related to western culture. These metaphorsreflect two conceptual metaphors, Cancer is a horse
and Cancer is a hibernating animal. As animal is acommon source domain that can be found in many
languages (Kovecses, 2002), animal metaphors arealso found in Thai cancer discourse. However, Thai
patients and physicians talk about cancer in term ofa fierce or bad animal in general, not any specifickind of animal. There are no words from thedomain of hibernating animal which is a typicalanimal in cold area as western countries.
Weed metaphors is another cancer metaphor
that seem to be unique to Thai culture which isbasically an agrarian society. Plant is anothercommon source domain mentioned by Kovecses(2002) too but it is not mentioned in previous
research on cancer metaphor. In Thai cancer
discourse, words from plant domain are pervasive
as Thailand is abundantly blessed with natural
resource and trees. Thais are familiar with thenature of plant around them as Thailand is locatedin a tropical zone where trees, and weeds can shootor grow almost everywhere around them.

Some verbs from germ domain like to infect, toculture, to incubate, to resist to a medicine and to
spread are pervasive. Cancer is compared to
infection and cancer cells are like germs that cause
infection without patients’ notice. Weed metaphors
are mostly used in the context concerning tumors.
Cancer is unwanted weeds that grow up on theirorgan. Cancer cells are seeds that can be broughtfrom its tree to other places or to other organs.
Animal metaphors are frequently found in thecontext regarding metastasis. In this context, cancer
is compared with a fierce animal that can movefrom a place to another by itself. Metastasis cancer
cells are bad animals that bite human tissue andorgans as their food. Disaster metaphors are foundin the context about symptoms. As cancer always
shows its symptoms when patients are in last stagesof cancer, it is compared with disaster that comesquickly and destroys people’ lives. Symptoms are
warning signals before a disaster and patients are
victims who cannot escape or survive.
Object metaphors are mostly found in thecontext of screening and treatment where cancer iscompared with an alien object that can be put in andtaken out of human bodies. They are alien object
that need to be removed or taken out. In addition,
we need to seek, search or find them because they
are hidden somewhere in our bodies.
Friend metaphors are mostly found inpatients’ language not physicians. They occur in thecontext about chronicity of the disease. As a chronic
disease, cancer is a friend who patients have to livewith until the end of their lives. However, cancer
can be both a good friend and unsolicited one wholive in patients’ bodies. Patients’ bodies are houses
where they live together. Patients are the houseowners who want to live peacefully with a good
guest who will not destroy their houses and disturb
their daily lives.
These metaphors are abundant in physicians’
language as well. As experts, physicians employ
the same group of metaphors which reflect the same
conceptions of cancer, except friend metaphor.
Physicians who know well that cancer is not aninfectious disease use germ metaphors in thecontext of immergence and metastasis of cancer.
They also communicate about metastasis by using
animal metaphors.
Weed, disaster and object metaphors are
employed in the same contexts as in patients’language. Friend metaphors are rarely used.
However, it is interesting that friend metaphors arefound in the language of physicians with cancer.
These physicians employ friend metaphors in thecontext of chronicity as other patients do.

4. Discussion
Conceptual metaphors found in this study
demonstrate shared understanding of cancer among
Thai physicians and patients. They communicate
about cancer by using the same groups or systemsof metaphors. These metaphors reflect the sameways they conceptualize cancer concept, so that is
why metaphorical communication among them isunderstandable or possible.

3. Thai and Western conceptions of cancer
127Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Tannen, and Heidi E. Hamilton. P. 470 -502
USA : Blackwell
Gibbs R. (1994) The Poetics of Minds: Figurative
Thought, Language, and Understanding. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Gibbs, R. and Franks, H. (2002) “Embodied
Metaphor in Women’s narratives about Their
Experiences
with
Cancer”
HealthCommunication 14 (2).139-165.
Gwyn, R. (1999) “Captain of My own ship:
Metaphor and the Discourse of Chronic Illness”.
In Lynne Cameron and Grayham Low (ed.).
Researching and Applying Metaphor. United
Kingdom: Cambridge university press. 203-220
Kovecses, Z. (2002). Metaphor: A Practical
Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kovecses, Zoltan. 2005. Metaphor in Culture:
Universal and Variation. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We
Live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Penson, R.T et al. (2004). “Cancer as Metaphor”.
The Oncologist 9. 708-716.
Radley, A. (1993). “The role of metaphor inadjustment to chronic illness”. In Alan Radley(ed.). Worlds of Illness, London: Routledge. 109 123
Reisfield, G.M. and George R.W. (2004). “Use of
Metaphor in the Discourse on Cancer”. Journalof Clinical Oncology 22:19. 4024 – 4027
Ross, J.W. (1989). “The Militarization of Disease:
Do We Really Want a War on AIDS?”. Sounding
72:1. 39-58
Semino, E, Heywood, J and Mick, Sh. (2004).
“Methodological Problems in the Analysis of
Metaphors in A Corpus of Conversations about
Cancer”. Journal of Pragmatics 36.1271-1294.
Teucher,U.
(2003).
“The
Therapeutic
Psychopoetics of Cancer Metaphors: Challenges
in Interdisciplinary”. History of Intellectual
Culture 3:1.1-15.
Weiss, M. (1997). “Signifying the Pandermics:
Metaphors of AIDS, Cancer, and Heart Disease.”
Medical Anthropology Quartery 11:4.456-476.

For patients, these conceptual metaphors may
illustrate how they understand an unfamiliar
complex concept, cancer, in terms other more
concrete ones. However, for physicians, theseconceptual metaphors might be evidences of how
metaphorical understanding occurs with familiar or
known concept as cancer is not a new or unfamiliar
concept for these experts. In other words, they give
us an idea that metaphorical understanding in our
cognition might be able to occur with recognized
but difficult to communicate concepts. Physicians
may find it difficult to communicate this complex
disease to patients and these metaphors are very
handy for them to communicate with lays. Besides
understanding cancer in scientific ways, physicians
therefore also conceptualize cancer through otherconcepts that are sharable or communicable.
Friend metaphors show how direct physicalexperiences of cancer influence patients’ thoughts
as they are found only in the language of patientsand physicians with cancer. The way this metaphor
is rarely found in general physicians who do nothave direct experience of having cancer may beevidence supporting how direct experience
influence our metaphors and thought.
Thai culture seems to have much influence on
friend metaphor as well as it is not mentioned inprevious research. As most Thai people are
Buddhists, thinking about cancer in terms of afriend which is a positive way of thinking might
have some influences from Buddhist belief such as
beliefs about the truth of life. For example, most
Buddhists know about the process of one’s life,
birth, aging, illness, and death. Everyone will surely
go through this process. No one could escape death.
Cancer is in the fourth step of this process, illness.
Therefore they can do nothing but accept thedisease as any other kinds of life threatening may
happen anywhere and anytime.
5. Conclusion
Cancer metaphors in Thai cancer discourses reflect
six conceptual metaphors about cancer in Thai
culture which are cancer is a germ, cancer is a weed,
cancer is a bad animal, cancer is disaster, cancer is afriend and cancer is an alien object. All of them arefound in the language of patients and physicianswith cancer. Physicians have the same conceptionsof cancer except friend concept. In addition,
conceptions of cancer in terms of weed and friend
seem to be unique to Thai culture as they are notfound in previous research.

Acknowledgement
The researcher would like to express deepest
gratitude to her advisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr.
Krisadawan Hongladarom, for her support andguidance
throughout
theresearch.
Sheacknowledges with thanks the financial support
from the Thailand Research Fund through the Royal
Golden Jubilee Ph.D. Program (Grant No. PHD/ 01
12/2548) to Ms. Worawanna and Assoc. Prof. Dr.
Krisadawan. She would also like to extend her
thanks to all Thai patients with cancer andphysicians who participated in this research,
including the authors of the written sources.

References
Fleischman,
Suzanne.
2003.Language
andMedicine. In The handbook of Discourse
Analysis. Edited by Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Emotions, Visual Rhetoric, and Pragmatic Inferencing in
Campaigning Discourse
Vincent Tao–Hsun Chang

Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Chengchi University
Vince.T.Chang@gmail.com, 94555001@nccu.edu.tw
interpretation process, and helps on the other handto shape itself as a cultural landmark.

Abstract
The audience’s comprehension and interpretation in
multimodal communication are investigated bylooking into four ads for the Beijing Olympics 2008.
The ads creatively crafted the Games’ logo withbrilliant pictures and colour symbolism to attract
the audience’s attention, to initiate cognitive
contextual effects, viz. pun, irony, metaphor andhumour, and to perform various communicative
functions thereafter. They convey too the prominent
Chinese civilisation, exhibiting the aesthetic andcultural consumption, artistic commodification andidentity politics reified within the symbolic domainof campaigning discourse.

2This study attempts to investigate popular culture
expressed in advertising discourse, and explores theideology and power relations shaped in the ads bysociety and culture, and their possible effects onsociety and culture, trying to explain and renderplausible interpretations to the following researchquestions:(1) What does the role of audience play in theinterpretation process in media communication?
How can she process and interpret thecommunicated information from advertiser?
(2) How are diverse linguistic/communicative
strategies and advertising appeals used to affectand persuade the audience, as thecommunicator/advertiser/enterprise attempts tobuild certain corporate image?
(3) What cognitive effects with emotions could beperceived and inferred by different audiencethrough the visual rhetorical strategies and‘communicative acts’ (van Leeuwen 2002)
employed in institutional discourse/specialisedcommunication?
(4) What is the social meaning accompanying or
behind language use? What competing
ideologies and changing cultural values can beseen from advertising discourse, and further toshape social cognition?
(5) How will the audience construct their cultural
understanding through popular culture, e.g.
advertising?

Keywords
Advertising discourse, Chinese civilisation,
emotions, implicature, multimodality, pragmatic
inference, social cognition, visual rhetoric1

Research questions

Introduction

The studies on advertising language (in Taiwan) aremainly from marketing and advertising, and theresearches from linguistic perspectives are minority,especially as compared to those in the United States,
UK and Europe. This paper thus presents aqualitative study on four ads for the Olympics 2008,
intending to explore the research aims listed below.
Furthermore, as mentioned by van Leeuwen (2002)
regarding visual communication, e.g. advertising,no matter in commercials or political campaigns, inprint form or through other visual/sound effects, isno longer limited to directly selling products andhas provided a site where emergent various
interesting and appealing forms. One of the mostsignificant features is that longer texts and/or
storytelling in a literary style have largely been
applied by many institutions and corporations
intending in particular to construct certain cultural
image, such as the advertiser/Mainland China
discussed in this study. It weakly communicates a
lot of messages, inviting the audience members as
potential consumers to join the stories and

3

Theoretical framework

As mentioned above, the studies on language in ads
in Taiwan from linguistic viewpoint are still few,
while from multimodal perspective, they are far less.
So this current study proposes a qualitative study onfour captions for the Olympics 2008, in attempts to
examine the research issues outlined above.

129

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics(1995: 279), this paper further examines thesociocultural contexts to see the inseparable
relationship between language use and social
function, the major concern of the critical linguists(Fairclough, 1989, 1995a, 1995b):

Analytical framework is based upon Sperber andWilson’s Relevance Theory (1986/1995). Since
proposed in 1986 by them, the implications of
Relevance on communication and cognition havebeen widely applied in various fields, including
literature, linguistics, psychology, political language,
language education, advertising and film studies,etc. (Sperber & Wilson, 1986/1995: 255-6, 259-60).
In Relevance, Sperber & Wilson define ‘optimal
relevance’ from the hearer’s processing ability interms of her 1 processing effort and those possible
effects:

It is an approach which is, I believe, suitable for use
in the sort of research into social and culturalchange […] What in particular makes it suitable forsuch work is that it foregrounds links betweensocial practice and language, and the systematicinvestigation of connections between the nature ofsocial processes and properties of language
texts……It is moreover a ‘critical’ approach todiscourse analysis in the sense that it sets out tomake visible through analysis, and to criticize,
connections between properties of texts and social
processes and relations (ideologies, power
relations) which are generally not obvious to people
who produce and interpret those texts, and whose
effectiveness depends upon this opacity.
(Fairclough, 1995a: 96-7)

An utterance, on a given interpretation, is optimally
relevant if and only if:(a) it achieves enough effects to be worth thehearer’s attention;(b) it puts the hearer to no gratuitous effort inachieving those effects. (Smith & Wilson, 1992: 5)
Also they define Communicative Principle of
Relevance and criterion of consistency with theprinciple of relevance as follows:4

Communicative Principle of Relevance
Every act of communication communicates apresumption of its own optimal relevance. (Sperber& Wilson, 1995: 158)

Data analysis

In this section, I am dealing with the four ads for
the Olympics 2008 respectively in the light of their
picture by picture to deliver cognitive effects. Let
us see caption (A) first:

Criterion of consistency with the principle of
relevance
An utterance, on a given interpretation, is consistent
with the principle of relevance if and only if the
speaker might rationally have expected it to be
optimally relevant to the hearer on thatinterpretation. (Smith & Wilson, 1992: 6)[A]

In Relevance, Sperber & Wilson mainly discussed
the examples from word, phrase and sentence levels.
While as Blakemore (1992: 165-6) analysed theexample of irony, ‘irony is not always restricted to acouple of lines or a single utterance. In many cases
it extends over a whole poem or story…’ in which
ironical effects are achieved through processing awhole text or, a level of a more global organisation,i.e. macrostructure (van Dijk, 1977: 130). Thus,
since the data for analysis in this study are in single
integrated textual structures that I apply Relevance
Theory to analyse larger units, from macrostructurelevel to see the relevance reached by the audienceand diverse pragmatic functions.
Aside from pragmatic analysis, on the other
hand, and also suggested by Sperber & Wilson

From caption (A), the slogan reads as Aoyun re,rebian jingcheng! ‘Olympic Fever Heats All of
Beijing,’ as the other campaigns do, simply andplainly expressing the atmosphere of hot and themood of expectation. The picture, aside fromproposing also echoes this feeling of heat. The
sweet round dumplings are in a bowl with boilingwater and vapour [sweetness is happiness!]. Besides,
the dumplings signifies reunion and harmony for1

In this paper I also consider the audience to be female,and the addresser to be male, in accord with Tanaka(1994: xv).
130

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

snack — tanghulu (plum with hot syrup coating)comes into play, which is not so formal nor being
positioned higher class as sweet dumplings’
inherent meanings:

Chinese people/culture, the round bowl also support
this point (round, pronounced as yuan, is a
homophone of tuanyuan “reunion”). The dumplings,
consumed during Chinese New Year, further
enhance the meaning of reunion. Moreover, thesymbol bat (bianfu in Mandarin Chinese)
represents good luck and is symbolic of good
fortune for its pronunciation fuqi.
Being examined from another level, this caption
strongly implicates that ‘all the athletes andaudiences from everywhere will reunion in year
2008,’ a happy reunion with expectation andsomehow though competition. Also, this caption
weakly conveys and implicates the following seriesof messages:

[B]

(1)
We expect that all of you could participate in thisworld event.
Come to join us to experience the Chinese culture.
Chinese culture is far-reaching and longstanding.
Come and try our passion and friendship. (We arefriendly!) 2
Come to the Game, visit our beautiful scenery, try
the Chinese gastronomy, taste our local specialty (,feel a different China).
Look, the hotness of Olympics is spreading all the
Beijing City.
The Olympic fever represents our passion and
expectation.
[…]

Likewise, caption (B) conveys that mood of heatthrough the hot syrup and red colour. The hot syrup
may also convey a state of liquid to implicate that
the Olympics 2008 are fluent, moving and active,
with the help of the chopstick, straightforward andspeedy. Also, this ad (weakly) communicates thefollowing possible implicatures:(4)
It is (sociostereotypically) regarded that tanghulu is
not so high taste (as sweet dumplings).
(However,) we still wanna introduce it to you.
Snacks (usually) signify sort of close relations withshort distance.
Beijing City and the host authority of Olympic
Games 2008 welcome various groups of people tojoin the Game, and play the Game.
[…]By using this multimodal communicative style
involving visual rhetoric, the speaker could leave awide space of interpretation to the audience(accompanying larger responsibility at the sametime). Moreover, he would not communicate only
the strong implicatures in (1), for in that case hemight directly express in another way to save herprocessing efforts, as shown in (2) and (3):As mentioned above, not merely the formal icons
are employed to promote the image for the hostinstitution, Beijing City, but the foodstand on thestreet with much lower social meaning/connotation
is applied in the campaign to introduce and promote
Chinese culture and tradition as well. This can wellshorten social distance amongst the different socialgroups/strata, from lower level, much lower social
strata to higher level, the social elite [As comparedto (A), this one] further (fairly weakly) implicatessociometaphorically that:(2) We are waiting for you to participate in the
Olympic Games. See you in 2008.
(3) Come to join us, play the Game, and experience
the Chinese traditional culture.
As compared to (A), except the propositional
content, the audience could not infer any weak
implicatures from (2) or (3).
Sweet dumplings in (A) are one of the mostprominent characteristics of Chinese culture andsocial norms/routines; in (B), another typical sweet(5)
Chinese culture embraces different kinds ofelements and flavours.
Mainland China is wide-ranging and very generous.
We welcome various kinds of people, including, say,street vendor, to the Game.
By doing so, we are considerate and generous.
A considerate and generous government is worthyof respect and support.
[…]

2

The words in parentheses represent further optional
explanation for implicatures and are relative to ‘degree;’whereas a square bracket with dots inside […] means theindeterminacy of implicatures.
131Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

communicative strategy provides multidimensional
thoughts for audience. Moreover, the irony andhumour soften the presumably political tension andunpleasant atmosphere. According to Sperber &Wilson, in recognition of irony (Sperber & Wilson,
1995; Wilson & Sperber, 1992; Blakemore, 1992),
which is a major source to trigger humour, it
demands, first, an echoic element or an attributed
thought; second, the speaker’s attitude of mockeryor rejection. From the text and context here, we canretrieve an echoic element and attributed thought:

Interestingly ironical here is that, if the audience
could infer and derive these weak implicatures, it’sreally incorporates politics into exercises. A salient
humourous and ironic effect is best depicted in (C):[C]

(7)
The speaker believes that the Chinese is supposed
to be sport-loving, like those movements happened
decades ago.
The speaker believes that the Chinese people had
made many political movements long time ago.
And the speaker’s attitude of mockery can be
expressed below:(8) Funny how it is for the people simply compare(serious and formal) political movements withphysical exercises.
With the trait of short phrases and hence ease ofmemory, the audience could easily memorise thelanguage elements, the slogans, which are stillwidely used in advertising (in view of economic
consideration, saving money for advertisers). Suchadvertising style of baldly demonstrating politicalclaims and commercial appeals, however, may notnecessarily be longer stayed in, or deeply influence,
the audience’s mind. It possibly makes one getting
tired and causes ‘memory fatigue’ during, say, aperiod of election campaign, though ‘language
attacks’ among candidates and competitors are quite
common, legitimate, reasonable and plausible
within media, especially in the election arena.
Multimodality, on the other hand, embracing ample
semiotic codes, seems to be not so drastic but could
be more humanistic and wide-angled. Here, I am
not eliminating or underestimating the possible
effects of advertising slogans, as illustrated in therelated studies, but rather more emphasising on thericher and diverse contextual effects created bymultimodal communication. Different triggers willbring the audience different effects in different
contexts at different times and places. As for what
communicative strategies are more ‘effective’ thanothers, it could be approached through two avenues:
the first falls into a quantitative study to reachempirical findings; the other resorts to time factor,
leaving the challenge of effectiveness to the
dynamic relations between the speaker and hearer.
The more the audience could accept, the longer and

The slogan reads “Zhongguoren Jiu Ai Gao
Yundong Ma! 2008 Jian” which is used as a pun
and can be paraphrasably as follows:(6a) The Chinese people just love to make politicalmovements. See you in 2008.
(6b) The Chinese people love sports so much. Seeyou in 2008.
Along with the photo of Chairman Mao Zedong, theaudience is not hard to associate (6a) with thosedrastic and great political movements happened
decades ago. But after further processing against
this ad for the Olympics, the audience will recover
the contextual effects and abandon the previous
inference. As for one meaning or two meanings
being activated simultaneously by the speaker’s
intention (cf. Tanaka, 1994), [especially considering
the economic reform led/directed by Teng
Xiaoping] it still needs further examination.
The problem of human rights in Mainland
China has long been questioned internationally,
notoriously lying in the event of Tiananmen Squareon June 4th 1989. For Beijing authority and Chinese
people, to get the host right is not very easy andbeing viewed as an opportunity to refresh andrenew the negative impression by this world event.
This can be evidenced from Chairman Mao’s
friendly smile on the same Tiananmen Square with
red wall, warm-hearted, informing the audience thatthat time has passed. Thus, in this way, such a132

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

audience to a certain domain and line of thinking, isanother linguistic strategy, or termed ‘macro-levelhedging.’ The audience will be led to anotherdomain of interpretation supplied by the visual
dimension or the story lines, and is at leastencouraged not to focus the seller’s motive. This isevidenced by the data analysed above. Vaguely
communicating the main gist of Chinese culture,friends’ rapport and other ideological loadings,
these ads place special emphasis on higher
involvement (renqingwei [人 情 味 ] in Mandarin
Chinese) and harmony, as compared to Westerncultures, that are among the most prominent values
within Chinese community and generally outweighmany others.

more effectively the ads would work. Effectivenessresults in social continuity, ineffectiveness leads tosocial change. This is a vital contribution to, andunderlies, the dialectical relationship (Fairclough,1989, 1995a, 1995b) between sociocultural value
structures and social practice, and is one of the coreelements in the process of socialisation.
The last caption (D) adopts an actress of Peking(Beijing) opera to echo the fever of the Beijing
Olympic Games:[D]

5

Concluding remarks

From the analyses in this study, we can know thatthe audience is active, rather than passive, in theinterpretation process, where ‘relevance’ is crucial
to the text/discourse interpretability. The audiencewould achieve her optimal relevance through theinteraction of linguistic form, the shared cognitiveenvironment of communicator and audience, andthe ‘criterion of consistency with the principle of
relevance’ (Wilson & Sperber, 1992). As
demonstrated in this study, those strong and weak
implicatures are resulted from the author’s (my)higher involvement and active processing. They areindeterminate and unlimited for inferencing, andmight be processed further, as long as one is willingto process and thinks it is worthwhile, i.e. she will
be rewarded with additional contextual effects,
which would outweigh her processing efforts.
Different audiences will receive different readings
and interpretations, the ‘absolute levels’ are diverse;
also, even the same audience will receive different
readings and interpretations under different degrees
of involvement and circumstances. However, theywould reach at any rate the ‘optimal relevance’ forthemselves.
Communicative strategies enrich interpersonalconnection, which themselves enrich life. Mainland
China released the four ads incorporating various
images into the pictures, namely sweet dumpling ina round bowl, tanghulu ‘plum with syrup coating,’
smiling Chairman Mao at Tiananmen Square, andan actress of Peking opera. Instead of claiming‘come n’ join us to expect and welcome theOlympics 2008,’ they impress the audience throughthese four vivid pictures. If you couldn’t spare time
to watch the Games, it doesn’t matter, but doremember we host the Beijing Olympics 2008 andenjoy the captions we designed for you. Sweet
dumplings (Yuanxiao or Tangyuan) is inviting youthat Beijing Olympics is like Chinese family
reunion. An informal local snack is telling you theBased on our common sense, the opera dress itself
is hot and heavy enough, though in this picture
there is not showing the lower part of the actress.
Colour symbolism via the ruby red on the head andthe make-up around the eyes is manipulated tostrengthen the fever and heat. With the eyes ofconcentration and self-confidence, again, it tells theaudience that ‘We are ready (for the champion),’‘Be careful, we are not weak’…and so forth.
Both the male and female athletes, actors andactresses, can well be famous and outstanding.
However, as illustrated in this series of captions for
the Olympics, the advertiser only employed femaleroles (little girl and opera actress) to express theambition and confidence of China towards theGame, giving rise to somewhat femininity to soften
the severe competition. With only the lion to show acertain degree of masculinity. As for Chairman Mao,
designed by NIKE, could be viewed asinter-/national figure to gain much more attention of
the audience due to his fame and powerful
influence.
Multimodal communication is much moreinteresting than baldly promote and sell products,
services and images. By exploiting multimodality toshelter stronger measures and claims in political
campaign and in commercial advertising to shift
voter and buyer’s concern, leading directly the133Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

attitudes, group and ethnic identity, cultural identity
and iconicity, verbal art, and gender. Comparative
studies in terms of diachronic perspective anddifferent genres are also research areas worthy offurther investigation.

Olympic fever is bloody running. A friendly smileof Chairman Mao is surprising you our politenessand friendship with the sense of humour yet without
political tension. An opera actress with profession is
informing you that ‘we are ready for thosecompetitions,’ and is promoting another traditional
cultural asset. Besides, colour symbolism is anotherimportant strategy to convey the sense of fever andambition — red, along with yellow and blue, are theprincipal ones used in these captions. The advertiser(Mainland China) intends not only to reshape thoselong-established stereotypes, thus shorten the social
distance between the East and the West as well as
between consumer and advertiser in an amiable way,
but to build specific cultural image throughglobalisation and might thus gain itself competitiveedges.
Promotion of products, services and images isthe ultimate goal of advertising. The selling motive,
however, as illustrated in this study, has largely
been hidden and melted by persuasion throughmultimodal communication in an ever increasingly
prominent trend. Macro-level hedging via social
metaphor is also initiated intertextually to shiftconsumers’ buying concern. This distance leaves awider space to the audience’s imagining, as manyother rhetorical strategies do, leaving an
indeterminate domain of interpretation to theaudience. While nowadays there are many speech
contexts much freer, more open and direct than
before, the competition between direct and indirect
persuasion (e.g. multimodality, storytelling) is thena challenge to language users and time. This
(competition) reflects one important property inmass media, the tools of ideological representation,
being able to embrace competing forces.
Advertising, lending itself as a symbolic domain of
dominant ideologies (Lull 1995), incorporates
fashion-driven discourse by reflecting social
cognition and cultural patterns, it also invites theaudience members as potential consumers torecognize these prominent values. It is
socioculturally shaped but it also constitutesociocultural cognition, in ways that may betransformative as well as reproductive (Fairclough
1995b: 34), thus maintaining the dialectical
relationship between social structures and social
practice. This functional and critical linguistic studyof advertising texts heightens sensitivity tolanguage and its (mis)uses, poses a preliminary
stage to cross-cultural communication andinterdisciplinary studies, which themselves
constitute promising research issues to overcome
the simplistic account of Eastern vs. Westerncultures, and provides useful insights into a
multitude of issues, including symbolic power,social stereotypes, changes in social trends andReferences
Blakemore, D. (1992). Understanding utterances:
An introduction to pragmatics. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power.
Cambridge: Polity.
Davidson, M. (1992). The consumerist manifesto:
Advertising in postmodern times. London:
Routledge.
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power.
London: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1995a). Critical discourse analysis:
The critical study of language. London:
Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1995b). Media discourse. London:
Edward Arnold.
Gibbs, R. W. Jr. (1993). Process and products inmaking sense of tropes. In Andrew Ortony(Ed.), Metaphor and thought, 2nd ed. (pp.
252-276). New York: Cambridge.
Lull, J. (1995). Media, communication, culture: A
global approach. Cambridge: Polity.
Pilkington, A. (1992). Poetic effects. Lingua 87:
29-51.
Simpson, P. (1993). Language, ideology and pointof view. London: Routledge.
Smith, N. and Wilson, D. (1992). Introduction.
Lingua 87: 1-10.
Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1995). Relevance:
Communication and cognition. 2nd ed.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Tanaka, K. (1994). Advertising language: A
pragmatic approach to advertisements in
Britain and Japan. London: Routledge.
van Dijk, T. A. (1977). Text and context:
Explorations in the semantics andpragmatics
of
discourse.
London:Longman.
van Dijk, T. A. (1994). Discourse and cognition insociety. In David Crowley and David
Mitchell (Eds.), Communication Theory
Today (pp.107-126). Cambridge: Polity.
van Leeuwen, T. (2002). Ten reasons why linguists
should not ignore visual communication.
GURT 2002 Plenary speech. Georgetown
University, U.S.A.
Wilson, D. & Sperber, D. (1992). On verbal irony.
Lingua 87: 53-76.
Wilson, D. & Sperber, D. (1993). Linguistic form
and relevance. Lingua 90: 1-25.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Developing ESP Course Material for International Economics Students
Tony Cripps

Faculty of Economics, Ritsumeikan University
cripps@ec.ritsumei.ac.jp

Abstract1This paper provides a chronology of thedevelopment of English for Specific Purposes(ESP) course material for international economics
students at Ritsumeikan University. At first, a brief
outline will be provided of the events that led to theestablishment of a small material development teamfor the Communication and Writing 3 (CW3)
course for second-year students at the university.
The paper then explicates the rationale which
underpins the creation of the material and focuseson the assessment of the material by one group of
CW3 teachers (n=7) and the subsequent revision of
the material that culminated in the creation of a new
CW3 text.

In 2006 an international economics course wasestablished at Ritsumeikan University’s Biwako
Campus in Shiga prefecture, Japan. Apart fromfundamental economics subjects taught in Japanese,students also take English classes. In the first twosemesters first-year students take the following
skills-based English courses; Reading 1 & 2;
CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning)1 & 2; Listening 1 & 2; Communication andWriting 1 & 2 (see Figure 1). For these courses
teachers usually use standard skills-based texts, or
skills-based software (CALL 1 & 2). However, thefocus shifts to English for Specific Purposes in thesecond year.

Background

The latter section of the paper examines theassessment of the revised CW3 material by twoclasses of international economics students (n=32).
Data was collected through an online questionnaireand semi-structured interviews. The paper
concludes with a brief introduction to the on-goingdevelopment of an online Autonomy Resource
Center (ARC), which is being created to support theCW3 course and other courses at the university. It is
hoped that this paper will provide insight into thepractical aspects of ESP material development.

Keywords
Autonomy, English for Specific Purposes, Material
Development

Figure 1: Four-semester overview

After conducting a needs analysis with faculty
members, a small team of English teachers within
the economics faculty developed the ESP material
used for the Reading 3 & 4 (R3 & R4) andCommunication and Writing 3 & 4 courses (CW3
& CW4). This paper focuses on the material created
for the CW3 course.

Introduction
Selecting appropriate course material for students
can be frustrating. For teachers who have English
for Specific Purposes (ESP) classes this often seems
an impossible task due to the dearth of suitablematerial which matches their students’ needs. This
paper outlines how ESP material for international
economics students at Ritsumeikan University wasdeveloped. The author focuses on the material
creation process, the reaction of teachers andstudents to the material, and how the ESP material
has been refined.

1.1
Fostering Autonomy
An important consideration when creating the ESP
material was the need to foster learner autonomy.
Benson’s assertion that “those who lack autonomy
can develop it given ‘appropriate support’”135

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

the pilot stage was completed the CW3 material
was distributed to all CW3 teachers. This included
the CW3 text, course notes, professors’ DVDcomments, DVD scripts, comprehension anddiscussion exercises, and listening tests. After using
the CW3 material for one semester, teachers wereasked for their feedback. Their responses allowed
the material development team to refine the CW3material that had been created.

(2001:2) is fully supported by the material
development team.
Kohonen (1992) and Little (1996) stress that
autonomy implies ‘interdependence’ and thus,
learner autonomy is fostered not in isolation, but
through social interaction. Therefore, a major
consideration when designing our ESP material was
the need to create innovative material which
requires students to work closely together.

3
2

Teacher Feedback

Teachers who used the first CW3 text (n=7) wereasked for their comments on the text and the
support material at the end of the course. Theircomments were collected using an online surveysite (Surveymonkey.com) and were followed up by
informal interviews. Their responses were analyzed
using a grounded theory approach (see Radnor,
2002).

Material Development

It is very difficult to find existing material which
exactly fits the needs of our students (Johns, 1990).
After researching the existing ESP material forstudents of economics it was felt that none of thematerial addressed our students’ specific needs andmaterial development teams for the R3/R4 andCW3/CW4 courses were formed.

An overwhelming majority of teachers (n=6)
provided positive comments about the CW3 text
and other material. However, they felt that the DVD
lectures were more useful than the videos of theeconomics professors. The positive aspects of the
supplementary material are summarized below:

The use of material which is authentic andpromotes self-direction are two of the chief
characteristics of an ESP course (Carter, 1983;
Gatehouse, 2001). The need to develop ourstudents’ English ability through exposure toauthentic material and the promotion of learnerautonomy are two important elements which
underpin the CW3 course. Our aim is to help
students develop the English skills which they willneed in the future, such as the ability to write
academic essays (or reports) on topics related tointernational economics, and to present theirresearch findings through formal academicpresentations.

•
•
•
•
•

Since no suitable ESP material could be found,
the CW3 team designed and created a CW3 text
which includes 20 academic workshops. These
workshops focus on academic writing and academicpresentations. The academic writing workshops
provide guidance on topics such as essay structure,
in-text citation and referencing, and proofreading.
In the presentation workshops students are given
advice on topics such as body language, eye contact,presenting research data, and answering questions.

Useful DVD material
Video material provided salient examplesof good body language
Discussion questions facilitated classdebateStudents appreciated seeing their professors
speak English
Interesting to teachHowever, there was one teacher who said that thematerial was not useful at all and he stated that thematerial was far too difficult. His comments serve
to highlight the fact that material creation cannot
please everyone.

4

Initial Refinements

After analyzing the teachers’ feedback, the CW3
text was rewritten and the support material was
revised. The main refinements focused on making
material for the CW3 text which was easier to use
in class. Several practice listening tests were also
created to give students listening support for boththe formal DVD lectures and the TOEIC test.

In addition to the CW3 text, supplementarymaterial was created for the course. Threeeconomics professors agreed to be videoed while
they answered questions on fundamental aspects ofeconomics such as supply and demand, opportunity
cost, and the causes of economic inequality. A DVD
lecture series on economics was also added to thecourse to give students the chance to explore
authentic material. Additional support material was
created and piloted during the first semester. After

5

Student Feedback

The refinements above culminated in the creation ofa new CW3 text and support material. At the end of
the 2008 spring semester, two classes of136

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

conceptual framework for the ARC became a reality
when the ARC research team was awarded a
research grant by the Japanese Ministry of
Education,
Culture,Sports,ScienceandTechnology (MEXT). With the help of MEXT
funding, course material was created and designed
using the Moodle platform. Moodle was chosenbecause of its underlying social-constructivist
philosophy (Moodle, 2009: para. 1). The Moodle
platform allows course administrators and designers
to control and develop the online environment.
Through the ARC, CW3 students now have accessto video content, listening tests, essay guidelines,
TOEIC practice tests, and other online self-study
material. Figure 2 provides an overview of theavailable ESP material for the CW3 course.

international economics students (n=32) were asked
for their feedback on the CW3 course and thematerial they used. The data was collected throughan online questionnaire and semi-structured
interviews. Analysis was conducted using agrounded theory approach.
The students’ comments about the course weregenerally very positive. In contrast to the English
teachers, many students stated that they liked to see
their Japanese professors speaking about economic
themes in English as they found this extremely
motivating. Their feedback on the CW3 textbook
was also positive. Typical comments were as
follows:••“The text is very useful for me to use
English in future.”“I can understand more than textbook of
CW1 and CW2.”There was, however, mixed reaction to the formal
DVD lecture material:••••“The DVD lecture for note-taking is a little
difficult.”“The DVD lecture is too difficult!”“We have to listen to the DVD carefully. It
is nice for us.”“The DVD lecture was very difficult, but I
realize that I should study English morethrough that DVD, so that was good, I
think.”

Figure 2: ESP Material Overview

The ARC is also being woven into two new CALL
courses for first-year students. Through the
integration of the ARC into these new courses
students are being encouraged to take part insimultaneous online discussions and asynchronous
online forums. It is hoped that these developments
will lead to the creation of new ESP material aimed
at providing further online support and, perhaps,
even for a totally independent online course.

It should be noted that the students withcomparatively higher TOEIC scores were far morepositive about the CW3 material (especially the
DVD lectures) than the students with comparatively
lower TOEIC scores. The students’ comments
resulted in further refinement of the CW3 text andsupport material.

6

Building the ARC

7

Following the feedback from the teachers and thestudents it was clear that further material
development was necessary. Many students
commented that they want to review the DVD
material in their own time after class. They alsocommented that they want to have online access toadditional material which would help them improvetheir listening ability and their test-taking
techniques.

Conclusion

The development of ESP material requires time,
funding, and dedicated colleagues. In order tocreate effective and engaging resources, educatorsneed to be aware of the limitations of the material
they create. Therefore, reassessment of the material
through consultation with teachers and students isessential. By involving the stakeholders in the
feedback process, material developers can provide
innovative ESP material that teachers and students
will use. It must be borne in mind that effective
material development is an ongoing process.
Considering the changing technological andpedagogical landscapes, we should constantly be

The feedback from the teachers and students
acted as the catalyst for the creation of an online
autonomy supportive resource center (ARC). The

137

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

challenging ourselves to create even better material.
References
Benson, P. (2001). Teaching and researching
autonomy in language learning. London:
Longman.
Carter, D. (1983). Some propositions about ESP.
The ESP Journal, 2, 131-137.
Gatehouse, K. (2001). Key Issues in English forSpecific Purposes (ESP) Curriculum
Development. The Internet TESL Journal,
Vol. VII, No. 10. Retrieved May 2,
2009 http://www.iteslj.org/
Johns, G. (1990). ESP textbooks: Do they reallyexist? English for Specific Purposes, 9,89-93.
Kohonen, V. (1992). Experiential language
learning: second language learning ascooperative learner education. In Nunan, D.
(ed.), Collaborative language learning andteaching (pp.14-39). Cambridge: CUP.
Little, D. (1996). Freedom to learn and compulsion
to interact: promoting learner autonomy
through the use of information systems andinformation technologies. In Pemberton, R.
et al (eds.), Taking Control: Autonomy in
Language Learning (pp. 203-218). HongKong: HKUP.
Moodle. (n.d.). Philosophy. Retrieved May 2,
2009. http://docs.moodle.org/en/Philosophy.
Radnor, H. (2002). Researching your professional
practice. Buckingham: OUP.

138

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Effects of Review Activities on EFL Learning

Hsiao-fang Cheng1 & Nina Chiulan Lin2
1

Language Center, National United University, 2Department of Applied Foreign Languages, Takming
University of Science and Technology
1hfcheng@nuu.edu.tw; 2ninachiulan@yahoo.com.tw

Abstract

competence, learning outcome

The utmost goal of foreign language instruction is

1. Introduction

aimed at helping the learner master the language.
At the same time the learner shall become equipped

Foreign language instruction is directed atwith linguistic, pragmatic and social-linguistic

helping students to gain linguistic competence incompetence. This study was done to explore if

terms of phonology, vocabulary, syntax, andreview activities in EFL classes should befunctions of the target language, and above all,mandatory for learners to learn the new knowledge.

pragmatic and socio-linguistic competence whichOnemajorsis the use of the new knowledge in real-world

participated in this study. They were divided into

communication (Hughes, 2003). In many foreign

three groups, two as experimental groups and one

language learning settings, the target language isas the control group. Group A received written

unfortunately not widely used in the community

review treatments whereas Group B received oral

where the learning takes place. Foreign language

review treatments once every three weeks. Group C,

learners

the control group, did not receive any review

opportunities to practice only in the classroom.

activities after the lessons were taught. At the end

Usually classroom instruction focuses on the formsof the semester, all the participants received aand structures of the language within the context of

post-test on what they had learnt. The results

communicative

showed that the participants in Group A (written

instruction becomes a series of cooperative

review) and Group B (oral review), performed

activities between teachers and students (Yu, 2002).

substantially better than the control group. A

Teacher-student

significant difference in gained scores was foundacquisition and internalization of new language

between the control group and the experimental

forms that are characteristic of EFL learninggroups,activities.

hundredandindicating

fifty

that

non-English

providingreview

receive

instruction

interaction.

interaction

and

are

given

Indisputably,

promotestheopportunities is both necessary and helpful for

In many EFL teaching situations, teachers tendachieving the learning outcomes, i.e., the retention

to make professional decisions to ensure thatof new knowledge. Drawing on the finding, somelearning takes place effectively and are expected topedagogical suggestions were made.

take control of the teaching processes in theirclassrooms (Nunan & Lamb, 1996). Learners seemKeywords:

review

activities,

to learn what has been taught; however, it is not

linguistic

139

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

certain that they learn everything that they are

behavior (Gas & Selinker, 2001). U-shaped

taught. Even though something is taught or madebehavior refers to three stages of linguistic use.

available for them to absorb, it does not mean that

Error frequency follows a low-high-low pattern as

the learners will digest it right away. This isdevelopment takes place. In the earliest stage, aespecially true for under-motivated non-English

learner produces some linguistic forms thatmajors who study English as a subject instead of aconform to target-like norms (i.e., is error-free). At

language. They have not had a chance to use

Stage 2, a learner appears to lose what was known

English for real-life communication; how can theyat Stage 1. The linguistic behavior at Stage 2

progress to a level deeper than what has been

deviates from his native language form. Stage 3

presented to them? Therefore, what in-classlooks just like Stage 1 in that there is again correct

activities should teachers provide to help students

target language usage (Ellis, 1990; Gass & Selinder,

master the target language? Drawing on Output

2001).

Hypothesis (Swain & Lapkin, 1995), Interaction

Clark and Clark (1977) stated that exact

Hypothesis (Long, 1996), and Noticing Hypothesis

wordings are only stored for very short periods of(Schmidt, 2001), the researchers attempt totime and unless actively rehearsed, are lost very

investigate if it is mandatory to provide in-classquickly. Schematization of knowledge occurs whenreview activities, either in written or spoken form,

learners are required to think about the material at ato promote learner’s learning outcome, and mostdeeper level in terms of how concepts inter-relate

important of all, what kind of review opportunities(Herbert & Burt, 2003). Drawing on the U-shaped

contributelearning behavior, learners need to review the

the

most

to

student’s

learning

newly absorbed knowledge so as to convert it into

performance.

generalized conceptual knowledge. Studies showed

2. Literature Review

that good EFL learners pay close attention to the

Output Hypothesis (Swain & Lapkin, 1995)

formal properties of the target language (Ellis,

provides a detailed description of each component

1994), attend to form and monitor one’ s own andstage and depicts the interrelated and dynamic

others’ speech (Reiss, 1985), as well as pay

processes of language acquisition. The model

attention to how the target language is used

proposes five stages during the learners’ conversion(Stevick, 1989). It is obvious that the more the newof input to output. Noticing Hypothesis (Schmidt,

knowledge is schematized, the better the output

2001) stressed language awareness and language

results. However, what is the best method torestructuring. In the course of interaction, learners

enhance the schematization of new knowledge?

learn to identify the differences between the input

Ding (2007) conducted an interview with three

and their own output. Through practice they

university English majors and documented text

convert the noticed items into acquired items andmemorization and imitation as the most effective

restructure them in oral or written tasks -- they use

methods of learning English. In Ding’s study thethem productively. In the early stages of L2

participants are highly motivated in learning

development, ideas are separate units and the only

English, so they are willing to memorize the texts.

link between them is their common reference to a

For those under-motivated learners, whether rote

given topic (Ellis, 1997). The result of restructuring

learning is an appropriate and interesting method to

is often reflected in what is known as U-shaped

motivate learning is worth pondering. Therefore,140

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

the researchers, speaking from their personal

The three groups received a pre-test at theexperience, propose an alternative method --beginning of the treatment and a post-test.

in-class review activities after lecturing—with theAccording to Wu and Lin (2000), the interval

prospect of promoting learner’s motivation andbetween each review cannot be too long or too

learning outcome. It is hoped that such activities

short. It was decided that Group A and B be given acanreview opportunity once every three weeks.

be

good

ways

to

improvelearners’

However, the control Group C did not receive any

comprehension and memory.

review activities. Group A received a written

The following research questions will be

review; Group B received an oral review. In theaddressed.

thirteenth week all the subjects took the post-test(1) Is it mandatory to provide review

without prior notice.

activities to enhance students’ learning

Paired t-tests were used to analyze the results

outcome?
(2) Which review activities, written or oral,of a ‘before’ and ‘after’ treatment. After thecontribute to the excessive acquisition of

post-test all the subjects completed a post-exercise

new knowledge?

survey concerning their attitudes toward andperceptions of the treatment.

(3) What were students’ attitudes toward andtheir perceptions on the provision of

4. Results and Discussion

review opportunities after oral teaching?

4.1 Statistical Results and Discussion

3. Method

A one-way ANOVA analysis was applied to
see whether a significant statistical difference was

3.1 Participants
One hundred and fifty non-English majors

found in the post-test scores among the threeparticipated in this study. Their average age wasgroups. A significant statistical difference was

19.2 years. All of them had 8.1 years of learning

found in the post-test scores among the three

English as a foreign language at school in Taiwan.

groups (F=12.933, df=2, p=0.000), indicating that

None of them had been to English speaking

the treatment did influence subjects’ learning

countries.

outcome.
The Scheffe test revealed that after the

3.2 Instrument and Design
Three contextualized dialogues on interviews

treatment there was a significant statisticaland three short stories were utilized as teachingdifference between Group A and Group C as wellmaterials. A TOEIC practice test serving as pre-test

as between Group B and Group C. These findings

and a criterion-referenced test based on theindicated that review opportunities, whether oral orteaching materials were utilized to gather data for

written, did facilitate learner’s memory and output.

the investigation.

Group A and Group B performed similarly, and that

The participants were divided into threeeach of these groups performed better than Group

groups based on their academic majors. The pretest

C. This difference could be a result of practice

results showed that the three groups in the study

effects for Group A and B as the material taught

were indeed homogeneous in terms of English

was repeated once every three weeks for a total of

language ability (df=2, F=0.000, p>0.05).

three times before the post-test. On the contrary,

3.3 ProceduresGroup C did not have any review opportunities.

141

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

the second review test 63; the third test 62 and the

The mean score of Group A was somewhat
higher than that of Group B, suggesting that written

post

reviewthephenomenon, i.e. deviated output, was found in theinternalization of language or memory slightly

second and third review tests. But in the

better than oral review activities.

post-achievement test, the members of this group

activities

appearedtofacilitateachievement

test

71.

A

backsliding

tended to produce more target-like responses asResults of the paired t-tests showed that thegained scores in Group A and B between pre-test

they had in the first test.

and post-test was statistically significant, indicating

4.2 Results of the Post-exercise Surveythat learners in Group A and B truly progressed

Question 1 was “Do you think providing

after the treatment. However, for Group C, noreview activities in class after oral teaching help

significant difference was found between the

you remember what had been taught? Why?” Alllearners’ pre-testscore

the participants in the experimental groups stated(p=0.162), indicating that learners in Group C did

that reviewing the learned material regularly and in

not improve their English ability to a significant

different formats did help them a lot. Ninety-six

level after oral teaching. It can be inferred thatpercent of the participants admitted that they would

giving instruction with subsequent review activities

not have reviewed the lesson on their own afteris necessary in EFL classes.

instruction; therefore, the review opportunities

andpost-testmeanhelped them recall the newly acquired knowledge

To sum up, subjects receiving three review
postwhen they were about to forget. They further

achievement test, and it is concluded that review

mentioned that they could remember the content

opportunities did facilitate the subjects’ memory

better than the syntactic structures and vocabulary.

and output. Research Question One and Two can be

To master the linguistic forms, they needed toconsidered answered with the following statement:

practice several times.

activities

did

perform

betterinthe

Review opportunities promoted subjects’ memory

All the participants in the control groupand output and written review activities appeared

admitted that they would not have reviewed theto facilitate better achievement. A possible

lesson on their own if they did not have a quiz on

explanation is that learners in the experimental

what they had learned. They agreed that they could

group had chances at regular intervals to recall

learn well under a little pressure and believed thatwhat had been taught, so new knowledge was lessreview opportunities if given would have promoted

likely to be forgotten. It is likely that knowledge

their learning outcome.
Question 2 was “Why didn’t you performthat had been reviewed several times could havebeen processed at a more profound level and thensubstantiallyconverted into intake and integrated into theparticipants in the control group stated that theylearners’developing

could not remember very well what had beenlearning

system.

foreign/second

languagebetterinthepost-test?”

All

could

taught in class because the interval between

successfully retrieve the needed knowledge in theirinstruction and post achievement test had been too

output, leading to a higher performance outcome.

long. Ninety-six percent of them mentioned that

Therefore,

learners

It was also found that the performance result

they had only a vague idea about the content andof Group A showed evidence of U-shaped behavior.

they could not remember the detailed information,

The average score of the first review test was 83;

the syntactic structure or vocabulary, because they142

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

This study has provided some relative

7. References
Brindley, G. & Slatyer, H. (2002). Exploringtask difficulty in ESL listening
assessment. Language Testing, 19(4),369-394.

answers to improving learning outcomes. The

Clark, H., & Clark, E. (1977). Psychology anddid not review what was taught immediately afterclass.

5. Conclusion

results revealed that reviewing what had been

language:taughtpsycholinguistics. New York: Harcourt Braceatregularintervals

after

instruction

promoted learners’ performance and written review

An

introduction

toJovanovich.

facilitated better recall of information taught thanDing, Y. (2007). Text memorization and imitation:oral review. No review activities available after the

The practices of successful Chinese learners

instruction led to poor retention of informationof English. System, 35, 271-280.

taught. It was found that U-shaped learning

Ellis, R. (1990). Understanding second language

behavior and practice effects did occur in theacquisition. Oxford: Oxford University

process of learning. Generally speaking, learners

Press.

had positive attitudes toward review activities after

Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language

oral teaching and preferred reviewing in different

acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University

formats.

Press.
Ellis, R. (1997). SLA research and language

6. Pedagogical Implications

teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gass, S. M., & Selinder, L. (2001). Second

The practical goal of this study is toinvestigate whether providing review opportunities

languagein class is likely to enhance learning outcomes.

course. Mahwah, N. J.: L. Erlbaum

Drawing on the results of this study, some

Associates.

acquisition:An

introductory

Herbert, D. M. B., & Burt, J. S. (2003). The effects

pedagogical implications are proposed.

ofFirst, it is necessary to provide review

different

review

opportunities

onopportunities after lecturing. Second, providing

schematization of knowledge. Learning andreview opportunities in different formats avoids

Instruction, 13, 73-92.
Hughes, A. (2003). Testing for language teachers.

boredom and promotes some measure of successCambridge: Cambridge University Press.

and motivation. Third, the most appropriate
number of reviews ranges from two to three times,

Long, M.H. (1996). The role of the linguistic

time permitting. If time is not available, as

environment in second language acquisition.

U-shaped behavior suggests, reviewing the new

In Ritchie, W.C., Bhatia, T.K. (Eds.),

information at least once is mandatory.

Handbook of Second Language Acquisition.
San

There was only one group of Chinese

Diego,CA:

AcademicPress.

Pp.413-468.

technical college students participating in this study.
The results presented in this paper cannot be taken

Nunan, D., & Lamb, C. (1996). The self-directed

as conclusive and definitely do not allow forteacher: Managing the learning process.

generalization.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reiss, M. (1985). The good language learner:

143

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Another look. Canadian Modern Language

and the cognitive processes they generate :Review, 41, 511-523.

A step towards second language leraning.
A pplied Linguistics (16), 371-391.

Schmidt, R. (2001). Attention. In Robinson, P.

Yu, M. N. (2002). Educational test and evaluation:(Ed.), Cognition and Second Language
Instruction.

Cambridge:

Cambridge

Achievement

tests

and

instructional

evaluation. Taipei: Psychology Publishing

University Press. pp.3-32.

Co. [In Chinese]

Stevick, E. (1989). Success with foreign languages:

Wu, W. Y., & Lin, C. H. (2000). Business research

Seven who achieved it and what worked formethods. Taipei: Hua-tai Cultural Center.

them. Hamel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.

[In Chinese]

Swain, M., Lapkin, S. (1995). Problems in output

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

A study on the stress experienced by native English teachers in Korea
Jongbok Lee

School of Education, Mokwon University
jblee@mokwon.ac.kr

Abstractwith America Peace Corps, were dispatched to
middle and high schools all around Korea. After
that, through the Fulbright program of
Korean-American Educational Commission, about
30 English natives with certain qualifications(under 30 with B.A. degree) had dispatched toschools in Korea every year since 1992. In 1997,
with the Plan of Inviting & Utilizing Native English
Assistant Teachers was established by Ministry of
Education, the program has conducted actively
since 1998.
Looking into the number of invited Native
teachers in Korea per each year, the number ofteachers has rapidly soared until 1997. As Korea
began to be under management of International
Monetary Fund(IMF) from 1997, the number of thenatives decreased. After recovering economicalcrisis, as demands for improving English
communication abilities began to elevate, thenumber of native English teachers was also
increased and it reached to 2,294, officiallyregistered in EPIK(Ministry Of Education &Human Resources Development, 2007).
However, beyond officially registered Native
English teachers, there were more English natives
who individually came to Korea with the purpose ofteaching English conversation. In 2006 the numberof unregistered native English teachers was 12,560,
which accounted for 91.5% of all the natives with
E-2 Visa and about 10,000 more than that listed in
EPIK at the same year, (Ministry Of Education &Human Resources Development, 2006a; 2006b). In
addition, there were 29,263 natives without E-2
Visa, who staying in Korea with the purpose ofteaching English conversation and that was about
16,000 more than the number of aforementioned
data. Thus, much more English natives were
expected to work in Korea as English teachers.
Recently, there were 35,457 native English teachers
who dwelled in Korea in 2008(Korea Immigration
Service, 2008).

The purpose of this study is to find out thefactors of teaching stresses from native English
teachers who are working at a Korean university.
These days, college English education managed byinviting native English teachers becomes popular.
In this situation, it is important to figure out how toincrease efficiency of English education conductedby native English teachers. Therefore, as one of themethods to manage native English teachers, thissurvey focused on the teaching stresses by taking asurvey toward 26 native English teachers who
engaged in N university.

Introduction
This study set its focus on stress of native
English teachers when they could feel in theirteaching. To investigate the stress, this study took asurvey toward 26 native English teachers working
in N university in Korea. Main purposes of thisstudy can be suggested as following;
1. To find out amount of teaching stress ofnative English teachers and divide the stressinto factors by factor analysis.
2. To divide the participants into groups by theirpersonal background and figure out trend ofstress

1. Literature Review
1.1. Current Situation of the inviting native
English teacher program.
Native English teachers have been working in
Korea since 1976. At that time, about 200 young
English speakers from USA, who were affiliated145Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

have not conducted widely, it is hard to apply the
results of studies mentioned above, which mainly
set their focuses on kindergarten teachers, to thisstudy. However, main elements, which influenceteachers’ stress, suggested in the studies,
Students’ Attitude(Kyriacou & Sutcliffe, 1978) andGreat Pressure for Teaching and Extra
Work(Korean Federation of Teachers' Association),
are supposed to be commonly applied to all thepeople working in education field regardless of theage og their students.
Therefore, based on the results supporting thatteachers’ stress affects huge influence on teachers’
teaching and the relationships with students, it canbe possibly predictable that native English teachers’stress also can influence their teaching.

1.2 Current Situation of managing native
English Teachers
Looking into the management guideline fornative English teachers, which provided by
EPIK(Ministry Of Education & Human Resources
Development, 2005), while it mainly mentioned
external conditions such as invitees’ qualification,
residence, salary and working hours for the
program manager, it didn’t contain internal
information such as difficulties which native
English teachers would face with in their daily lifeand stress when they would feel in teaching.
Referring preceding studies dealing with teachers’stress (Blasé, 1986; Koh & Kim, 1994; Mark &Richard, 1991a, 1991b; Shin, 2004), they presented
that teachers’ stress affected teaching andrelationships between students and teachers. Basedon the result, it can be elicited that native English
teachers’ stress is not only one of the main factors
which influence their teaching, but also related tothe efficiency of the inviting native English teacher
program.

2. Methodology
A survey was carried out with 26 native English
teachers engaged in N university in Korea to findout stress factors in their teaching. The
questionnaire was consisted of questions selectedfrom preceding studies(Caplan, Cobb & French,
1975; Davison & Cooper, 1983; Kim, 1991; Kim,
1997) dealing with teachers’ stresses and working
stresses. Questions about teaching stress werecollected from Kim(1991)’s and Kim(1997)’s
studies. Questions related to teaching were selectedamong questions asking working stresses gatheredfrom studies of Caplan et al. (1975) and Davisonand Copper(1983). After deleting similar questions
from all the collected questions, the questionnaire
was consisted of 56 questions.

1.3 Teaching Stress
Teaching
stress,changeofteacher’s
psychological stability with physiological change,
happens as a result of teacher’s activities. Also, itmeans the stress when teachers recognize outside
demands as threats to their psychological stabilityor their self-esteem.
Kyriacou and Sutcliffe(1978) suggested thatteachers feel stress due to students’ motivation to
study, school, work, students’ insincere attitude toteachers, students’ disorder, working conditions,troubles with colleagues, quality of classes. Also,
Litt and Turk(1985) pointed out that when teachers
encountered a problem threatening their present
situations, they feel stress and negative feelings if it
requires much more ability than what they
originally have.
Considering aforementioned results, teachers’stress influences negative effects not only onthemselves, but also on the relationships between
students and teachers(Kelly & Berthelson, 1995;
Kim & Shin, 2000).
Since studies on native English teachers’ stress

3. Results and Discussion
5

4

3.23
3

2.12

2.01

1.96

2

1.71
1.49

1.48

supervisor

environment

1.62

1student

cowokertreatmentteaching
abilityphysical

psychological<Figure 1> teaching stresses of native English
teachers

146

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics<Figure 1>, which presents results of thesurvey, shows eight categories of teachingstresses(student, supervisor, environment,
coworker, treatment, teaching ability, physicaland psychological) sorted by factor analysis.
Average of all the questions was 1.49 whichmeans that participants hardly felt stress intheir teaching. Reason behind this could befound in participants’ unique background. All ofthem worked in same university managed by
Christian foundation. So, they are all
Christians and most of them had strong
passion in their teaching. Consequently, thereasons why the participants felt little stress intheir teaching can be found in their religious
background and working motivation.
Participants felt the highest stress in theteaching ability factor(3.23). It means thatmostofparticipants
recognized
theirinsufficiency and were not satisfied with theirteaching ability. Quick and Quick(1984)
insisted that the acceptable stress can facilitate
tension and efficiency in working and take thepositive role. Based on that, stress of teachingability can be sorted as a positive stress.
Therefore participant didn’t feel much stress intheir teaching except a positive stress, teachingability’ which encourage participants’ tension
and motivation in their teaching.

for age, period of residence, and salary was set
based on average of the participants(age=40;
residence period=4 years; salary=2,100thousand).
In case of teaching experience, since there werehuge differences among all of the participants,
accumulative number of the participants wasapplied as a criterion.
Comparing the teaching stress of each group, thegroup of male(sex), under 40(age), under 4
years(period of residence), and under 6
years(teaching experience) felt higher stress thanother groups. In case of salary, someone who got
more salary felt more stress because salary was indirect proportion with the time of class.

4. Conclusion
Summing up the results, categories of teachingstress could be sorted as student, supervisor,
working environment, coworker, treatment,teaching ability, physical and psychological factors
by factor analysis. Among the categories, stress ofteaching ability showed the highest point(2.68) andstress of treatment showed the lowest point(1.48).
Analyzing differences of stress tendency between
two groups in each category, which were divided

by the participants’ personal background, stresstendency became higher when participants wereyounger, had shorter residence period, less teachingexperience. Only salary was in indirect proportion
with the stress.
Inviting native English teacher program requires
a lot of costs to provide them with habitation,
airline fee and monthly salary. Therefore, toproduce decent output of this program, it is needed
to carry out studies focused on how to raise
efficiency and quality of this program. Based on the
results of this study, this researcher set two researchgoals to expand domain of this study.

2.5

2.19
2

2.02

2

1.94

2.04

1.85

1.75

1.79

1.8

1.65
1.5

1
male

femaleunder 40over 40

under 4years

over 4years

under 6years

over 6years

under
averageover
av erage<Figure 2> differences of teaching stresstendency according to personal backgrounds

To find out differences of the teaching stresstendency according to personal backgrounds, theparticipants were divided into 2 groups inaccordance with 5 categories(sex, age, period ofresidence in Korea, teaching experience, salary).
As each Category was consisted of two groups,
the number of groups was 10. <Figure 2> presents
the results of the teaching stress tendency. Criteria

1.

Investigating satisfaction of native English
teachers in their teaching.

2.

Suggesting an effective management
system for native English teachers.

References

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Mark,

G. B., & Richard, J. R. (1991b).
Occupational stress and satisfaction inteaching. British Educational Research
Journal, 17(3), 263-281.
Ministry of Education & Human Resources
Development. (2005). 2005 Plan of
EPIK(English Program in Korea). Teacher
Development Planning Division of Ministryof Education & Human Resources
Development, 1, 2005.
Ministry of Education & Human Resources
Development. (2006a). Plan of EPIK andpresent situation. Data for Parliamentary
Inspection of the Administration.
Ministry of Education & Human Resources
Development. (2006b). Annual report forE-2 degree. Data for Parliamentary
Inspection of the Administration.
Ministry of Education & Human Resources
Development. (2007). 2007 Plan of
EPIK(English Program in Korea). Teacher
Development Planning Division of Ministryof Education & Human Resources
Development, 1, 2007.
Shin, H. Y. (2004). Effects of teachers’ job stressand belief of efficacy on the quality ofteachers’ interaction behaviors in child care.
Unpublished doctorial dissertation. Yon-Sei
University. Seoul.

Blase, J. J. (1986). A qualitative analysis of sourceof teacher stress: consequences for
performance.
AmericanEducational
Research Journal, 23(1), 13-40.
Caplan, R. D., Cobb, S., & French, J. R. P. (1975).
Relationships of cessation of smoking withjob stress, personality and social support.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 60(2),211-219.
Choi, Y. S. (2008). Practical tips for EFL native
teachers and their employers in Korea.
English Language & Literature Teaching,14(3), 29-47.
Davison, M., & Cooper. C. (1983). Stress and
Woman Manager. Oxford; Martin Robert
Son & Company Ltd.
Kelly, A. L., & Berthelson, D. A. (1995). Preschool
teachers' experiences of stress. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 11, 345-357.
Kim, B., & Shin, H. Y. (2000). An Exploratory
Study on Job Stress of Day Care Teacher.
International Journal of Early Childhood
Education, 20, 253-276.
Kim, J. I. (1997). Effects on working stress and theresults influenced by negative changes andsocial expectation. Unpublished doctorial
dissertation. Chung-Ang University. Seoul.
Kim, J, W. (1991). Relation between teacher’steaching working stress and psychologicaland physical symptoms. Unpublisheddoctorial
dissertation.
Chung-Ang
University. Seoul.
Koh, H. H., & Kim, J. H. (1994). A study on
working stress of day-care teachers. Seoul:
Baeyoungsa.
Korea Immigration Service. (2008). Monthly reportof statistics, 2, 2008.
Kyriacou, C., & Sutcliffe, J. (1978). Teacher stressprevalence: Source and symptoms. British
Journal of Educational Psychology, 48,
159-167.
Litt, M. D., & Turk, D. C. (1985). Sources of stressand dissatisfaction in experienced highschool teachers. Journal of Education
Research, 78, 178-185.
Mark, G. B., & Richard, J. R. (1991a). Stress inteaching: a study of occupational stress andits determinants, job satisfaction and career
commitment among primary schoolteachers.
Education Psychology, 11(1), 59-75.
148Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Partitive-self constructions: Lexico-grammatical resources forconstructing sociocultural and individual aspects of the self
Kam-yiu S. Pang1
1Faculty of Social Sciences & Humanities, University of Macau

kpang@umac.mo
Abstract
Pang (2005) examines a cluster of English
constructions under the rubric partitive-selfconstructions. The primary function of these
constructions is to single out a certain aspect ofa person’s self for comment, evaluation, and/orreflection, whether by the person herself or byothers. Two such constructions are the ‘N in me
V-ing’ and ‘my N V-ing’ constructions. This
paper argues that these constructions also fulfill
their identity-construction function differently.
Looking at the types of nouns which typicallyparticipate in these constructions and theinteraction between the nouns and theirdeterminers, I propose that these constructions
are basically complementary. They function as
resources for constructing and asserting different
aspects of a person’s self. ‘N in me V-ing’ tends
to assert/construct more socioculturally based
aspects of a person’s self, whereas ‘my N V-ing’
tends to assert/construct more individual-based
aspects of a person’s self.

cluster of constructions is to draw attention to acertain part of a discourse participant’s self
(typically the speaker herself1 ) which the
speaker considers relevant to the communication
at hand. Examples are:(1a) It is his arrogance speaking.
(1b) Grrrr. (Yes, that was my stomach talking.)(2a) That’s the purist in me talking.
(2b) thats the fangirl in you speaking.

The constructions can be broadly divided
into two main types, according to the structureof the nominals, i.e., whether it consists of apossessive determiner such as my, her, etc., as in(1), or a postnominal locative with a personalpronoun such as in me, in him, etc., as in (2).
These are given the rubrics of the ‘my N V-ing’and ‘N in me V-ing’ constructions (Pang 2005).2
By focusing the hearer’s attention on thatpart of the discourse participant’s self (inparticular the speaker herself), the speakersignals to the hearer that it is that aspect of theperson to which he should predicate what isbeing said, rather than the person as a whole.
Any evaluation the hearer might have of what issaid by the discourse participant should thus bemade with this “caveat” in mind. These aspectsof the speaker being attended to can range fromthe social or professional roles which she
instantiates to her emotional or physical states.
The invited inferences are thus:• the discourse only represents what the
speaker thinks in the capacity of a certainsocial or professional persona, or as a resultof being under the influence of certain
physical or psychological experiences;• by isolating the focal aspect for reflection,
the speaker is indicating that she herself is

Keywords
partitive-self constructions; self-talk;sociocultural and individual identities;
Construction Grammar

1

Introduction

Pang (2005) identifies a cluster of constructions
in English which he calls partitive-selfconstructions. Constructions being symbolic
items, in that they are not meaningless syntactic
patterns, but have symbolic properties inherently
associated with them (Lakoff 1987; Langacker
1987; Goldberg 1995; Taylor 2002; inter alia),
the primary pragma-semantic function of this1 In this paper, to avoid sexist language, I have adopted the practice of using the feminine to refer to the speaker,

agent, experiencer, etc., and the masculine to refer to the hearer, patient, etc., in the case of indeterminate gender,
after Sperber & Wilson (1986).

2 Other constructions in the cluster having basically the same cognitive and pragma-semantic properties include

those instantiated by utterances such as The devil in me made me do it and It was my head that said, “Don’t besilly!”

149

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

aware of the possible ramifications of the
discourse, and• if it can be perceived as potentiallydisagreeable to the hearer, her awarenessincludes that as well.
One basic pragma-semantic function of these
constructions is thus to distance the discourse
participant from what is being said.
Further to Pang (2005), which discusses theoverall constructional, cognitive-grammatical,
and pragma-semantic properties of theconstruction-cluster, this paper focuses on thetypes of nouns which tend to participate in thetwo constructions, i.e., the types of nouns which
are differentially attracted (in the sense of
Stefanowitsch & Gries 2003) to the N-slots in[DET:POSS N] and [the N in PRO:PER]. It
turns out that [DET:POSS N] tends mostly to
attract nouns designating psychophysical states,e.g., my hangover, your paranoia, my maternal
instinct, while [the N in PRO:PER] tends mainly
to attract nouns designating sociocultural/
professional roles and constructs, e.g., thecynicism, the environmentalist, the accountant.
Based on these findings, I will argue that• the ‘my N V-ing’ construction tends toserve the function of asserting/constructing
an aspect of the person’s self which is moreindividual-based; whereas• the ‘N in me V-ing’ construction tends toserve the function of asserting/constructing
an aspect of the person’s self which is moresocioculturally based.
That is to say, although both constructions serve
the overall purposes of identity-construction andidentity-enactment, they tend to do so in
different domains and hence attend to different,
viz. sociocultural vs individual, aspects of aperson’s self. Thus, the two are basically in aquasi-complementary relation.

2

replicated in the first half of 2009. Althoughcontent on the Internet has certainly changed
since 2005, results from the current collection
indicate that, though individual items might
appear or disappear, the overall noun-type
distribution tendencies have largely remained
the same, across all relevant combinations of thevariables, i.e., the possessive determiner (my/your/his/her/our/their) and the noun in ‘my N Ving’, and the noun and the personal pronoun(me/you/him/her/us/them) in ‘N in me V-ing’.
Furthermore, a separate search using a larger
sampling size of 250 each (consisting of the first250 unduplicated hits) was conducted for thestrings [this is my N talking] and [this is the N inme talking]. This is for the purpose of gaining amore comprehensive picture of the noun-type
distribution of the constructions. For calculating
the respective incidence of the nouns and nountypes, head noun lemmas are counted in the caseof complex nominal structures, e.g., eco-friendly
side. The first-person singular variable waschosen because it is found to be more frequently
attested than the other variables (cf. Pang 2005).
The ensuing discussion will thus be illustrated
with 1sg examples collected from this search.
2.2 Operational definitions
The scheme used in Pang (2005) for classifying
the types of nouns which participate in thisconstruction-cluster denotes the following
domains:• Mental. These include psychological,
emotional, and affective states, e.g., ego,fear, intuition, typically with a more acutesense of subjective experientiality;• Physical. These include body parts andbodily conditions, e.g. heart, head,sickness, hangover;• Sociocultural constructs. These include
reified/personified constructs such as Irish,
2 demon, Christ, Buddha, and abstract
constructs such as pessimism, values,
morality, hopelessness;• Sociocultural roles (which the current
paper replaces with the more general termof ‘sociocultural personæ’). These include
kinship, ethnic, ideological, institutional,
and professional personæ, e.g. mother,
realist, cynic, psychiatrist;• Artifacts functioning as metonyms, e.g.
medication, suits, Unix.
The current paper adds a sixth domain whichpertains to nouns denoting personal experiences,
history, and abilities, etc. In establishing
operational definitions for these category labels,
Pang (2005) notes that there is some difficulty in

The data

2.1 Methodology of data collection
The data reported in Pang (2005) were collectedfrom the Internet using the Google searchengine (www.google.com). Searches wereconducted on all the paradigmatic combinationsof the variables in the constructions. For
example, for the ‘my N V-ing’ construction,
searches were made with strings consisting of
combinations of {this/that/these/those/it} {‘s/is/
are/was/were} {my/your/his/her/our/their} {*}{speak-/talk-/say-/tell-}ing}. The sameprocedure was used for the ‘N in me V-ing’
constructions. The sampling size for each was
70. For the present paper, this search was150Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

categorizing nouns other than those designating
physical states, physiology, and artifacts-asmetonyms, for several reasons. On the one hand,nouns designating psychological states/
constructs are often ambivalent when they
appear in different constructional and/or
discoursal contexts. For example, pride could bereferring to an abstract construct whenappearing in an utterance like That was the pridein him talking, but could arguably be referring toa mental state in That’s his pride talking justnow; not him. On the other hand, an abstract
construct and an agent attributed with that
construct present a different problem because of
their mutually defining relation: “Such an agent(e.g. a pessimist) would have to embody, andhence instantiate, the construct (e.g. pessimism)
to be so deemed, while conversely speaking, theconstruct pessimism cannot be defined orconceptualized without appealing to a humanagent that embodies it” (Pang 2005: 8). To
resolve the issue, Pang’s (2005) categorization
appeals to foregrounding as a criterion: “Where
the designatum as a coherent body of belief(s)about a particular aspect of the socioculture’s
worldview is foregrounded, the noun [is]considered a ‘sociocultural construct’ (e.g.,
cynicism); where the type of person as anindividual intentional agent who instantiates
such a construct is foregrounded, it [is]considered a ‘sociocultural persona’ (e.g.,
cynic); and where the state/experience which anindividual intentional agent is undergoing isforegrounded, it [is] categorized under‘mental’”. (Pang 2005: 8).

Table 1. Incidence of head nouns in [my N]
incidence
nouns
13
heart
7
experience; side
5gut; brain; self; instinct;4
inexperience; background; bias; ignorance; ego; intuition; OCD; paranoia; memory;3
hormones; butt; syndrome; ghost; upbringing; nature; subconscious; anger; logic; mind;
emotion; depression; lawyer;
2
flesh; youth; age; degree; sense; anxiety; soul; spirit; disorder; imagination; blood;
Americanness; Scorpio; eye
1head; penis; pregnancy; boner; illness; body; ass; face; anesthesia; beard; sickness; stomach;dying; hangover; taste buds; MBA; roots; MFA; class; knowledge; prowess; creativity;
teenybopper; birthday; persona; voice; jealousy; frustration; conscience; grief; kink; naivety;insecurity; unbelief; pettiness; skepticism; cynicism; belief; thinking; idiocy; fetish; crush;stupidity; filter; excitement; consciousness; personality; hindsight; fever; exuberance; shame;curiosity; perfectionism; neurosis; fear; addiction; trekkie; fan; fiancé; behaviorist; Daemon;
fanboy; dh; realist; twin; affinity-build; student; hat; pessimist; mom; therapist; dad; fanboyism;bachelorhood; fandom; geekgasim [sic]; Capricorn; house; node; ideology; Americanism;
prudishness; child; religion; worldview; practice; Te; ethics; perspective; rights; baggage;
partisanship; generation; privilege; Rheumy; pouch; mask; wallet; ball; dolly

3

Results

3.2

Noun-type distribution of [the N in me
V-ing]
Table 3 lists the head noun lemmas according toincidence. The predominant noun-type found is‘sociocultural persona’ nouns: as much as 92%.
The other noun-types, viz. ‘sociocultural
construct’, ‘mental’, ‘personal history/ability’,and ‘artifact-as-metonym’ nouns are rare bycomparison (2.4%, 1.6%, 2.4%, and 1.6%
respectively). No ‘physical’ nouns are attested.
(Table 4). A Chi-square goodness-of-fit testshows the results to be highly significant(χ2=1022.1, df = 5, p<0.0001).

3.1 Noun-type distribution of [my N V-ing]
All six types of nouns mentioned above (2.2) arefound for this construction. Table 1 lists the headnoun lemmas attested according to incidence. In
terms of frequency, ‘mental’, ‘personal history/
ability’ and ‘physical’ nouns predominate(31.6%, 26.8%, and 20% respectively).
‘Sociocultural construct’ and ‘sociocultural
persona’ nouns are much less frequent bycomparison (11.6% and 7.6% respectively), and‘artifact-as-metonym’ nouns are rare (2.4%) (seeTable 2). A Chi-square goodness-of-fit testshows the results to be highly significant(χ2=97.23, df = 5, p<0.0001).

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Table 2. Noun-type distribution of [my N]
noun type

incidence (N=250)

percentage

76
67
51
32
20
4

30.40%
26.80%
20.40%
12.80%
8%
1.60%

A
mentalBpersonal history/ability/trait
CphysicalDsociocultural constructEsociocultural persona
F
artifact-as-metonym2χ = 93.34, df = 5, p<0.0001

Table 3. Incidence of head nouns in [the N in me]
incidence
nouns
7
geek
6
mom/mum
5
cynic
4
teacher; nerd; guy; girl;3
homer; gamer; American; optimist; idealist; designer; theorist; teenager; director; engineer;fan; lawyer; pessimist
2snob; fanboy; libertarian; kid; feminist; hunter; fangirl; conservative; newbie; philosopher;
Nazi; therapist; boy; person; artist; linguist; New Yorker; developer; student; perfectionist;techie; writer; editor; midwest;
1
animator; Tableeghi; Angeleno; mechanist; filmmaker; trader; dancer; musician; misfit;
anthropologist; catcher; pig; pragmatist; CEO; Indian; towel-head; producer; historian;behaviorist; poet; gearhead; proofreader; Republican; bellydancer; archivist; bitch; Pollyanna;
educator; consumer; surgeon; Bakla; techno-dork/DJ; publisher; marketer; dreamer; librarian;Michigander; scout; photographer; Gabriel; rescuer; marine; spender; Scrooge; caregiver;naturopath; Canadian; buff; realist; critic; virgin; howard stern; capitalist; supporter; base;hippy; counter; chicken little; planner; Jew; fop; fanatic; Californian; commuter; singer; adult;
player; Italian; tree-hugger; reader; mobile-phile; westerner; Buddhist; hand; sadist; luvvy;
wife; skeptic; Tim Hortons; chauvinist; druid; whore; romantic; Gen X-er; Chinese; atheist;
bartender; primal; yankee; manager; advertiser; Kathy Lee Gifford; brother; dealer; Thespian;freak; man; academic; perv; attorney; psychologist; woman; dad; fogey; gen-Y; diver;rehabilitator; shipper; major; servant; lover; Oklahoma; 21st century; Friday; peteru; PES;
pvp; hipster runoff; Google; OCD; comparison; OC; monster; lady; customer; college; sloth;burn-out; ignorance
Table 4. Noun-type distribution of [the N in me]
noun type

incidence (N=250)

percentage

AmentalBpersonal history/ability/trait
CphysicalDsociocultural constructEsociocultural persona
F
artifact-as-metonym2χ = 1022.1, df = 5, p<0.0001

4
6
0
6
230
4

1.60%
2.40%
0%
2.40%
92%
1.60%

4

(ii)[DEIC COP NOMINALIZATION[NP[the Ni in

Discussion

PRO:PERi] Vverbal-ing]]

4.1

Individual- vs socioculture-based
attributes
Schematically, the ‘my N V-ing’ and ‘N in me Ving’ constructions can be represented as follows:

In terms of form, they appear to be in aminimal-pair relation, the contrastive segments
being the NPs [DET:POSS N] in ‘my N V-ing’,and [the Ni in PRO:PERi] in ‘N in me V-ing’,e.g., This is my mother talking vs. This is themother in me talking. The two, however, also(i) [DEIC COP NOMINALIZATION[NP[DET:POSS N]
Vverbal-ing]]

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appear to be contrastive in terms of their
meaning-making function which falls out of thedifference in the dominant type(s) of head nouns
they attract, viz. ‘mental’, ‘physical’, and‘personal history, etc.’ nouns in the case of ‘my
N V-ing’, and ‘sociocultural persona’ nouns in
the case of ‘N in me V-ing’. The contrast
becomes even more salient when we further
group these noun-types into two megatypes
along the line of individual- vs. socioculturebased attributes. That is to say, whether thenoun-types pertain to attributes or aspects of theperson which can be considered to be moreindividual, subjective, or specific to the person(i.e., not likely to be shared or replicated byanother), or whether they pertain to attributes or
aspects of the person which can be considered tobe more socioculturally-derived, and hence notas specific to the person (in the sense that others
may share or replicate that attribute or aspect aswell, mutatis mutandis). For example, a person’sanger (disbelief, despair, etc.) is an emotional
state which she (and she alone) can subjectively
experience. In contrast, anyone can potentiallybe a geek, and the socioculture that the person isin has a certain idealized cognitive model(Lakoff 1987) of what constitutes a ‘geek’:typical behaviors, thinking style, certain typicalinterpersonal shortcomings, etc.
Looking at the six types of nouns, the‘mental’, ‘physical’, and ‘personal history, etc.’
nouns can reasonably be considered to designate
more individual-based attributes. Emotional,
psychological, and cognitive experiences, andphysiology and physical features are unique tothe individual; for the individual, they are
private, subjective, and proprietary. With
‘personal history, etc.’ nouns, this is selfevident. ‘Sociocultural persona’ and‘sociocultural construct’ nouns are by definitionsocioculture-based.
In summary, therefore, leaving aside‘artifact-as-metonym’ nouns for the moment, theother five noun-types can be further grouped
into the two megatypes as follows: ‘individualbased’ nouns include ‘mental’, ‘physical’, and‘personal history/ability/etc.’, while‘socioculture-based’ nouns encompass‘sociocultural persona’ and ‘sociocultural
construct’ nouns. The incidences of these two
megatypes in ‘my N V-ing’ and ‘N in me Ving’ (together with those of ‘artifact-asmetonym’ nouns) are shown in Tables 5 and 6
respectively.

Table 5. Megatype distribution of [my N V-ing]noun typeindividual-based (A+B+C)
socioculture-based (D+E)
artifact-as-metonym (F)χ2 = 234.27, df = 2, p<0.0001

incidence (N=250)
194
52
4

Table 6. Megatype distribution of [the N in me V-ing]noun type
incidence (N=250)
individual-based (A+B+C)
10
socioculture-based (D+E)
236
artifact-as-metonym (F)4χ2 = 419.74, df = 2, p<0.0001

The results show that ‘individual-based’
nouns predominate in ‘my N V-ing’ (77.60%),
while ‘socioculture-based’ nouns predominate in‘N in me V-ing’ (94.40%). Again, a Chi-square
goodness-of-fit test shows the results to behighly significant (χ2 = 234.27, df = 2, p<0.0001
and χ2 = 419.74, df = 2, p<0.0001 respectively).
Thus, in addition to being a minimal pair insyntactic form, the two constructions also standi n q u a s i - c o m p l e m e n t a r i t y. T h e y a r ecomplementary because ‘my N V-ing’ primarily
attracts individual-based nouns, while ‘N in me
V-ing’ primarily attracts socioculture-basednouns. However, they are quasi-complementarybecause they attract the megatypes of nouns thatpercentage
77.60%
20.80%
1.60%

percentage
4%
94.40%
1.60%

they do only predominantly but not exclusively.
There are some ‘socioculture-based’ nouns
attested for ‘my N V-ing’ (20.8%), andconversely, some ‘individual-based’ ones
attested for ‘N in me V-ing’ (4%).
I have not considered ‘artifact-as-metonym’
nouns so far, but it is in fact instructive to do so.
Although at first blush, artifacts are necessarily
products of a culture, these nouns cannot readily
be grouped under the ‘socioculture-based’
megatype. Consider the four attested for ‘my N
V-ing’: mask, wallet, crystal ball, dollies. Mask
stands for something paraphrasable as ‘thespeaker’s public self’, wallet stands forsomething like ‘the speaker’s judgment as to153Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

what counts as a good bet’, crystal ball stands
for ‘prediction’, and dollies is what the speakerprojects her wishes onto instead of admitting
them to be her own. If they were to bereclassified based on what they stand for, mask
would arguably come under ‘personal history/
ability/trait/etc.’, wallet, crystal ball, and dollies
under ‘mental’, which would add them to the‘individual-based’ megatype. On the other hand,the four attested for ‘N in me V-ing’: PES, pvp,
hipster runoff, and Google, all stand forsociocultural personæ. PES (pro-evolutionsoccer) stands for ‘player/enthusiast of PES’,
pvp (player-vs-player) stands for ‘someone
engaging in pvp’, hipster runoff stands for ‘host/user of the blog hipster runoff’, and Google
stands for ‘user of Google’. If reclassified, thesewould then add to the ‘socioculture-based’
megatype.
Thus, it can be seen that even ‘artifact’
nouns, which are ostensibly sociocultural innature, conform to the quasi-complementary
meaning-making propensities and preferences of
the two constructions.

discourse participant—is not optional
information. For instance, That’s my headachetalking is grammatically acceptable, but *That’s
headache talking is not. As information, it is
intrinsic and germane to the NP-referent’s
identity: The entity belongs to nobody else but
the discourse participant.
In the case of [the Ni in PRO:PERi](specifically [the N in me] for this paper),however, the discourse participant is only
conceptualized as an abstract or virtual“location” where the NP-referent can be“located”. In other words, the NP-referent gets
its particular identity by virtue of where it islocated in an abstract or, some might say,
metaphorical sense, as opposed to the more
intrinsic POSSESSION relation which obtains
between the discourse participant and the NPreferent in [my N]. Because the postnominal
locative phrase is a modifier, its designatum is
not the only available information available tothe hearer for identifying the referent, nor is it
obligatory. Thus, grammatically speaking, That
was the cynic talking is as acceptable as That
was the cynic in me talking, although they may
be propositionally different, to be sure.
Discussing the concept of POSSESSION in
language, Langacker (1991) notes that although
the concept prototypically pertains to therelations of part/whole, kinship, and ownership,a variety of other relations can also be
designated by possessive constructions, e.g., “anunowned possession (the baby’s crib);
something manipulated (my rook); something at
one’s disposal (her office); […]a transient
location (my spot); […]and so on
indefinitely” (Langacker 1991: 169).
POSSESSION, he therefore argues, in its mostschematic and abstract form simply represents a
conceptualization process whereby the entity
designated as the Possession is conceptuallyaccessed via the entity designated as the
Possessor, because it lies within the Possessor’s‘dominion’. Langacker (1991: 547) defines‘dominion’ as “[t]he set of entities (or the region
comprising them) that a particular reference
point allows one to establish mental contact
with”. In other words, the Possessor functions as
the reference point by which the Possession
becomes mentally accessible to the hearer,
because the Possession falls within thisconceptual region anchored by the Possessor.
Thus, the second pragma-semantic importfalling out from the structural differences
between the two NPs is this: [My N], insofar as
it specifies the NP-referent with a possessive
determiner, turns on the conceptualization of the
discourse participant as the reference point,

4.2 Salience of person vs salience ofconstruct/persona
Besides manifesting in the (mega)types of nouns
which the constructions differentially attract,such division-of-labor in meaning-making is
also evidenced by the different focuses ofattention which the two different NP structures
effect. This has to do with the interaction
between the nouns and their determiners, i.e.,
how the nouns are grounded (in the sense of
Langacker 1987, 1991; inter alia). Recall thatthe schematic structures of the two NPs are[DET:POSS N] and [the Ni in PRO:PERi]. The
salient difference between them is that theformer is specified by a possessive determiner:
the identity and identification of the referent iseffected with reference to a person (thediscourse participant) who is the referent’sPossessor. In contrast, the latter is specified by adefinite article in the first instance, its moreexact identity and identification only effected
through a postnominal locative phrase.
This structural difference has pragmasemantic import on two counts. Firstly, in thecase of [DET:POSS N] (specifically [my N] interms of the data examined in this paper), thepossessive determiner is the only and obligatorydevice allowing the hearer to successfully
identify the NP-referent. On the one hand, there
is no other information which can help thehearer to conceptually “locate” the NP-referent.
On the other hand, this sole piece of information—that the NP-referent is a Possession of the154Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

which has high cognitive saliency. The discourse
participant as an individual is what grounds theconceptualization of the NP-referent (Langacker
1991: 168–175). In contrast, with [the N in me],mental contact with the noun-referent does not
obligatorily depend on having the discourse
participant as a reference point. Here, thediscourse participant only provides additional(albeit highly useful, informative, and relevant)information for identifying the noun-referent in
the form of a search domain (cf. Langacker
1991: 177). What is attended to here, in the first
instance, is the construct or persona (which, in away, is ultimately a construct) which thesocioculture has an idealized cognitive model(ICM) for.
Furthermore, both Langacker (1991: 169f)
and Taylor (1996: 205f) discuss the Possessor ina possessive construction in terms of topicality,and posit that the Possessor has the special
status of a local topic, i.e., a kind of topicalized
element “at the nominal (as opposed to theclausal) level” (Langacker 1991: 177–178).
Thus, in [my N], the speaker qua individual is
the local topic which serves to anchor theconceptualization of the NP-referent. In asimilar vein, then, one could also argue that, atthe nominal level, not the discourse participantqua individual, but the sociocultural persona/construct is the local topic which serves suchanchoring purpose in [the N in me]. In otherwords, the ‘my N V-ing’ construction is
primarily about the discourse participant qua
individual subject, while the ‘N in me V-ing’
construction is primarily about the discourse
participant qua instantiation of that sociocultural
construct/persona.

the addition of the locative. When the speakersays That was the disciplinarian in me talking,she is referring to the sociocultural persona of‘disciplinarian’ in the first instance; it happensthat one aspect of her self instantiates that
persona. Pang (2005) discusses in greater detail
how [the N] is best understood to have generic,categorial reference rather than specific anddefinite reference, as is the case with [my N].
One reason is that the noun-referent of [the N]
does not even have to exist in reality (althoughof course, it may), but only in virtuality. For
example, someone who has never been a motherin actuality can still say of herself, That was themother in me talking, referring to the ‘maternal
instinct’ in her. Or for that matter, a man who
considers himself a person with a (strong)‘maternal instinct’ could conceivably also say
the same about himself, perhaps in a moment of“camping it up”. Reference is thus made to a
virtual entity—what Langacker (2004) calls a
discourse referent—which because of its
virtuality, is most likely to be constructed fromthe ICM of the sociocultural construct/persona
in question.
That [my N] refers to a specific token while[the N] refers to a generic type is, to a certain
extent, also borne out by the difference inrequirement made on the hearer of actual
knowledge of the NP-referent. With [my N],
especially with human terms such as therapist,
successful interpretation of the utterance
requires knowledge of the referent on the part of
the hearer. For example, the intended
implicature of This is my therapist talking
cannot be meaningfully worked out by thehearer if he does not know the speaker’s
therapist, what kind of person they are, or how
their personality is relevant to the current
discourse (other than perhaps the minimal
illocutionary point of ‘hedging’ which the hearer
would get from knowing the general pragmasemantics of the construction). It requires more
specific knowledge because it makes reference
to an individual-based aspect of the speaker’s
identity.
With [the N], because it refers to a generictype in the first instance, knowledge required forsuccessful interpretation is primarily of thegeneric kind. It is the sociocultural aspect of the
speaker’s self that is brought to bear here.
Theoretically, to a degree, an interpretation canbe worked out using what knowledge the hearer
has of the sociocultural construct/persona
referred to, even in the case where the hearer
might not have specific knowledge of how the
speaker instantiates the type. To be sure,equipped with such specific knowledge, the

4.3 Token- vs type-referenceThis complementarity as resources for focusing
the hearer’s attention on either the speaker’s
more individual-based or socioculture-based
aspects of her identity is further evidenced by
the type of reference that the two NPs make.
[My N], by virtue of the grounding properties of
its possessive determiner discussed above, has
unique reference to a singular, definite, andspecific token: the discourse participant (ormore precisely, that aspect of the discourse
participant’s identity). When the speaker says
That was my paranoia talking, it is her
particular paranoia that she is referring to, andno one else’s. It is a subjective psychophysicalstate of hers as an individual subject.
In contrast, [the N] without the postnominal
locative has non-unique, non-specific, genericreference to a type; unique and specificreference in this case needs to be facilitated by155Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

hearer will be able to formulate a richer
interpretation.

Finally, successful interpretation of examplesof the two constructions draw on different typesof knowledge. ‘My N V-ing’ requires more
specific knowledge of the NP-referent,
especially if it is a human one. ‘N in me V-ing’,by comparison, requires more generic, cultural
knowledge of the construct or persona which the
NP-referent instantiates.

5
Concluding remarks
It is a fundamental tenet of Cognitive
Linguistics that any linguistic expression is asymbolic unit (Langacker 1987). Specifically,
within Cognitive Linguistics, various theories
taking a Construction Grammar approach tosyntactic phenomena (Lakoff 1987; Langacker
1987, 1991; Goldberg 1995; Taylor 2002; interalia) argue that syntactic patterns are more often
than not constructions in the sense that they
have very specialized selectional, distributional,
structural, and pragma-semantic properties,
which make, for example, the two sentences
That was my painkiller talking and That was mydog barking syntactically “identical” butconstructionally very different. Two such
constructions are investigated in this paper: the‘my N V-ing’ and ‘N in me V-ing’ constructions,and it is argued that the two constitute quasicomplementary resources for constructing,asserting, or affirming more individual,
subjective, and “personal” aspects of a person’s
self on the one hand (‘my N V-ing’), and moresociocultural and “generic” aspects of a person’s
self on the other (‘the N in me V-ing’) (see also
Pang 2005).
Firstly, the two constructions preferentiallyattract different types of nouns to their N-slots,
which can be broadly distinguished as two
megatypes according to whether they pertain to
more individual-based or socioculture-based
aspects of a person’s self. The findings can besummarized as follows: ‘my N V-ing’ attracts
predominantly ‘individual-based’ noun-types
and ‘the N in me V-ing’ predominantly‘socioculture-based’ noun-types.
In addition, the structural properties of the
two NPs also contribute to their functional
quasi-complementarity. [My N] is grounded by asyntactically obligatory possessive determiner
which expresses a POSSESSION relation between
the speaker and the aspect of self in question. In
contrast, [the N in me] is grounded by a definite
article in the first instance, and only a LOCATION
relation is posited between the aspect of self inquestion and the speaker by a syntactically nonobligatory locative phrase. This results in adifference in topicalization: the “starting point”
of the conceptualization process. The
conceptualization of [my N] is anchored to the
speaker qua individual, while theconceptualization of [the N in me] is anchored to
the ICM of the sociocultural persona/constructconcerned.

References
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Langacker, R.W. (1987). Foundations of
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Langacker, R.W. (1991). Foundations of
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Langacker, R.W. (2004). Remarks on nominal
grounding. Functions of Language 11, 1: 77–
113.
Pang, K.S. (2005). “This is the linguist in me
speaking”: Constructions to talk about theself talking. Functions of Language 12, 1: 1–
38.
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1986). Relevance:
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Stefanowitsch, A., & Gries, S.Th. (2003).
Collostructions: Investigating the interaction
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8, 2: 209–243.
Taylor, J.R. (1996). Possessives in English: An
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Extremes of L2 Learning: Neurolinguistic Evidence
Loraine K. Obler1 and Elizabeth Ijalba2
1

The Graduate Center of The City University of New York & 2Queens College, CUNY
loraine.obler@gmail.com, ijalbaslp@aol.com

Language Impairment; the latter group, those
whose language difficulties do not surface until
they are confronted with learning to read, arelabeled“dyslexic”
in
the
U.S.
and
‘developmentally dyslexic’ in Great Britain.
In countries like the United States and Japan,
where many individuals can live most of theirlives using only the dominant language, mostchildren who have Specific Language Impairment
will acquire their country’s dominant language
eventually, even if at a somewhat slower pacethan their typically-developing counterparts.
Some may continue to manifest difficulties as
they are taught to read. For these individuals, itwill not be surprising if learning a foreign
language poses difficulty. However for others
who showed no marked difficulty with acquiring
oral language yet have difficulty in learning toread -- the dyslexics—it is not immediately
obvious that they should have difficulties withlearning a foreign language. This is especially true
because with the right training, most dyslexics
will learn to read in their first language.
There is actually a substantial literature on thebrain bases of dyslexia, which will be a focus ofinterest in our paper. It would appear that there
are a number of cognitive causes underlying
dyslexia, perhaps interlinked across different
subtypes of the syndrome. Individuals withdyslexia, as a group, tend to have difficulty withgeneral processing speed, and/or phonologicalprocessing speed and working memory, relative totypically developing readers. They have difficultywith tasks which require them to manipulate
phonemes and they have difficulty with rapid
lexical retrieval, although in daily life their speech
may be normal. The brain regions that have been
implicated in dyslexia –by post-mortem studies(Galaburda and Livingstone, 1993) and byimaging studies include areas of the temporal andparietal lobes, the planum temporale and themagnocellular portion of the visual system. That
is to say, brain regions involved in processing
phonemes, lexicon, and visual features are
somewhat different in individuals with dyslexia as
compared to those with typical language
development. We will elaborate further on this
topic later in this paper.

Abstract
Substantial literature on L2 learning focuses on
students' motivation as a major factor in successor failure to master the L2, but less attention has
been paid to the brain bases of L2-learning
proficiency. Yet even among monolingual
language acquirers there is evidence from thefields of Neurolinguistics and Speech-Language
Pathology that there are differences in rate andmastery of L1 acquistion which are related tosubtle differences in brain structure A small but
growing L2 literature focuses on the relationshipbetween dyslexia--a brain-based difficulty
learning to read despite normal intelligence andappropriate teaching and social-economic
circumstances-- and difficulties with second
language acquisition (e.g., Sparks et al., 2006,
Ijalba, 2007). A smaller body of literature focuseson brain bases of exceptionally talented L2
learners (e.g., Novoa et al., 1988, Schneiderman
and Desmarais, 1988). In this paper we review
how Geschwind and Galaburda's (1985)
neuroimmunological theory would explain theextreme ends of L2-learning ability, focussing ondata from two projects we have been involved
with: a study of immigrant children acquiring L2
English in elementary school (Humes-Bartlo et al.,1988) and a study of immigrant adult Spanish
speakers acquiring L2 English (Ijalba, 2007).

Keywords: dyslexia, talent, L2-learning
Introduction
Most individuals believe that every child learns afirst language equally well, but speech-language
pathologists know that there is a small subset ofchildren who, while they do not have any obvious
brain damage, and while they have normal
exposure to language in their childhood
environment, have markedly more difficulty thanother children acquiring the sound-system, or
morphological intricacies, or lexical items, or,when they are in school, learning to read. The
former group –those with difficulties acquiring
language generally, are said to have Specific157

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who have particular difficulty learning a foreign
language.
Our data come from a set of studies carried out
by ourselves and others. In particular, we consider
three group studies that together suggest that there
is a particular brain configuration or set of
configurations that can make learning a second
language difficult, and perhaps as well, anotherset that may make it particularly easy.
Consider the abilities that are required forlearning a second language: picking up a newsound system of distinctions and ways of ordering
phonemes in words, linking a new set of words tomeanings, picking up ways in which syntax andmorphology signal words’ roles in sentences,perhaps quite differently from the ways they do in
the first language, perhaps only minimallydifferently, but differently nevertheless.

Whereas in normally developing individuals
there is an asymmetry favoring the left
hemisphere, in individuals with dyslexia there isincreased symmetry such that the left and righthemisphere are more proportional (Galaburda and
Livingstone, 1993; Galaburda et al. 1994). One
such area is the planum temporale, an area in thetemporal lobe extending from deep in the Sylvian
fissure to the posterior border of Heschl’s gyrus.
This area is considered to be part of the secondary
auditory cortex (Shapleske et al., 1999), a finding
which is consistent with the type of slightlanguage processing deficits individuals withdyslexia are known to have, with many believingthat phonological processing deficits being at thecore of the disorder, even though people withdyslexia have refined enough phonological skills
to learn their first language and sound like native
speakers.
Two other brain areas also show different
processing in dyslexics compared to nondyslexics. One sees decreased activation of theangular gyrus and a concomitant increase inactivation in the inferior frontal gyrus –Broca’s
area-- while reading (Shaywitz and Shaywitz ,2001). This finding is consistent with individuals
with dyslexia having difficulty mapping thegraphic components of language (letters) to thesounds of the language (phonemes), which resultin both phonological and word identification
deficits. At the same time, the overactivation in
Broca’s area seen when people with dyslexia arereading may be an attempt for these individuals tocompensate for their phonological deficits andword identification problems. So the generalbelief that “everyone learns their first language
just fine”, one must conclude, is not true for asubset of children, perhaps as many as 20 percent.
By contrast with the general belief concerninghow ‘everyone’ learns their first language, when it
comes to learning a second, or ‘foreign’ language,
however, at least in North America, it is generally
understood that, just as with any course (math, orscience, or art), some students will perform betterand others worse. Most teachers would assert thatthe students who do not do well in a given
scholastic class are just not working hard enough.
For a non-academic class like art or physicaleducation, however, the same teachers would
easily agree that some children are simply
inherently more talented than most, and, perhaps,that some are inherently less talented than most.
We will argue that there are brain-related reasons
to believe that the same is true of individuals at
the extremes of second-language learning, andthat these brain-related reasons are related todyslexia, at least in the case of those individuals

Talented L2 Learners
Talented L2 learners seem to undertake such taskseffortlessly. They have a relatively good ‘ear’ for
distinguishing L2 phonemic contrasts and speakwith a relatively good accent early on. Vocabulary
items are able to stick in their minds with little
practice, as are idiomatic phrases. Of course mostchildren can do these things without thinking –that may be their advantage—in a second or third
language if they are exposed to it naturally. Whatis interesting is that even post puberty –the age
Lenneberg (1967) posited that the brain loses theplasticity to acquire a new language –there areindividuals who can learn a new language
exceptionally well.
In the data from the doctoral dissertation studyof the second author (Ijalba, 2007), we can seethat such individuals who are better than average
L2 learners share a subset of cognitive abilities
that underlie their excellent foreign-language
learning. Namely, in a group of 60 adult Spanishspeaking learners of English as a second language,
six individuals provided self-ratings and wererated by their teachers as relatively “good English
language learners” (rather than “average or poor
English-language learners”).
When these
individuals, whom she called Good English
Language Learners, were tested on a variety oflanguage and reading tasks in their native
language, they proved to perform better than theotherwise-matchedpoor
English-language
learners. For example, they were better inreceptive vocabulary in Spanish and English, inthe reading of nonwords, in the reading ofsentences and in the recognition of correctly
spelled words. The Good English Language
Learners were also better than Poor English
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English-only classrooms. Some children took
many years to pass the test: the best language
learners, however, passed out of the bilingualclasses to enter the monolingual classes in fewer
than three years. So even in childhood there
appears to be substantial inter-individual
variabilityinsecond-language
learning.
Interestingly, those who were best at L2 learningscored less well, as a group, on learning
mathematics. Thus one might posit that thosebrain structures useful for learning a second
language and those useful for learning basic
mathematics are distributed differentially in the
population (or, one could argue, though we doubt
it, that the two abilities rely on the same brain
substrate which, if used for one of the two is thenless available for the other.)

Language Learners in their performance on rapid
automatized naming tasks. For example, they
retrieved familiar words in their native language
more rapidly than the Poor English Language
Learners when presented with the visual stimuli(i.e., they were to name as rapidly as possible aseries of blocks of color that were presented inrows).
The overall differences in reading and language
performance in their first language, Spanish, thatwere found between these two groups werealways significant for the TIME to complete thetask: decoding (reading aloud of nonwords),
reading of sentences (reading silently andcompleting the sentences by selecting the best
target word), orthographic decision (picking out
correctly spelled words) and rapid automatizednaming tasks (colors, objects and letters). In otherwords, Good English Language Learners readfaster and more accurately than Poor English
Language Learners. In sum, in this set of Good
Language Learners, we were able to see
differences from Poor Language Learners who
had never been diagnosed as dyslexic on precisely
those abilities that distinguish dyslexics from nondyslexics.
In another study (Novoa et al., 1988), we
worked within a different model, asking about thecomponents of“foreign” language-learning
aptitude as they might relate to a theory of theneurobiology of talent. In this case study, the firstauthor and her colleagues demonstrated that a
particularly talented L2 learner did not perform
any better than normal on a battery of musicalabilities (thus demonstrating that the lay-person’s
belief that those with a ‘musical ear’ are the betterL2 learners is false) nor on a task that requires
making explicit one’s understand-ding ofgrammar (the Words in Sentences test of theModern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT)). He
did perform in the top 10% of the normal scale on
several tests of abstraction abilities, for code-liketasks, verbal and visual spatial abilities.
Interestingly, we demonstrated that in a number ofcharacteristics, such as being a twin and a lefthander, he fell into the cluster of phenomena that
Geschwind and Galaburda (1985) had linked to avariety of talents, albeit in that series of articles
they made no mention of L2-learning talent.
One further study that must be mentioned
concerning particularly good L2 learners is that of
Humes-Bartlo (1989). She studied immigrantchildren entering the U.S. and being placed in socalled “bilingual” classrooms to learn English
along with their other subjects. Each year they
were tested at the end of the year to see if they
had acquired sufficient English to be moved intoThose who Learn L2 with Difficulty
The literature on individuals who learn a second
language with difficulty is growing. One sizable
body of literature comes from the series of studies
by Ganshow and Sparks. They focus on youngadult students in U.S. colleges and universities
who are required to take a “foreign” language, buthave great difficulty passing the course. They
have concluded that such students have difficultywith phonological tasks, English spelling,syntactic measures (both oral and written) and in
math calculation (Ganschow et al., 1991) whencompared with students who do not experience FL
learning difficulty. In a recent paper, Sparks andcolleagues (2006) reported on a longitudinal studyof younger L2 learners. In this study, 54 students
were tested over a 10 year period, beginning in 1st
grade, to determine best native language
predictors of FL proficiency. Their findings
suggest that at the beginning of 1st grade, theReading Readiness Test and the Formal Reading
Inventory were the best predictors of FL
proficiency eight or more years later. However,by the end of 1st grade, vocabulary also
contributed as a predictor. Similar findings were
found at the end of the 2nd grade, Reading
Readiness, the Formal Reading Inventory andvocabulary continued as the best predictors oflater FL proficiency. By the end of 3rd grade, theTest of Word Spelling was added as an important
predictor. A composite measure that included
reading and spelling was found to be the best
predictor when children were older. Therefore, by
the end of 5th grade, the best FL proficiency
predictor was the Woodcock Reading Mastery
Proficiency Test (WRMT-R), a measure of native
language reading that includes decoding of
nonwords, word identification and reading
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avoid such diagnoses to avoid the costs of special
tutoring for such students. Or the students may
have started school late enough to have caught on
to reading without any special remediation. Or
they may have been learning to read a languagewith a relatively transparent, one-to-one letter-tophoneme correspondence system, like Spanish,that might pose relatively few problems, even for
individuals with some degree of dyslexia, though
they might remain slower readers than most (asIjalba discovered her poor-L2-English learners did
when reading in their L1 Spanish as adults with amean age of 35).
A single theory that may link the phenomena
we discuss in this paper together we alluded toabove: the theory of Geschwind and Galaburda(1985) that noted the startling clustering in somefamilies of a set of neurological factors such as
dyslexia and left-handedness (or, more strictly
speaking, non-right-handedness). Geschwind andGalaburda were the first to point out differencesin brain asymmetry between normal and dyslexic
readers, a finding that years later was documented
first through the work of Galaburda and issustained by current research that more
specifically points to parietal-temporal-occipital
associated areas or a network that may be
deficient in dyslexic individuals (Shaywitz and
Shaywitz, 2001; Paulessu et al. 2001; McCrory,
2003). These neuroanatomical differences
between dyslexics and typical readers are likely
linked to the increased incidence of lefthandedness that has been reported among
dyslexics and their families. While it is unclear
precisely how left-handedness is related to thelateralization of language functions, language
impairment and dyslexia, the link has been
identified in a number of studies. Lamm andEpstein (1999) for example have linked lefthandedness –especially in boys-- to POOR
foreign-language learning in a sizable sample ofIsraeli middle-school children. And T. Bever has
linked familial left-handedness even in righthanders to poor grades in foreign-language
learning
inU.S.
colleges(personal
communication, 2009).
How, one must ask, can left-handedness be
associated BOTH with exceptionally good andexceptionally poor second-language learning?
That is the question that remains to be answered.
The theory of Geschwind and Galaburda is most
crucially an observation about the clustering infamilies of certain neurological factors(handedness,
dyslexia,
talents)withendocrinological ones (such as maleness). In lightof such epidemiological data, there is no reason
that particularly talented and untalented

comprehension. The overall findings of this study
thus clearly indicate that native language reading
and spelling skills in the early years of schooling
contributed statistically to the variance in overall
FL proficiency eight or more years later (Sparks
et al., 2006).
A second major study in this field more
specifically indicates dyslexia as the cause, orintermediary cause, of difficulty in L2 learning.
That is the same dissertation study mentioned
above in which Ijalba (2007) asked what might
account for the difficulty some adult Spanishspeaking immigrants report in learning English asa second language. Ijalba divided her 60
participants into those who themselves judged
themselves worse (or better) than other English
learners and whose English teachers agreed. She
then excluded those participants who had had lessthan 12th-grade education, so that “learning
opportunity” would not account for thedifferences among the groups. In this way, shefound a population of seven particularly poor
learners, six particularly good learners, and 17
average learners who were matched for nonverbal IQ, who had all been in the U.S. for thesame number of years (eight years on average)
and who had studied English for the same numberof years (three years on average). Interestingly,
on the neurolinguistic and neuropsychologicaltests she gave them, her particularly poor L2
learners—though none had ever been diagnosed
as dyslexic-- showed problems IN THEIR FIRSTLANGUAGE, SPANISH, with precisely thoseabilities which dyslexic adults, even those whohave eventually mastered reading, have: rapid
lexical retrieval, spelling, and reading aloud. (The
only task they did not show significantly worse
performance was on the phonemic awareness task,
in which participants had to delete the initialsound in target words and decide what the newword sounded like, perhaps, we speculate,because this task was not challenging enough; thepoor learners performed at 92% correct but might
have performed worse on a task like Spoonerisms,
in which they would have been required to swap
the consonantal onsets in two words (e.g., “ball,take” to come up with the words “tall, bake”)
Both the studies of Sparks and Ganshow, andthat of Ijalba, then, are consistent with a theory
that brain-based problems of dyslexia are linked
with poor L2 learning, EVEN IF THE POOR L2
LEARNERS WERE NEVER DIAGNOSED AS
DYSLEXIC. The reasons, that they may never
have been diagnosed as dyslexic, we posit, aremany. They may have grown up in a place, ortime, when a diagnosis of dyslexia was notpossible, or the schools may have preferred to160Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Hyltenstam and L.K. Obler (Eds.).
Bilingualism across the Lifespan: Acquisition,
Maturity, and Loss. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 41-54.
Ijalba, E. (2007). Markers of Dyslexia in SpanishSpeakers who Report Severe Difficulties
Learning English. Unpublished CUNY
Doctoral Dissertation.
Lamm, O. & Epstein, R. (1999). Left-handedness
and achievements in foreign language studies,Brain and Language, 70, 504-517.
McCrory, E. (2003). The neurocognitive basis ofdevelopmental dyslexia.
In R.S.J.
Frackowiak, K.J. Friston, C.D. Frith, R. Dolan& C.J. Price (Eds.), Human Brain Function,
Second Edition (pp. 301-328). San Diego,
Academic Press.
Novoa, L., Fein, D. and Obler, L.K. (1988).
Talent in Foreign Languages: A Case Study.
In L.K. Obler and D. Fein (Eds.), The
Exceptional Brain: Neuropsychology ofTalents and Special Abilities (pp. 294-302).
New York: Guilford.
Paulessu, E., Demonet, J.F., Fazio, F., McCrory,E., Chanoine, V., Brunswick, N., Cappa S.F.,
Cossu, G., Habib, M., Frith, C.D., & Frith, U.
(2001).
Dyslexia: cultural diversity andbiological unity. Science, 291, 2165-2167.
Schneiderman, E. and Desmarais, C. (1988). A
neuropsychological substrate for talent insecond language acquisition. In L.K. Obler,and D. Fein, (Eds), The Exceptional Brain:
Neuropsychology of Talents and Special
Abilities (pp. 103-126). New York: Guilford.
Shapleske, J., Rossell, S.L., Woodruff, P.W.R. &David, A.S. (1999). The planum temporale: asystematic, quantitative review of its
structural, functional and clinical significance.
Brain and Research Reviews, 29, 26-49.
Shaywitz , S.E., & Shaywitz, B. (2001). The
neurobiology and reading and dyslexia. Focus
on basics, Connecting Research and Practice,
5, A. From http://ncsall.gse. harvard.edu /fob
Shaywitz, B.A., Shaywitz S.E., Pugh, K.Rl,
Constable, T., Skudlarski, P., Fulbright, R.K.,
Bronen, R.A., Fletcher, J.M., Shankweiler,
D.P., Katz, L., & Gore, J.C. (1995). Sex
differences in the functional organization of
the brain for language. Nature, 373, 607-609.
Sparks R.L., Patton, J., Ganschow, L., Humbach,N., & Javorsky, J. (2006). Native language
predictors of foreign language proficiency andforeign language aptitude. Annals of Dyslexia,
56, 129-160.
Sparks, R., Patton, J., Ganschow, L., Humbach,N., & Javorsky, J. (2008). Early L1 reading
and spelling skills predict later L2 reading andindividuals would be found in the same families
as those with inherited left-handedness. Certain
aspects of the links make sense: brain areas
responsible for aspects of language crucial forlearning a foreign language (i.e., phonology andlexical retrieval) appear to differ between
dyslexics and typical readers. People with thesymptomsofdyslexia
in
fact
are
disproportionately represented among those withdifficulty learning foreign languages. Left-handers
as a group –and if Bever is right, even the 40% ofright-handers with left-handed family members-have different underlying lateral organization for
language compared to right-handers (and,according to Bever, precisely those right-handers
with no left-handed family members).
Geschwind and Galaburda (1985) hypothesizedthat the phenomena they reported to be clusteredin families arose during the fetal stage ofdevelopment, perhaps particularly in the 3rd monthwhen lateral dominance and endocrinologicalsystems are developing. How, precisely, the brain
differences we’ve reported between dyslexics andtypical readers play out when it comes to learninga foreign language, however, remains to be
explained. What is clear, however, is that we must
continue to search for the brain-based
explanations for how it is that “everyone”(eventually) learns to speak their first language,
and virtually everyone learns to read their first
language –eventually—but some people havegreat difficulty learning a foreign language,
particularly after early childhood.

References
Galaburda, A.M., & Livingstone, M. (1993).
Evidence for a magnocellular defect indevelopmental dyslexia. Annals of the New
York Academy of Science, 682, 70-82.
Galaburda, A.M., Menard, M.T., & Rosen, G.D.
(1994).
Evidence for aberrant auditory
anatomyindevelopmental
dyslexia.
Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 91, 8010-8013.
Ganschow, L., Sparks, R., Javorsky, J., Pohlman,
J., & Bishop-Marbury, A. (1991). Identify-ing
NL difficulties among foreign language
learners in college: A “foreign” language
learning disability? Journal of Learning
Disabilities, 24, 530-541.
Geschwind, N., & Galaburda, A. (1985). Cerebral
lateralization:
Biologicalmechanisms,
associations and pathology. Archives of
Neurology, 42, 428-459.
Humes-Bartlo, M. (1989). Variation in Children’s
Ability to Learn Second Languages, in K.
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spelling skills. Journal
Psychology, 100, 162-174.

ofEducational

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An Investigation into the Prevalence of Voice Strain in Chinese
University Teachers
Zhou Gang and Niu Xiaochun

School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology
zhougang@hotmail.co.uk, nxchun@yahoo.com.cn
Vilkman &Bloligu, 2002).
Teachers are considered an at risk populationfor vocal problems. This risk has been attributed tothose factors such as vocal abuse and misuse due tothe vocal demands of teaching, the poor acoustic
environmentsinwhich
teachers
work,
environmental conditions of school facilities, thelack of vocal education and training, length ofcareer, types of teaching, and even factors related tothe individual’s emotional state such as stress andanxiety (Mattiske, Oates & Greenswood, 1995).
Sapir et al. (1993) also argue that several factors
contribute to this risk: the professional demands
placed on the voice, unsuitable acoustic working
environments, lack of voice training, individual
voice characteristics and psychological factors suchas stress and anxiety. Vocal misuse refers to voicing
behaviors that contribute to the development oflaryngeal pathologies, such as nodules, cysts, andpolyps (Stemple et al., 2000). Often vocal misuse
behaviors become vocally abusive, resulting in agreater likelihood of trauma to the laryngeal
mucosa (Colton & Casper, 1996). Some examplesof vocally abusive behaviors are: shouting, loudtalking, screaming, persistent coughing and throat
clearing, etc. (Stemple et al., 2000).
Unfortunately, vocal education and training are
not a standard part of most curricula in normal
universities or teacher-training programs. Teachers
often enter the workforce and begin their careerswith limited knowledge of the vocal mechanism,
vocal hygiene, and effective voice use. According
to Smith et al. (1997), teachers are continually
exposed to upper respiratory infections, putting
them at great risk for developing illnesses thatadversely affect their vocal mechanism. Here the

Abstract
The aim of the present study was to assess theprevalence of voice problems in the general
population of Chinese university teachers, andexplore whether their voice problems affected their
daily life, their social life and their work. A voicestrain and voice handicap index questionnaire wasadministered to university instructors of English (N= 156) in six Chinese universities. Results indicatedthat voice strain is prevalent among Chinese
university
instructors.
The
respondents’
self-perceptions revealed that voice strain was
significantly correlated with their job and their daily
activities.
Key words: voice strain; vocal disorder; factor
analysis; multiple regression; MANOA
1. Introduction
Vocal
disordersareverycommonoccupation-related disease in teachers, though it has
never been given enough attention in China.
According to Sonnenberg (2005), teachers represent
the largest group of professional voice users, andare among those individuals at greatest risk fordeveloping vocal problems. Orr et al. (2002) statethat “One of the problems confronted in theteaching profession is the maintenance of a healthy
voice. This basic pedagogical tool is subjected toextensive use, and frequently suffers from overload,with some teachers having to give up theirprofession altogether” (p. 106). However, theoccupational health care of professional voice users
is surprisingly undeveloped compared to theattention given to occupational hearing disorders or
many other occupational symptoms (Rantala,163

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development of laryngeal pathologies includes
those illnesses like nodules, cysts and polyps(Sonnenberg, 2005). The need to develop a more
extensive understanding of voice strain among
university instructors during loading (talking atwork), and the need to develop occupational voicecare among teachers have motivated this study.
Thus, the aim of this study will address thefollowing questions as research questions: 1. How
closely is voice strain associated with teachers’social life and their job? 2. Do gender and different
age cohorts affect teachers’ self-perceptions ofvoice problems?

Babbie (1995) observes that questionnaires
need to be carefully developed, tested and debugged
before they are administered on a larger scale.
Initially, therefore, a pilot study was carried out
among 10 university instructors of English from
Dalian University of Technology. This wasprincipally to determine the reliability of thequestionnaire and to reveal any difficulties orambiguities in question wording. The reliability test
showed that Cronbach’s coefficient alpha on Voice
Strain scale was 0.67 (N = 10), which was judged
adequate. Based on Hinton’s criteria (2004), it was
regarded as internally moderately reliable for the
purpose of this research. The Voice Handicap Index
scale consists of thirty items. Cronbach’s
coefficient alphas on the scale were 0.93 (N = 10),which was regarded as internally highly reliable forthe purpose of this research.
Thus, each scale of the questionnaire has avery good internal reliability and consistency. The
findings indicate that the internal reliability of eachof the scales is acceptable, and the items that finallymake up each scale are internally consistent, whichshows that the items measure the two dimensions.

2. Method
2.1 Participants
Teachers from six research universities in
China (They are: Dalian University of Technology,
Dalian Maritime University, Dongbei University of
Finance &Economics, Dalian Medical University,
Dalian Nationalities University and Changchun
University of Technology) participated in the study.
The participants (N = 156) were all instructors ofEnglish, who were recruited based on the fact that
university instructors of English are assumed to be
taking up heavy loadings of teaching responsibility,
and they have to teach all years round. Therefore,
they are representative of university instructors in
China. Among the 156 instructors, 35 were males,
and 120 were females (with one data missing). The
average age was 35.81 (N = 155 with one data
missing, SD = 7.819), the youngest was 24 years
and the eldest was 56 years. In addition, the average
year of teaching was 12.21 (N = 156, SD = 8.458),
the shortest was 1 year of teaching, and the longest
was 43 years of teaching. The average teachinghour per week (N = 147 with nine data missing, SD= 3.722) was 13.84, the minimum was 4 teaching
hours per week, and the maximum was 24 teaching
hours per week. Finally, 19% (N = 30) of the
respondents (N = 156) reported that they hadreceived voice training, and 20% (N = 31) of the
respondents (N = 155 with one data missing)reported that they had received voice therapy.

2.3 Measures
The participants were given the structured
self-completion questionnaire (Voice Strain andVoice Handicap Index Questionnaire: VSVHIQ),
which consisted of two scales. In Voice Strain Scale,the researcher designed all the 13 items. In Voice
Handicap Index Scale, 30 items were drawn from
Jacobson et al.’s (1997) VHI Scale. Respondents
were asked to circle one number to correspond witheach statement, indication how frequently they havethe same experience in a 7-point Likert-type format(1 = never, 7 = always).
After the questionnaire was administered on alarge scale, the reliability test was conducted again.
The reliability test showed that Cronbach’s
coefficient alphas on Voice Strain scale were 0.85
(N = 147 valid), which was judged internally highly
reliable for the purpose of this research according toHinton’s criteria (2004). The Voice Handicap Index
scale consists of thirty items. Cronbach’s
coefficient alphas on the scale were 0.96 (N = 151

2.2 Procedure164Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

valid), which was regarded as internally highly
reliable for the purpose of this research. Therefore,
the items that finally make up each scale areinternally consistent, which shows that the items
measure the two scales.

2, “Job Impact”, explained 12.05% of the variance(eigenvalue = 1.56) and was composed of items
indicating “job impact”. Factor 3, “Strain
Reduction”, explained 7.86% of the variance(eigenvalue = 1.02) and was composed of items
indicating “strain reduction”. Items loading > 0.45
are listed under their tentative factor labels.
The factor analysis that was run on voice
handicap index scale was a three-factor solution as
well because the original scale was composed ofthree factors (Jacobson & et al., 1997). The first
factor, “Functional Issues” measuring the impact of
the respondent’s voice disorder on daily activities,
explained 50.97% of the variance (eigenvalue=15.29). The second factor, “Physical Issues”
measuring self-perceptions of laryngeal discomfort
and voice output characteristics, explained 8.24%
of the variance (eigenvalue = 2.47), and the third
factor, “Emotional Issues” measuring the
respondent’s affective responses to the voice
disorder, explained 4.13% of the variance(eigenvalue = 1.24). Items loading > 0.45 are listed
under their tentative factor labels.

3. Results
In order to summarize and analyse the datacollected, some specific statistical techniques were
employed (using SPSS14.0). Factor analysis was
conducted first to organize the variables on each of
the two scales by determining which variables wererelated and which were not, so that the variables
that are related are regrouped together, under afactor. Thus, the variables were reduced to anumber of factors representing underlying
dimensions of the two scales. Simple Regression
analysis was run in order to work out how closely
voice strain was associated teachers’ social life andtheir job. Finally, MANOVA was carried out inorder to find out any characteristic differences
between the two groups’ (group 1: males; group 2:
females) self-perceptions of the variables on each of
the two scales (Voice Strain and Voice Handicap
Index).

3.2 Multiple Correlation Analysis on Perceptions of
Voice Strain and Voice Handicap
In answering Research Question1 (Howclosely is voice strain associated with teachers’social life and their job?), a multiple regression
analysis was run. Summary statistics from the
stepwise multiple-regression analysis on the sample
are presented in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 (see Appendix
B). Results from the regression using Voice Strain(labeled as Voicestrain) and Job Impact (labeled as
Jobimpact), and Strain Reduction (labeled as
Strainreduction) on Voice Strain scale, PhysicalIssues (labeled as Newhandicap2) and Emotional
Issues (labeled as Newhandicap3) on Voice
Handicap Index scale as the independent variables,
and Functional Issues (labeled as Newhandicap1) as
the dependent variable, indicated that in Model 3
Newhandicap3, Voicestrain and Newhandicap 2
explained 71% of the variance in the teachers’
self-perceptions of Newhandicap1 (functional
issues). The results of the ANOVA (see Appendix
B) showed that the regression model 3 explained a

3.1 Summarizing Data
A principal components factor analysis withvarimax rotation method to reduce and summarize
the scales, especially to determine which of theitems were most useful in measuring each of voicestrain scale and voice handicap index scale. The
factor analysis conducted on each of the two scales
resulted in three-factor solution based on visualinspection of eigenvalues with the scree test (Cattell,1966). The factor analysis that was run on voicestrain scale with factors rotated to orthogonal
structure, had produced three factors, and scree test
(Cattell, 1966) clearly indicated the presence of
three factors in the matrix as well. As can be seenfrom Appendix I, three factors were indicated as an
overall summary of the results across the sample (N= 156), relating to perceptions of the voice strain
dimension. Factor 1, “Voice Strain”, explained
38.90% of the variance (eigenvalue = 5.05) and wascomposed of items indicating “voice strain”. Factor

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significant amount of the variance in the dependent
variable Newhandicap1 with F (3, 135) =112..366,
p < 0.005 (R Square = 0.71). Thus, in Model 3
Newhandicap3 (emotional issues), Voicestrain(voice strain) and Newhandicap 2 (physical issues)(p < 0.005) were found to be significant predictorsof Newhandicap1 (functional issues), which madestatistically positive contributions to explaining thedependent variable.
Tables 1 and 2 (see Appendix A) illustrate thedescriptive statistics and the correlation coefficientsfor the seven variables entering the equation (1 DV
and 6 IDs). The results of the Correlation Matrix
also indicated (see Appendix A) that voicestrain
was significantly correlated with strainreduction(drinking water during lectures, or taking breaks
more than an hour) (r = 0.43, p< 0.005),
newhandicap 2 (physical issues) (r = 0.51, p <0.005) and newhandicap 3 (emotional issues) (r =0.40, p < 0.005), and jobimpact (impact of voicestrain on job) (r = 0.55, p < 0.005). In addition, an
examination of the mean scores across the sample(see tale 3.3) revealed that the respondents scoredhigh on voicestrain (M = 4.08, SD = 1.405) andstrainreduction (M = 4.77, SD = 1.257), whichmeans that voice strain is prevalent among Chinese
university instructors, and they tended to believethat drinking water during lectures and taking
breaks more than an hour between lectures help
reduce their voice strain.

Physical and Emotional Issues. The overall
differences were studied first. Results are illustrated
in Appendix C. Of interest to this analysis are theresults for gender and age group, and gender X age
group interaction. The accepted benchmark forsignificance assessing claims in is Wilks’ Lambda
with eta being a measure of how strong the effects
are. Results (see Appendix C) revealed that there
were no significant differences in the dependent
variables across the gender groups (males: N = 35;
females, N = 120), and age groups (group 1: N = 42 ;group 2: N = 65; group 3: N = 36; group 4: N = 12),with Wilks’ Lambda (6, 126) = 0.985, p > 0.05, andwith Wilks’ Lambda (18, 356) = 0.892, p > 0.05,
respectively . Thus, significant multivariate effects
for gender and age group were not obtained (i.e. asignificant F > 0.05). As indicated in the table,according to the generally accepted criteria (Cohen,1988), Eta for gender and age group indicate thatthese are not strong or large effects with Partial
Eta Squared = 0.015 and with Partial Eta Squared =0.038, which explained either 1.5% or 3.8% of thevariances in the dependent variables scores
explained by gender and age group. Moreover, theoverall analysis showed that there was nointeraction effect (Wilks’ lambda (18, 356) = 0.840,
p > 0.05). Therefore, these effects will not be
discussed any further in the following study, sinceno significant multivariate effects were found forgender and age group.

3.3 Gender and Age Effects on Perceptions of
Voice Strain and Voice Handicap
To investigate research question 2 (Do genderand different age cohorts affect teachers’
self-perceptions of voice problems?), a two-way
MANOVA analysis was calculated. The MANOVA
was a 2 X 4 factorial design comprising theindependent variables of gender (males versus
females) X age group (group 1: 20-29; group 2:
30-39; group 3: 40-49; group 4: 50-59). The gendergroup and the age group were both
between-subjects factors. It was intended to assess
the effects of the two independent variables, one ata time, on the six dependent variables Voicestrain,
Jobimpact, Strainreduction, and Functional,

4.

Discussion and Conclusions
The aim of the present study was to assess theprevalence of voice problems in the general
population of Chinese university instructors, andexplore whether their voice problems affected their
daily life, their social life and their work, and how
closely they were correlated with each other.
Results of the multiple-regression analysis on thesample revealed that the university instructors’
self-perceptions of Newhandicap3 (emotional
issues), Voicestrain (voice strain) and Newhandicap
2 (physical issues) dimensions were significantly
positively correlated with their self-perceptions of
Newhandicap1 (functional issues) dimension. It
was found that emotional issues (the respondent’s

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affective responses to the voice disorder), voicestrain and physical issues (self-perceptions oflaryngeal
discomfort
and
voice
outputcharacteristics) were the best and useful predictorsof the functional issues (the impact of the
respondent’s voice disorder on daily activities),
which means that the more often a teacher
experiences emotional issues, voice strain andphysical issues, the more often he/she experiences
functional issues. The findings also revealed thatvoice strain is prevalent among Chinese university
instructors, and they believe that they have to drink
water when they lecture, and that taking breaks
during lectures more than an hour helps reduce their
voice strain. Moreover, the findings showed thatvoice strain was significantly correlated with job
impact, which means that the more often a teacher
experienced voice strain, the more impact it exerted
on his/her job. These findings are significant
because they seem to have provided evidence foranswering the first research question.
In answering Research Question 2, we foundthat there were no significant main effects forgender factor (males vs. females) and age factor(age group 1, age group 2, age group 3 and age
group 4). In other words, both gender and age
cohorts made no any significant differences inself-perceived voice strain, strain reduction, job
impact, and functional, physical and emotional
issues based on the scores gained in the respondents.
Interestingly, the statistical analyses and results
revealed no differences between the four age
groups’ self-perceptions of voice strain and job
impact, which has been one of the research focusesin the present study.
Some findings in this study were significant.
For instance, the respondents reported that theyoften experienced voice strain during/after lectures,
which suggested a need for preventive voice
programs (such as voice care/hygiene, and voice
training) within teacher-training students orin-service teachers training programs, which may
help increase teachers' vocal endurance and ability
in such a challenging profession. In addition, 20%of the respondents (N = 31) reported that they had
had previous voice therapy, which further supported

the finding that voice strain in university instructors
is prevalent. In short, it may be inferred that voicestrain in teachers does affect their jobs and daily
activities based on the respondents’ self-perceptions.
Thus, the research has reached its proposed research
purpose.
However, several limitations of the present
study should be noted and addressed in future
research. For example, all constructs in this study
were assessed with paper-and-pencil measures.
Although this is defensible in the early phases of a
research program, future studies should seek the useof a therapy approach for teachers that includes
treatment techniques to improve vocal hygiene
habits. Moreover, the sample size should seek toconcentrate on the respondents’ sample scope, thus
it will be more representative of the whole
population of Chinese university instructors.
Furthermore, this study strongly suggests thatteachers may benefit from vocal educational
training and prevention programs to raise theirawareness of potential voice problems and topromote vocal health, so that the qualities of theirteaching and social life may be improved.
References
Babbie, E. (1995). The practice of social research.
Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Cattel, R.B. (1966). “The Scree Test for the numberof factors”, Multivariate Behavioral
Research, 1: 245-276.
Colton, R.H., & Casper, J.K. (1996). Understanding
voice problems: A physiological perspective
for diagnosis and treatment (2nd Ed). Maryland:
Williams & Wilkins.
Hinton, P.R., Brownlow, C., McMurray, I., &Cozens, B. (2004). SPSS explained. London:
Routledge.
Jacobson, B.H., Johnson, A., Grywalski, C.,
Silbergleit, A., Jacobson, G.., Benninger, M.S.,
et al. (1997). “The voice handicap index (VHI):
Development and validation”, American
Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 6/3:
66-70.
Mattiske, J.A., Oates, J.M., & Greenwood, K.M.
(1998). “Vocal problems among teachers: A

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review of prevalence, causes, prevention, andtreatment”, Journal of Voice, 12: 489-499.
Orr, R., de Jong, F. & Cranen, B. (2002). “Someobjective measures indicative of perceived
voice robustness in student teachers”,
Logopedics, Phoniatrics, Vocology, 27:
106-117.
Rantala, L., Vilkman, E., & Bloigu, R. (2002).
“Voice changes during work: Subjective
complaints and objective measurements forfemale primary and secondary schoolteachers”,
Journal of Voice, 16: 344-355.
Sapir, S., Keidar, A., & Mathers-Schmidt, B. (1993).
“Vocal attrition in teachers: Survey findings”,
European Journal of Voice Disorders ofCommunication, 28: 177-185.

Smith, E., Gray, S.D., Dove, H., Kirchner,L., &Heras, H. (1997). “Frequency and effects ofteachers’ voice problems”, Journal of Voice,
11: 81-87.
Sonnenberg, L.L. (2005). “A therapeutic approach
for improved vocal performance in individuals
in teaching occupations”, unpublished MA
thesis, The University of North Carolina at
Greensboro.
Stemple, J.C., Glaze, L.E., & Klaben, B.G. (2000).
Clinical voice pathology: Theory andmanagement (2nd ed). San Diego, CA: Singular
Publishing Group.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Memory Strategy Instruction, Contextual Learning and Vocabulary
RecallSomayeh Kazemi Tari

Department of Language and Literature, Science and Research University, Tehran, Iransomayehkazemitari@gmail.com
strategies because they are found to facilitate
second language vocabulary learning.
According to Nunan (1999) many language
learners are not aware of the strategies
underlying their learning tasks. Also
research shows that more strategy use often
leads to higher levels of proficiency inlanguage learners (Oxford and Ehrman,
1995).
According to Oxford (1990) self direction isessential in the active development of adults'
abilities in learning. O’Malley and Chamot(1990) acknowledged the link between
strategic competence in language learning,learner autonomy and successful outcomeson the physical absence of a teacher. Hence,
the notions of independence, autonomy andcontrol in learning experiences play anincreasingly important role in language
education.
According to Oxford (1990) independent
language learning (ILL) reflects a movetowards more learner-centered approaches
viewing learners as individuals with needs
and rights, who can develop and exercise
responsibility for their learning.
Concern for the individual learner and forlearner choice, control and responsibility has
been a pervasive influence on language
learning and teaching for more than three
decades and is central to the idea andpractice of independent language learning.
As Benson and Lor (1999) emphasize theexpectation that language learners can be
independent, and that this is an important
attribute and goal, underlies much of thewriting on learner autonomy such as works
on self-access learning, self-directed learningand different forms of online learning such as
tandem partnerships explained in Hurd et al.
(2001).
Dörnyei (2005) argues that the most effective

Abstract
Language learning strategies play a
prominent role in learning a second
language. Students need to self-direct
learning in general and language learning inparticular, by using different strategies intheprocessoflearning.
To
takeresponsibility for their learning, learners
should develop independent language
learning strategies and in order to do so they
may need some help from their teachers at
the first steps. In the last decades there has
been an increasing interest in vocabularystrategies because they are found to
facilitate
second/foreign
language
vocabulary learning and recall. Using abroad range of strategies through their
vocabulary learning process, students canbecome more proficient. The present study
investigates the effects of memory strategy
instruction along with learning throughcontext on the vocabulary recall of Iranian
EFL learners. The study also explores
whether there will be any difference in theuse of memory strategies of the learners as aresult of such instruction.

Keywords
Memory, strategy,
vocabulary recall

contextual

learning,

Introduction
Language learning strategies have long been
the subject of research. They help learners tolearn independently when the teacher isphysically absent (Hurd & Lewis, 2008).
Because of the centrality of lexical knowledge
to learning a language research into theeffectiveness of various types of vocabulary
learning methods have been of considerable
value to second language learning research.
In the last few decades there has been an
increasing interest in vocabulary learning
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way of developing favorable attitudes
towards independent learning is for teachers
to prepare language learners to think about
their needs and objectives and then to learn
how to structure their learning.
Ellis (1994) believes that there is arelationship between independence andautonomy. Ellis (1994) sees autonomy in thecontext of language acquisition as involving
an ability to operate independently with thelanguage and use it to communicate personal
meanings in real, unpredictable situations.
In the aggregation, researchers consider
independent learning as a particular context
for learning, and as an approach to learning
as a goal of education (Ulitsky, 2000).

procedural skills to set up optimal learning
conditions.
One domain of studies about strategies
concerns
ways
of
enhancing
ILL(independent language learning) throughstrategy training and strategy development.
In these studies researchers explore ways ofbest providing strategy instruction forparticular independent language learning
environments, the role of the teacher in thatprocess and the relationship between
feedback and strategy development. The
issue of implicit learner training in strategies
was touched on in the work of Yang (1999).
He concludes that learning a language
through the distance-learning mode is achallenging task and the feedback we offer
students may be crucial to them in terms ofhelping them to improve their learning
strategies. The overall aim is to provide
opportunities for learners to manage their
independence in optimal ways, by acquiring aseries of strategies and skills that will enable
them to work individually.
Research on the use of vocabulary strategies
has revealed differences among learners interms of their strategy use. Successful
vocabulary learners were found to be active
strategy users who were conscious of theirlearning and took steps to regulate it,whereas poor learners displayed little
awareness of how to learn new words or how
to connect new words to old knowledge(Sanaoui, 1995). According to Gu (2005)
successful learners intentionally select,consciously monitor and evaluate thestrategy they use for the fulfillment of theiraim. The unsuccessful, on the other hand,
employ learning behaviors similar to theirpeers without being conscious but also
without having an aim.

1. Learning Strategies
Various taxonomies of learning strategies
have been proposed by different researchers
in the past two decades. O’Malley andChamot(1990)
distinguishbetweenmetacognitive, cognitive and socio-affective
strategies. Oxford (1990) proposed Strategy
Inventory for Language Learning (SILL)
which consists of direct strategies (including
memory,cognitive
andcompensation
strategies) and indirect strategies (including
metacognitive,
affectiveandsocialstrategies).
According to Oxford (1990) language learning
strategies are commonly defined as theoperations or processes which are consciously
selected and employed by the learner to learn
the TL or facilitate a language task.
Studies on learning strategies have focusedon two broad domains: the strategies
learners use, and ways of enhancing
independent language learning throughstrategy training and strategy development.
This concept can be analyzed from two
perspectives namely: Strategy use in
independent language learning as well as
strategy development and language learning
as explained in Paige et al. (2004).
These studies show how learners develop
creative language use strategies to build arich interface with the learning context, howstrategy use functions as a means ofmatching learning needs with affordances of
the context, and changes in strategy use overtime (Paul, 1990).
In order to deploy self-management
strategies, learners need to know how theylearn best, and need to have the necessary

2. Research Questions and Hypotheses
The present study thus aimed atinvestigating the effects of memory strategy
instruction along with learning throughcontext on the vocabulary recall of Iranian
EFL learners. The study also explores
whether there will be any difference in theuse of memory strategies of the learners as aresult of such instruction. The following
research questions were addressed in thisstudy.
1. Will there be any difference between thestudents who have memory strategy instruction
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along with contextual learning and those who
only have contextual learning in terms of their
vocabulary knowledge?
2. Will there be any difference in the memory
strategy use of the experimental students after
the memory strategy instruction?

experimental group were given the Memory
Strategy Questionnaire (Appendix) adaptedfrom Atay and Ozbulgan (2007) as a pretestand posttest. Students were told they could
choose more than one strategy on the
Memory Strategy Questionnaire.

Based on the above mentioned questions thefollowing null hypotheses were proposed andtested:1. There will be no difference between the students
who have memory strategy instruction alongwith contextual learning and those who only
have contextual learning in terms of their
vocabulary knowledge.
2. There will be no difference in the memory
strategy use of the experimental students after
the memory strategy instruction.

3.3. Materials and Instruction
Both groups used the same course book, i.e.,
GeneralEnglishThroughReading(Baradaran and Mosallanezhad, 2003). The
typical flow of the instruction of a unit was
as follows (see Table. 1 for a sample of one
week's instruction): first students read a text
then they answered different post-reading
activities, e.g., answering comprehension
questions, matching. Both groups had 1.5
hours of English a day, two days a week.

3.
Method
3.1. Participants
One hundred forty five B.A. students
studying EGP (English for General
Purposes) at Ghaemshahr University
participated in this study. The ages of theparticipants ranged from 17 to 27. Following
randomized matching method based on theirscores on a teacher-made vocabulary test thestudents were assigned to experimental andcontrol groups. Based on this procedure 43
matched pairs were found between the twogroups. These matched pairs of students
were selected for the purpose of the study toassure the homogeneity of the subjects in thetwo groups with regard to vocabularyknowledge.
3.2. Instruments
Procedures

and

Data

Table 1. A Sample of one Week's Instruction
Week 1
Day 1

Collection

Data for the present study were collected bymeans of a multiple choice vocabularyknowledge test prepared by the researcher.
The test consisted of 30 items which aimed
at assessing the level of vocabularyknowledge of students. The words or phrases
to be tested were selected from among thetarget vocabulary course book. The
vocabulary was selected from the 7 units tobe covered during the study. The test waspiloted on 30 students who took the same
EGP course and the reliability of the test
was estimated to be 0.79.
In order to find out the memory strategies
used by the students at the beginning andend of the study, students in theControl group

Experimental
group
Introduction to Introduction to
the course
the course
Introductorylesson on
vocabulary
learning, modelingof all memory
strategies
Rest of the week
1.5 hour a day 1 hour a day
Reading theReading the text,
text, guessing
guessing meaning
meaning ofof unknown words,
unknowndoing post-readingwords, doing
activities, e.g.,
post-reading
answering
activities, e.g.,questions, andanswering
matching
questions, andHalf an hour a day
matching
Memory strategy
instruction

On the first day of the program students inthe experimental group were given an
introductorylessonabout
vocabulary
learning. The researcher first talked about
the importance of vocabulary knowledge inlanguage learning and discussed different
ways of vocabulary learning, i.e. implicit andexplicit. Then she moved on to vocabularystrategies and focused on the memory
strategies in Atay and Ozbulgan's (2007) list.
First the researcher modeled each strategy

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for the students giving different examples forit. For example the teacher asked one
student to carry instructions such as follows:
1. Try to imagine the word that I say in English
and its Persian meaning.
2. Try to imagine yourself interacting with theobject while saying its name.
3. Show a kind of physical movement that
represents that object or concept.

Appendix is the most frequently used strategy while
strategy 6 in Appendix is the least frequently usedstrategy):
Table 2. Frequency of the Strategies Used byExperimental Group
Strategies Arranged Based on Their Frequency
14. Imaging word's form
12. Saying new word aloud when studying
13. Imaging word's meaning
9. Studying the spelling of the word
2. Associating the word with its coordinates
1. Connecting the new word to a previous personal
experience
11. Connecting the word with its synonyms andantonyms
7. Paraphrasing the word's meaning
4. Using physical action when learning a word
10. Grouping words
3. Using semantic maps
8. Underlining initial letter of the word
5. Grouping words together within a storyline
6. Using scales for gradable adjectives

On the following day, after having regular
instruction, the teacher distributed thehandout of memory strategies to students
and practiced the strategies with in class. For
the rest of the study, i.e., 12 weeks, theexperimental group students looked at thetarget words from each unit and practiced
applying the strategies in class to memorize
the words and their meanings. They
discussed the strategies that most suitably
helped them to learn and retain the words inmemory with the class. For example one
student said that he learned a word byrelating it to a word in her mother languagethat had a similar pronunciation. Anotherstudent said that he memorized a list of
unrelated words by grouping them together
in a sentence which seemed to be ridiculous
or strange. Sharing and discussing theirstrategies, they helped each other withvocabularies.

This indicates that explicit teaching of memory
strategies does not always lead to more frequent useof the strategies.
The results of the paired t-test between experimental
and control group posttest did not show any
significant difference between the groups in terms of
their vocabulary knowledge gain scores (see Table
3).

3.4. Data Analysis
To determine whether there is any difference
between the two groups in terms of
vocabulary knowledge at the end of the study,a paired t-test was applied. The MSQ(memory
strategyquestionnaire)wasanalyzed by means of taking frequency
counts of each strategy in the pre- andpost-tests.

Table 3. Experimental and control group Posttest
and Pretest Means* (M), Standard Deviations (SD),and their Differences (t)

Exp.
Cont.

4. Results
Analysis of the MSQ (Memory Strategy
Questionnaire) administered in experimental groupboth before and after the treatment showed thefrequency of each strategy used by the students.
Although there was a little difference between thenumber of strategies reported to be used byindividuals in pretest and the number of thestrategies used in posttest, but the frequency of thestrategies used by the whole experimental groupremained noticeably unchanged. These strategies arearranged in table 2 according to their reported
frequency in a descending order (i.e. strategy 14 inPretestPosttest

M

SD

M

SD

10.86

5.70

11.71

5.47

10.69

6.73

t

df

p

0.77

84

<0.05

* The maximum total number was 30
Although mean of the experimental posttest shows
an improvement over the mean of the experimental
pretest (11.7143 vs. 10.8604 respectively) andalthough the mean of the experimental group ishigher than the mean of the control group posttest(11.7143 vs. 10.6933 respectively), but thecomputation of t-test (t=0.7716, p<0.05) revealed
that this difference was not so significant to be
attributed to the effect of experimental treatment.

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5. Discussion
The present study aimed to investigate theeffects of memory strategy instruction alongwith learning through context on the
vocabulary knowledge of EFL students andcompare these with those of contextual
learning alone. The result of the study
showed that the there was no significant
difference between the vocabulary recall ofexperimental and control group students at
the end of the instructional period. During
the instructional period, both groups studied
the same course book which exposed learners
to the target vocabulary in several contexts.
While the control group learned thevocabularies
only
through
context,
experimental
group
receivedmemorystrategy instruction in addition to contextual
learning. During the instructional period theteacher provided the students in theexperimental group with different memory
strategies and encouraged them to use thesestrategies to memorize new vocabularies.
Experimental group students were shown
explicitly how the strategies work. The
teacher herself modeled each strategy
providing student with different examples.
Although it seems that strategy
instruction in the current study was not
successful but might be due to a number ofintervening and uncontrolled variables suchas learners' cognitive style or their preferredstabilized strategies that they have adapted
and used for a long period of time in theirleaning behavior.
One of the interesting features of thisstudy was the requirement of practical use of
strategies inside the classroom because when
one student shared his memory strategies
with the class others learned how to applythat strategy.
Results from the MSQ showed that'imaging word's form' and 'Saying new word
aloud when studying' were the mostfrequently used strategies among Iranian
EFL learners, unlike learners in otherstudies such as Atay and Ozbulgan (2007)
who regarded 'connecting the new word to aprevious experience' and 'using semantic
maps' as the most frequent strategies.
One of the factors that caused control
group students to perform as good as
experimental group students might be thatthey were highly motivated to learn newword. Moreover the present study assessed

the short term effects of memory strategy
instruction on learners' vocabulary recall andthe result of the same study might be quite
differentinalongitudinalstudy
investigating the long term effects of memory
strategy instruction on vocabulary recall.
Future research is needed to clarifythesepoints.
References
Atay, D., & and Ozbulgan, C. (2007). Memory
strategy
instruction,
contextual
learning and ESP vocabulary recall.
English for Specific Purposes, 26,
39-51.
Baradaran, A. & Mosallanezhad, P. (2003).
General English through reading.
Tehran: SAMT publications.
Benson, P., & Lor, W. (1999). Conceptions oflanguage and language learning.
System, 27, 459–472.
Dörnyei, Z. (2005). The Psychology of thelanguagelearner:
Individual
differencesinsecondlanguageacquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence

Erlbaum.
Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language
Oxford:Oxfordacquisition.
University Press.
Gu, P. Y. (2005). Learning strategies:
Prototypical core and dimensions ofvariation. Retrieved December 12, 2005,
from http://www.crie..org.nz/research_paper/Peter_Gu.pdf.
Hurd, S., Beaven, T., & Ortega, A. (2001).
Developing autonomy in a distancelanguage learning context: Issues anddilemmas for course writers. System,
29 (3), 341–355.
Hurd, S., & Lewis,T. (2008). Language

learning strategies in independentsettings. London: Cromwell Press.
Nunan, D. (1999). Second language teaching
and learning. Boston, MA: Heinle andHeinle.
O’Malley, J., & Chamot, A. (1990). Learning

strategies
insecondlanguageacquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.
Oxford, R. (1990). Language

learning
strategies: What every teacher should
know. New York: Newbury House.

Oxford, R. & Ehrman, M. (1995). Adults'
language learning strategies in an
intensive foreign language program in173

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

the United States. System 23, 359-386.
Paige, R., Cohen, A., & Shively, R. (2004).
Assessingtheimpactofastrategies-based
curriculumonlanguage and culture learning abroad.

Frontiers:
The
Interdisciplinary
Journal of Study Abroad, 10, 253–276.

Paul, R. (1990). Towards a new measure of
success:
Developing
independent
learners. Open Learning, 5 (1), 31–38.
Sanaoui,R.
(1995).
Adult
learners'
approaches to learning vocabulary insecond language. Modern Language
Journal, 79, 15-28.
Ulitsky, H. (2000). Language learnerstrategies with technology. Journal of

Educational Computing Research, 22(3), 285–322.

Yang, N.D. (1999) The relationship between
EFL learners’ beliefs and learning
strategy use. System, 27 (4), 515–535.
AppendixPlease, identify the memory strategies you
have used in learning the new vocabulary
during the EGP course.
1. Connecting the new word to a previous
personal experience
2. Associating the word with its coordinates
3. Using semantic maps
4. Using physical action when learning a word
5. Grouping words together within a storyline
6. Using scales for gradable adjectives
7. Paraphrasing the word's meaning
8. Underlining initial letter of the word
9. Studying the spelling of the word
10. Grouping words
11. Connecting the word with its synonyms andantonyms
12. Saying new word aloud when studying
13. Imaging word's meaning
14. Imaging word's form

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Do Visual Supports Enhance EFL Listeners’ Self-confidence?
An Empirical Study
Hsiao-fang Cheng1 & Nina Chiulan Lin21
2
1

National United University, Taiwan

Takming University of Science and Technology, Taiwan

hfcheng@nuu.edu.tw; 2ninachiulan@yahoo.com.tw

Abstract

1. Introduction

The integration of technology into education has

Motivation is a concept that explains why

expanded methodological options for EFL teachingpeople behave as they do rather than how

and learning. Providing visual supports, which is

successful their behavior will be. According tomore relevant to what people usually do in their

Csizer and Dornyei (2005), L2 motivation contains

daily communications, does significantly enhanceseven components: integrativeness, instrumentality,

EFL listening comprehension. However, do visualvitality of the L2 community, attitudes toward the

supports promote EFL listener’s self-confidence inL2 speakers/community, cultural interest, linguistic

their own listening ability? This study was done toself-confidence and milieu. Those motivational

investigate whether the listener’s self-confidence

factors affect the effectiveness and success in theincreased as the auditory stimuli were accompaniedclassroom to a great extent (Horwitz, 1986).

with visual supports. A listening test presented with

Self-confidence,

three different modes, audio-only, listening stimuli

constituents, reflects a confident, anxiety-freewith still pictures, and video listening were utilized

belief that the mastery of a L2 is well within theto collect data. Listener’s self-confidence waslearner’s capabilities. Learners believe that theymeasured by their responses on a 6-point scale after

have the abilities to reach goals or finish tasks

completing every comprehension question. The

successfully (Csizer & Dornyei, 2005). Drawing on

results showed that no significant difference on

Clement’s (1980) theory, the main antecedents ofself-confidence was found as the visual aids wereself-confidence are the quality and quantity of

progressively increased; i.e. visual supports did notsocial contact. It is particularly a function of thenecessarily promote listener’s self-confidence inbeliefs conveyed by one’s environment and one’s

his

attitude toward the L2 culture.

listeningability.

However,

listener’s

self-confidence was highly correlated with their

one

of

the

motivational

Clement, Dornyei, and Noels (1994) argued

listening performance. The more confidence theythat

attitudinal

factors

wereanimportant

had in answering the questions, the more questions

motivational basis for L2 acquisition and behavior.

they answered correctly. Drawing on the results,

A self-confidence process becomes the mostsome pedagogical implications are proposed.

important determinant of attitude and the amountof effort exerting on L2 learning. Positive attitudes

Key words

would orient the individual to seek contact with theself-confidence; mode of presentation; motivation;

target language. To the extent that the contact islistening performance

relatively frequent and pleasant, self-confidence in175

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

using the L2 would develop as anxious affectForeignwould decrease. Research shows that students withaccompaniments--still photos, drawings or pictures

little anxiety are satisfied with their current level ofto verbal stimuli. It is hoped that the listening test

Englishcanproficiency,

and

thus

with

high

Languageaccurately(TOFEL)

assessincludelistener’svisuallisteningself-perceptions of L2 competence, they become

proficiency in the real-life communication context.

positive and frequent contact with English.

As stated above, visual supports enhance

andlistening comprehension which might lead to theself-perceptions of L2 competence may be

improvement of self-confidence in mastering thedeterminants of L2 achievement even in contexts

target language. It is generally believed that thewhere opportunity to use the L2 with members ofmore comprehension listeners obtain, the more

the L2 community is lacking. To sum up,

self-confidence they will have in the course of

self-confidence, leading to motivated behavior,

listening. Therefore, it is worth pondering if visual

would motivate learners to learn the target

aids, such as facial expressions or speech-related

language and find the course easy (Clement, et al,gestures, improve listener’s self-confidence. This

1994). In this study, it is more like a basic learnerstudy was designed to investigate if visual supports

disposition of trust in one’s ability to answer thewould enhance listener’s self-confidence. The threelistening question accurately.

different modes of presentation employed in thisResearchhassuggestedthat

anxiety

Feyten (1991) stated that forty-five percent of astudy were audio listening without visual support,

person’s total communication is spent in listening,audio listening in conjunction with multiple still

which is critical in general human communication

pictures indicating the turns of the speakers, andand in academic settings. Getting students ready tovideo listening with full-motion images. Since

deal with natural, communicative situations is anself-confidence in the language learning context is

important function of classroom-listening activities

usually assessed with measures of perceived(Krashen, 2002). With the development of highproficiency at the time of testing, participants were

technology, the widespread use of computer-aided

required to indicate their confidence level after

multimedia

completing each listening question.

hasfacilitatedforeignlanguagelearning, especially listening, to a great extent.
Multimedia in its simplest form is the combination

2. Methodof two or more media such as text, images, and

2.1 Participants

sound. Numerous studies have documented that

One hundred and sixty-five seventeen to

static visual aids reduce cognitive load and enhancenineteen-year-old non-English majors served as thethe learners’ listening comprehension (Cheng, 2003;

subjects, all of whom enrolled in the fall semester,

Mousavi, low, & Sweller, 1995; Park, 1998; Ruhe,2007. They were divided into three groups based

1996). Videos with full motion pictures, exposing

on their academic majors. According to thestudents to authentic context and providing cultural

homogeneity of variance assumption, the listening

contexts for the language, promote listening

proficiency of all the groups had to be equal prior

comprehension (Swaffar & Vlatten, 1997). To sum

to treatment; otherwise, the t-statistic would be

up, visual supports did significantly improvemeaningless(Peers,1996).

Therefore,

anlistening comprehension. Drawing on the researchintermediate

level

listening

pretestwasresult, the listening items in the Test of English as aadministered before the experiment. These three176

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

groupswere

homogenousinand self-confidence. Such finding indicated that

listening

comprehension proficiency at the p<0.05 (df= 2,

full-motion

pictures,providingauthentic

F=107; p<0.899) level of significance. Theircommunication context and paralinguistic aspects

English ability was at intermediate level with theirof communication (Altmanm 1989), do notreading better than their listening.

necessarily promote learner’s achievement (Cheng,

2.2 Procedure2003) and self-confidence.

A printed test of nine multiple-choice items

This study also found that self-confidencewith questions and alternatives, phrased in thepositively correlated with listening outcome. The

target language, was given before viewing or

higher the participants scored, the more confident

listening.

they became. A negative correlation between

Aftercompleting

the

test

items,

requiredtoindicatetheself-confidence and listening anxiety was found.

confidence level in their response. The statistical

The less anxious the participants were, the more

analyses for the data were carried out with SPSS X.

confidence they had. Even though videos with full

The repeated-measures one-way ANOVA was

motion pictures give redundant and additional

applied to analyze the three main variables, using

information, they did not substantially promote

Scheffe’s test comparing the mean score gained

learner’s

from the three different modes of presentation.

proficiency.

participants

were

confidence

in

their

own

listening

3. Results
No significant difference was found for

4. Conclusion and Suggestions

self-confidence when the presenting modes were

To summarize, the results of this study show

different (df=2, F=19.89, p<0.75). Though thethat modes of presentation significantly influence

difference was non-significant, participants werethe learner’s listening performance but slightly

somewhat more confident when the auditory

affect his/her linguistic self-confidence. Audio-only

messages were presented with still pictures (Meanlistening is the most difficult presenting mode and2.96). They had less confidence in listening tovisualaudio-only texts (Mean 2.68).

self-confidence. There was only one group of

In terms of listening performance,
participants performed the best in still picture

Chinese technical college students participating inlistening, then listening with full-motion
images whereas audio-only listening came thecannot be taken as conclusive and definitely do notlast (df=2, F=23.378, p<0.05) (Cheng, 2003).

repeated with other groups of different age,

The mean scores of both the still picture
listening and the video listening werelanguage proficiency, or language background to

significantly higher than that of the audio-only

those in this study.

listening, indicating that listening in
conjunction with pictures was easier for the

5. References

subjects.

Altman, R. (1989). The Video Connection:

aids

somewhatenhancelistener’s

this study. The results presented in this paper
allow for generalization. This study should be

examine whether the conclusions are the same as

The mean score of the still picture listening,

Integrating Video into Language Teaching.

however, was somewhat higher than that of the

Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

video listening in terms of listening performance

Cheng, H. F. (2003). Effects of modes of177

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

presentationonlistening

London: The Falmer Press.
Ruhe, V. 1996. “Graphics and Listening

comprehension.

Paper presented at Teaching and Assessing
Language Proficiency 38th RELC International

Comprehension.” TESL Canada Journal,
14 (1): 45-60.

Seminar, 03-05 November.
Clement,

R.

(1980).

Ethnicity,

contact

Swaffar, J., and A. Vlatten, 1997. “Aandlanguage. In H.M. Giles, W.P. robinson, & P.

Sequential Model for Video Viewing in
the Foreign Language.” Modern

M.

Language Journal, 81:175-188.

communicative competence in a second
Smith(Eds.),

Language:Social

Psychological Perspectives. pp 147-154).
Oxford, UK: Pergamon.
Clement, R., Dornyei, Z., & Noels, K.A. (1994).
Motivation,

self-confidence,

and

group

cohesion in the foreign language classroom.
Language Learning, 44 (3), 417-448.
Csizer, K. & Dornyei, Z. (2005). The internal
structure of language learning motivation andits relationship with language choice andlearning

effort.

The

ModernLanguage

Journal, 89(1), 19-36.
Feyten, C. (1991). The power of listening ability:Anoverlooked

dimensioninlanguageacquisition. Modern Language Journal, 75,
173-180.
Horwitz, E.K. (1986). Preliminary evidence for the
reliability and validity of a foreign language
anxiety scale. TESOL Quarterly, 20, 559-562.
Krashen, S. D. (2002). Explorations in language
acquisition and use: The Taipei lectures.
Taipei: Crane Publishing Co., Ltd.

Mousavi, S. Y., Low, R. & Sweller, J. (1995).
Reducing cognitive load by mixing
auditory and visual presentation modes.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 87(2),319-334.
Park, Ok-choon. 1998. “Visual Displays andContextual Presentations in
Computer-based Instruction.” ETR&D, 46(3) :37-50.
Peers, I. S. (1996). Statistical analysis foreducation and psychology researchers.

178

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

SEL-Hi: Current and Future English in Japan
Hideyuki Kumaki
School of Education, Waseda University
t-kumaki@mua.biglobe.ne.jp
Communication (O.C.) classes in senior high school
English classes have been conducted by a native
English speaker or a native English speaker and aJapanese teacher. These classes, which are held
only once a week, have not been as successful as
the government had planned.
In January 2000, an advisory commission to the lateJapanese Prime Minister Obuchi published a reportin which it suggested that English should be
adopted as the second official language of Japan. In
July 2002, with the progress of globalization, theMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology (MEXT) presented a five-year strategicplan aimed at cultivating “Japanese with English
Abilities” 4 . To promote the creation of schools
which could serve a leading role in English
education, senior high schools focusing on English
education have been designated, since 2002 as“Super English Language High Schools (SEL-Hi).”
Consequently, “to develop students’ basic practicalcommunication abilities such as listening andspeaking, deepening the understanding of language
and culture, and fostering a positive attitude toward
communication through foreign languages”, a
Course of Study for Foreign Languages wasannounced in 2003.

Abstract
Concerning English education, there have been
three buzzwords recently. One is “EIL” 1 , whichmeans English as an International Language, andanother one is “ELF” 2 , meaning English as a
Lingua Franca. Also, there is “World Englishes”,
which was suggested by Kachru (1992) 3 . As theseterms suggest, it has been said that English is not
only for native speakers of English but also for
non-native speakers. The number of L2 speakers
will soon reach and surpass the number of native
speakers of English, and most students will be
studying English not to interact with native
speakers, but to access information in English andto interact with other non-native speakers.
Recently, in Japan there has been a great increase in
the number of English immersion schools called“Super English Language High Schools (SEL-Hi),”and interested parties have started to emphasize theimportance of English as a communication tool. In
addition, the Japanese government is planning to
introduce English classes to elementary schools
from 2011. Furthermore, in December 2008, theMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology in Japan (MEXT) announced a draft
version of new teaching guidelines for senior highschools, which would require for the first time that
English classes, in principle, be conducted in
English. This will be implemented in the 2013
scholastic year. In this paper, based on this current
movement, I want to look at the problems ofEnglish education in Japan today, mainly focusing
on a SEL-Hi and consider what the future ofEnglish education in Japan holds for English as an
International Language.

1. SEL-Hi
One of the major changes of the English education
system in Japan is the designation of a significant
increase in the number of English immersion
schools called “SEL-Hi”. Academically, teachersand parents have started to emphasize theimportance of English as a communication tool. In
SEL-Hi’s, schools are given the resources andpermission to prioritize English. In thisenvironment, students are more likely to learn not
only English itself but also get a wider array ofinternational experiences and ideas. Let me describe
one of the SEL-Hi curricula here (Table 1, see thenext page):

Keywords
SEL-Hi, MEXT

Introduction
In Japan, the government has promoted English in
the national school curriculum. Since 1989, Oral
1

See McKay (2002)
See Jenkins (2007)
3 See also Jenkins (2003)
2

4

179

See MEXT (2002)

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 1 Curriculum of a SEL-Hi in Kanagawa 5Class name
1st yr
2nd yr
3rd yr
4
English Ⅰ
4
English Ⅱ
2
O.C.Ⅰ
(3)
O.C.Ⅱ
International
2
Understanding
International(2)
Relations
Traditional Culture(2)
Reading4
Writing3
Step-up English(3)
Rapid Reading(2)
Current English
(2)
Total
6
6 (+7)
7 (+7)

report supplied by TOEIC, the average scores for
the TOEIC BRIDGE over the last three years (FY2005 to FY 2007) were 116.5, 116.4, and 117.1,
respectively. Tables 2.1 and 2.2 below show thedetails.
Table 2.1 SEL-Hi Average Score

NOTE: The classes in parenthesis are electives.

There are about 30 students in a class and all thestudents learn English depending on their English
level. There are 19 mandatory English classes. In
addition, there are 14 more electives. This is not auniversity affiliated school; therefore, elective
English classes specifically focus on university
entrance exams. In advanced level classes, English
is the primary language to be used when teaching
English.
Compared to other non-SEL-Hi schools such as afemale girls’ school which offers many English
classes as electives, there are more English classes
offered in the former school. 6 The total number ofEnglish classes students can take at school isdependent upon the school they attend. For example,
in a private boys’ school in Tokyo, there are fewer
compulsory classes and no electives.

Table 2.2 Overall Average Score

NOTE: Table 2.2 shows all the examinees’, including company
workers, government and municipal officers, average score.

As you can see from these results above, theaverage score for this particular SEL-Hi is notmuch different compared to other examinees.
Although we can see that both listening and readingscores did go up, I believe their scores, especiallylistening, should be much higher since in SEL-Hi,
English classes are mainly conducted in English.
Therefore, in the next section, based on the data
above, I want to think about the prospects for future
English education in Japan.

All the students in this SEL-Hi must take the
TOEIC BRIDGE 7 every year. This test wasdeveloped for beginning level to lower-intermediatelevel learners of English. In 2005, before they were
not designated as a SEL-Hi, the average score in thetest including listening and reading was 57.5 and56.6, making the total average score 114.1 outof 180.
And the average score of the same students who
were taught for three years under the SEL-Hi
project was 124.4, which means that the students’
average score was 10 points higher. On the other
hand, according to a 2007 DATA & ANALYSIS

2. Prospects for English Education in JapanThe Japanese government has been interested inlanguage policy recently. It is planning to introduce
English classes to elementary schools from 2011.
Furthermore, in December 2008, the MEXT
announced a draft version of new teachingguidelines for senior high schools, which would
require for the first time that English classes, inprinciple, be instructed in English. This will be
implemented in the 2013 scholastic year. Altering

5

Numbers in the table represent classes for week.
See Kumaki 2009
7 This test was developed to measure the basic
communicative English language proficiency of
beginning learners.
6180Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

the Japanese way of English education, which has
been
primarily
focusedongrammar,English-to-Japanesetranslation
andJapanese-to-English translation will take a longtime, but it is not an unrealistic fantasy. Using
English in everyday life in Japan can be very
difficult and there is a widespread belief thatJapanese people have struggled to master the
English language.

3. Future English Education in Japan
In this section, based on what was discussed thus
far, I want to consider what Japanese English
scholars and teachers can do for future English
education in Japan. The table below (Table 4)
indicates some suggestions for English Education in
Japan:
Table 4 Suggestions for English Education in Japan
Besides the grammar points andClassroomtranslation, English should be
Languageused more in the school.
Each school should offer more
optional English classes which
Students’ Options students can select in terms of
their own purposes and theirEnglish level.
Connection with Link English classes to other
Other Subjects subjects.
In addition to grammar
Focal Point
knowledge, communication
skills should be encouraged.
1) It is essential to reduce
Teacher-student
class-size.
Interaction2) Students should be taught ingroups of 15 to 20.
Teachers’ English Teachers need to improve their
Proficiency
language ability.
1) With ALTs, students haveopportunities to use natural
Teachers’ L1- L2
English with NSs of English.
Carryovers
2) Utilize more Team-Teachingclasses.
Government
Have long-range targets / goals.
Policy Change
An integrated English
Curriculum
curriculum from primary tosenior high school is necessary.
University
Need to alter the dominating
Entrance
influence of written university
Examination
entrance exams.

Based on the guidelines that the MEXT set, I am
going to focus on the methods of teaching English
to senior high school students in English in Japan.
To begin with, let me compare and contrast thecurrent English curriculum with the future English
curriculum guidelines, which start from the year
2013 for senior high schools in Japan (Table 3):
Table 3 New and Current English Curricula
New curriculum no.
Currentno.
(draft)of classes curriculum of classes
Comm. E Basic
2
2
Oral Comm.Ⅰ
3
4Comm. E Ⅰ
Oral Comm.Ⅱ
4
3Comm. E Ⅱ
EnglishⅠ
4
4
Comm. E Ⅲ
EnglishⅡ
2
Reading
4
E Expression Ⅰ
4
Writing
4
E Expression Ⅱ
E Conversation
2
Total
21
Total
21
This table shows that the number of subjects that
the MEXT plans to implement from 2013 isunchanged from the current system. Instead, there
are more classes whose titles contain the keyword“communication.”
A listening exam was introduced in 2006 forcandidates of the National Centre Test for
University Admissions; however at present,
teaching styles are still very teacher-centered. As
Wray (1999) describes, there are almost no
opportunities for students to discuss, provide theiropinions, or do group problem solving. It is mainly
because English classes at senior high schools focus
on helping students to pass the university entrance
examinations. The majority of university entrance
exams focus on grammar, reading, and writing
skills. Furthermore, there are a large number ofstudents in a class. The average student / teacher
ratio is 40:1. This ratio does not allow the teachers
to interact with the students individually. As a result,while students can leave school able to read andwrite English to some extent, few end up being able
to speak the language.

(1) In Japan as of today, teaching English entirely inEnglish is a difficult goal to achieve. However,besides grammar points, English can be used more
to teach classes.
(2) Besides studying English as a compulsory
subject, as some of the schools have already done,
from senior high schools, each school should offer
more optional English classes which students canselect in terms of their own purposes. Currently, it
seems to me that there is no connection between
subjects. One possible solution to making English
meaningful for students is to link it to other subjects,
such as history and science in English.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

begun to dwindle in recent years, many schools
have switched from JET programme ALTs tooutsourced cheaper private companies, whichmakes it even more difficult to find a qualified
language instructor in the public and private school
system.

(4) Teachers should be given more space and timeto think through improvements in what they do andto be able to engage with students individually. To
do that, it is essential to reduce the class size.
Teaching about 40 students at the same time is far
from satisfactory. Students should be taught ingroups of 15 to 20 depending on their levels.

(6) In Japan, on the other hand, as for teacher
quality, a high level of English proficiency is notnecessarily required. Teachers need to have basic
grammar knowledge of English, but having skillful
conversation abilities is not tested.
MEXT (2003a) would like to upgrade the teachingabilities of English teachers. For example, MEXT
(2002) offers domestic training for 2,000 teachers
per year and short and long overseas training toapproximately 150 people. It also establishes theteaching qualifications: 550 points of paper TOEFL,
730 points of TOEIC. In addition, Kawamura(2004) states that MEXT would like to introduce ateacher certificate renewal system. I believe that
this is a crucial step in revitalizing English language
education in Japan. Language proficiency is crucial
for all language educators.

(4) If students want to learn more, there should be agreater range of options. Offering only 3 or 4
English lessons a week is not nearly enough. At
such frequency, it is difficult for the students toremember what they learned in the previous lesson,
making it difficult for them to feel confident when
speaking in or listening to English. Once they leaveschool (in fact, the English classes), students inJapan do not have many chances to interact inEnglish. Mostly, it is because the majority ofJapanese people can live in Japan without using
English at all. This status-quo implies that thissociety offers little or no English support outside ofclass time to help reinforce what children learn inschool.

(7) If more Japanese language teachers were able tospeak English at a level where they can conduct a
language class mostly in English, team teaching
instruction (TT) would be more effective. Unlike
native speakers of English, Japanese teachers ofEnglish can benefit from drawing on their own
experience as language learners. Through carefulplanning with a native English speaking teacher,collaborative teaching actually saves time bydrawing on both individual and collective strengths.
English teachers at senior high schools in Japan
would teach their classes in English and limit theuse of Japanese to the explanation of complicatedgrammar.

(5) Expose students to the “native speakerproduced” sounds. Scovel (2000) states that the
CPH (Critical Period Hypothesis) is a myth; heclaims that in the areas of lexicon (or vocabulary)and pragmatics, adults are superior learners tochildren in a second language (126). He states one
advantage younger learners have is in phonology(128). From this point of view, unlike adults,
students may be able to achieve “native-likepronunciation”. MEXT addresses that “making useof assistant language teachers (ALTs)” whose native
language is English should positively be adopted(MEXT, 2003a). MEXT hired ALTs and reported
that approximately 8,400 ALTs worked at publicschools between 2001 and 2002.
With ALTs, students have opportunities to use
natural English with native speakers of English.
Also, ALTs can introduce their cultures bycooperating with Japanese English teachers inclasses and may help to motivate students who see
language as more than grammar-oriented
instruction.
However, there is no requirement of having a TEFL
or TESL certificate to be an ALT. I am not sayingthat having a teaching certificate is essential, but
speaking English as a first language should not be
sufficient to be a teacher of English. As a matter offact, it is clearly stated that “TEFL qualification is
helpful, but not required” in the Japan Exchange
and Teaching (JET) programme website(http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/jet/index.html).
Moreover, as the coffers of local governments have(8) English is going to be an obligatory subject atelementary schools from April 2011. The newclasses, officially titled Foreign Language Activities
is going to be implemented for fifth- andsixth-graders, or 10- to 12-year-olds, requiring
schools to run 35 periods a year.
In addition, the MEXT released the draft ofrevised curriculum guidelines for senior highschools, which will go into effect from fiscal 2013.
The new guidelines have two goals: coping with thediversification of high schools and improving
students’ scholastic ability. In the new teachingguidelines it is said that the high school English
should be taught primarily in English.
On the other hand, so far there have not been
many changes in the junior high school English
curriculum. What is necessary for the future English
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Kachru, B. (2005). Asian Englishes Today:
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Kawamura, T. (2004). Reforming compulsory
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2004,
from: http://www.mext.go.jp/english/topics/
04091701.htm
Kubota, R. (2002). The impact of globalisation on
language teaching in Japan, in David Blocks
and Deborah Cameron (eds), Globalisationand language teaching, pp.13-28 (London:
Routledge).
Kumaki, H. (2009). Future Prospects for English
Education in Japan: Based on the Language
Policy in Singapore. Paper presented at themeeting of International Cultural Expression
Studies, Shizuoka, Japan.
McKay, S. (2002). Teaching English as an
International Language. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology (MEXT) (2003a). Regarding
the establishment of an action plan tocultivate Japanese with English abilities.
Retrieved
June
28,
2009,
from: http://www.mext.go.jp/english/topics/
03072801.htm
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology (MEXT) (2003b). The course of
study for foreign languages. Retrieved June
28,
2009,
from: http://www.mext.go.jp/english/shotou/
030301.htm
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology (MEXT) (2002). Developing astrategic plan to cultivate Japanese withEnglish abilities: Plan to improve English
and Japanese abilities. Retrieved March 21,
2009,
from: http://www.mext.go.jp/english/mews/
2002/07/020901.htm
Modiano, M. (1999a). ‘International English in the
global village’, English Today, 15/2,
pp22-34.
Modiano, M. (1999b). ‘Standard English(es) andeducational practices for the world’s lingua
franca’, English Today, 15/4, pp 3-13.
Scovel, Thomas. (2000). “‘The Younger, the Better’
Myth and Bilingual Education,” Roseann D.
Gonzalez (ed.), Language Ideologies:
Critical Perspectives on the Official English

education in Japan is not the separated educational
system but the integrated one.
(9) Although the National Centre Test for the
University Admission implemented the Listening
test to their exam from 2006, oral tests are mostly
absent. Unless the current university entrance exam
is modified to a more communicative test, the focal
point of the school curriculum will not be changed.

Conclusion
English education in Japan is in transition.
Everyone knows the importance and necessity ofEnglish; however there are very few people who
can master and use English effectively after
learning it for many years in school, even after the
Listening Test was implemented in the National
Centre Test in 2006. The focal point of English
education in Japan is to memorize as many
sentences and words as possible for the university
entrance exam. But the essential point of learning
English is to use it as a tool to communicate withothers.
Learning from what the Japanese government hasdone so far, there are still steps that can be taken in
the Japanese education environment. First of all,Japanese teachers of English need to improve theirEnglish speaking ability. Secondly, students should
be given more opportunities to immerse themselvesin an English environment. Each school should
upgrade their teaching system and offer students
more opportunities to use English. Teaching
English in English can be one solution for that. For
those who want to further their English studies,
there should be more diverse elective English
classes.
Learning English in English could broaden theirperspectives, but I feel it is pointless to teach in
English if the format of university entrance
examinations remains unchanged. Unless therequirements of entrance exams are changed, in fact
unless the whole system of English education ischanged, I do not see the point of trying to teach in
English.
An integrated English curriculum from primary tosenior high school is necessary to produce students
who can speak English.
References
Funabashi, Y. (2000). Aete eigo koyogo-ron.
(Tokyo: bungei Shunjyu).
Jenkins, J. (2007). English as a Lingua Franca:
Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Jenkins, J. (2003). World Englishes: A resourcebook for students, Routledge.
183

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Movement, vol.1. New Jersey: Lawrence
Erlbaum Association, Inc. 114-136.
Smith, L. (1976). English as an International
Auxiliary Language. RELC Journal 7/2:
38-53
TOEIC Bridge DATA & ANALYSIS 2007.
Retrieved
June
23,
2009,
from http://www.toeic.or.jp/toeic_en/pdf/dat
a/TOEIC_Bridge_DAA2007.pdf
Wray, H. (1999). Japanese and American education:
Attitudes
andpractices.
Westport,
Connecticut: Bergin & Garvey.

184

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Bilingual Education: What can Malaysia learn from the US Experience?
Juliana Binti Othman
Faculty of Education, University of Malaya
juliana@um.edu.my

Malaysian language policy and its impact on
the education system. The final part of thepaper discusses the challenges faced byteachers and their classroom practices.

Abstract
This paper provides a brief comparative
perspective of the bilingual education policy
and practices in the United States andMalaysia. Particular issues examined include
the following: the social context of bilingual
education in the two countries, challenges
faced by teachers, their classroom practices
and support provided. A key assumption wasthat such a comparison could provide us witha better understanding of conditions andfactors that might make for more effective
bilingual education practice in the Asian
context.

Bilingual Education in the United States
In the USA, both English as a second
language and bilingual education programmes
have been historically and politicallyconnected to immigration and the integrationof immigrants into a predominant Englishspeaking environment. One of the earliest
bilingual education programmes in the USA
began during the 1840s as a result of nonEnglish speaking immigrants entering thecountry. However, in the late 19th and early
20th centuries, restrictive laws prohibiting
instruction in other than English brought thiseducational practice to a halt due to antiimmigrant sentiment. However, renewedinterest in bilingual education developed withthe 1960s civil rights movement. In 1968,
Congress passed the Bilingual Education Act,
also known as the Title VII of the Elementaryand Secondary Act. Under the act, English
language learners must be kept in an adequate
program until they can read, write andcomprehend English well enough toparticipate meaningfully in mainstream
classes.

Introduction
In many countries, bilingualism isimplemented through the education system
which gives rise to varied forms of bilingual
education. Reasons for the implementation ofbilingual education may vary from one
country to another. In the United States,bilingual education has been implemented tomeet the educational needs of children from
immigrant families. In Malaysia, the recentchange in language policy in Mathematics
and Science education is seen as an effort tomeet challenges posed by globalization. In
this paper, I would compare the bilingual
education policy and practices in the UnitedStates and Malaysia. Particular issues
examined include the following: the social
context of bilingual education in the twocountries, challenges faced by teachers, theirclassroom practices and support provided. It
is my hope that such a comparison could
provide us with a better understanding ofconditions and factors that might make formore effective bilingual education practice in
the Malaysian context.

Bilingual education in the UnitedStates is manifested in a variety of programs.
All bilingual program models use thestudents' native language, in addition to
English, for instruction. Students in bilingual
programs are grouped according to their first
language, and teachers must be proficient inboth English and the students' native language.
The most popular form of bilingual educationis the transitional bilingual education
program. In this program, the medium of
instruction is in both the native language andEnglish for a period of three years. The levels

This paper describes briefly thebilingual education in the United States andthe different types of programs offered. The
paper then presents the background on the185Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

secondary language. With the passing of the
Education Enactment Bill (1971), English
medium schools were phased out and Malay
became the medium of instruction in all
national schools, and of university education
by 1983. This change in language policy has
been driven by a nation-building agenda. It
has been argued that through the medium of acommon language national unity would be
fostered.
However, 20 years after the
implementation of Malay as a medium of
instruction in schools, concerns wereexpressed about the English language
proficiency of school leavers and graduatesentering the workforce. In Malaysia, English
language is often associated with economic
competitiveness and employment. More than
44,000 public university graduates were
unemployed largely due to their poorcommand of English (The Straits Times,
Singapore, 2 June 2002). The root of thissituation could be attributed to the fact thatwhen a language like English is not fully used
as a medium of academic discourse, thestudents’ mastery of it cannot be expected toattain a level it would have reached had thelanguage concerned be used as a medium of
instruction (Asmah Hj Omar, 1996).
Although English was retained as a second
language in the national education system, it
is only viewed as a ‘subject’ in the school
curriculum as the rest of other subjects, withthe exception of languages, is conducted in
Malay.
As the Malaysian government aspires
to achieve developed nation status by the year
2020, a large-scale national-level policy
initiative involving a shift in the language ofmathematics and science instruction innational schools from Malay to English has
been carried out. This policy shift is a“pragmatic response to the inevitablechallenges of technological advances andglobalisation, and linked to the fear in thefalling standards of English” (Martin, 2005).
Hence, in January 2003, Malaysia
implemented a major change to its education
policy whereby the English language is to be
introduced as the medium of instruction forMathematics and Science. This change inof instruction in English increase while thenative language decreases and students areexited from the programme when they reach agiven criteria. The main goal of this model is
to mainstream students to English-onlyclassrooms.
Another favoured program in the
United States is the Structured English
Immersion. In this program, English is taught
through the content areas. Structured
immersion teachers have strong receptive
skills in their students' first language and havea bilingual education or ESL teachingcredential. The teacher's use of the children's
first language is limited primarily toclarification of English instruction. Most
students are mainstreamed after 2 or 3 years.
In two-way bilingual programs,
language minority students from a single
language background are placed in the sameclassroom with language majority (Englishspeaking) students. Instruction is provided inboth English and the minority language. In
some programs, the languages are used onalternating days. Others may divide the use of
the two languages by academic subject.
Native English speakers and speakers ofanother language have the opportunity toacquire proficiency in a second language
while continuing to develop their native
language skills. Students serve as nativespeaker role models for their peers. Two-way
bilingual classes may be taught by a single
teacher who is proficient in both languages orby two teachers, one of whom is bilingual.
The goal of this program is to develop
proficiency in the students’ native language(L1) and in a second language (L2).

The Malaysian Context
Malaysia has a different language-ineducation policy than the one in the UnitedStates. The Malaysian Education system has
undergone major changes in the last few
decades. Malaysia has a long tradition ofEnglish medium education as a result of the
British colonial influence. Prior to the
Education Enactment Bill (1971), English
was the primary language and Malay, the186Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

proficiency enough to enter mainstream
classes in one year. English language learners
must be provided appropriate help toovercome language barriers until they attainacademic achievement equivalent to averagenative English speakers. The focus is onlearning the target language through content
teaching rather than on teaching the language.

language policy had an impact on bilingualneeds and practices in the education system.
The Malaysian bilingual education
program can be categorized as an “enrichedsecond language program” (Genesee, 1987).
According to Genesee (1987), “at least 50
percent of instruction during a given academic
year must be provided through second
language for the program to be regarded as
immersion”. Unlike in the United States
where the second language is used as a
medium of instruction beginning in Grade 3,
it starts as early as Primary 1(Grade 1) in the
Malaysianeducationsystem.
Only
Mathematics and Science subjects are taught
through a different medium of instruction, i.eEnglish.
Students are expected to gain
English language proficiency after 11 years of
instruction at primary and secondary level.
In most bilingual programs in the
United States, participation is by parental
choice, or, as in the case with late immersion,by parental and student choice. Unlike in the
United States, bilingual education in Malaysia
is prescribed by the government. The
education system is centrally controlled by
the Ministry of Education where thecurriculum is designed to have coherence,balance, progression and continuity. Thus,
students are all at the same academic level—
usually progress as a cohort group beginningwith little or no L2 proficiency. The
compulsory nature of the program means thatthe parents of the students are usually wellinformed about educational issues, and are
generally committed to the importance andrelevance of learning English as a second
language.
In Malaysia, English is considered as asecond language which is seen as prestigious
and recognized as valuable by the community.
In many parts of Malaysia, proficiency in the
English language depends largely on
geographical location and socio-economic
status. In rural areas, students make little useof English outside school where limited
opportunities are available.
In contrast, English is the language ofthe majority of the population and the
medium of instruction in schools in the USA.
Students’ native language may be given an
inferior status. Students are expected to gain

Challenges
Malaysian experience
The implementation of English as a
medium of instruction for Mathematics andScience in the Malaysian context is notwithout its challenges and problems. One of
the challenges faced by the teachers is theirlack of competence in English (Pandian and
Ramiah, 2004; Chan and Ain Nadzimah,2005). In addition, these teachers also face thechallenge of managing the language
development of their students with respect totheir subject matter. Teachers have to copewith the double demand of grappling with thelanguage and transmitting content in a new
medium of instruction. However, theprevailing language support mechanisms do
not meet their needs. Most Mathematics andScience teachers in Malaysia did not havespecialized training in L2 methodology.
Therefore, the need for effective language
enrichment teacher development in Malaysia
is crucial. In order to successfully implement
the new language policy, it is particularly
important to have highly trained teaching staff.
Well-trained English medium teachers would
have a significant influence on the cognitive
and affective growth of students whose
primary language is other than English.
One of the efforts that has been carriedout by the Ministry of Education is toorganise a course known as ETeMS (English
for Teaching Mathematics and Science), forteachers of Science and Mathematics. This
was the first support step in helping theseteachers cope with the new medium of
instruction. Nevertheless, it was only anurgent interim measure to ensure that theseteachers have some basic capacity to use
English as the medium of instruction
187Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Along with the availability ofqualified teachers comes the question ofavailability of educational materials andresources. Teachers were challenged by thelack of tools to teach, including appropriate
assessment materials and instruments. Many
classrooms lack textbooks written in a waythat made the material accessible to ELLs andculturally relevant teaching materials (Yeh etal., 2002; Gandara et al, 2005).

(Facilitators Notes, ETeMS Module, 2002). In
addition, each school was supplied with ateachers’ kit and learning kit consisting ofmultimedia software in the form of compact
discs (CDs) to help teachers improve theirlanguage proficiency and help them teachtheir students in class.
Apart from that, a programme called
the “Buddy System” was introduced. Under
this programme, mathematics and scienceteachers are encouraged to meet regularly
with a peer who is proficient in the English
language, also known as a ‘critical friend’ inorder to strengthen their command of thelanguage. This was deemed important as
exposure to the language and feedback on
their attempt to use the language isfundamental to the development of theirproficiency in the language (Hedge, 2000). In
addition, teachers are also expected to educate
themselves to a large extent by meeting
regularly with their colleagues teachingscience in order to help them improve theirproficiency in the language of science as wellas teaching methodology.

Another great challenge faced byteachers in bilingual programs is the varying
language proficiency abilities among theirEnglishlanguagelearners.
Teachers
expressed frustration with the wide range ofEnglish language and academic levels often
found in their classrooms. Trying to address
the different academic needs of learners in thesame classroom can create daunting tasks forthe teachers.
In addition, teachers found difficulty
to communicate with students’ families andcommunities. Teachers’ inability to speak theparents’ language and parents’ inability tohelp their children with homework often
limits the support that can be given to thestudents.

The need for sustained teacher
development activities in this context is
crucial. Governing curricula bodies such as
the Curriculum Development Center, State
Education departments and teacher educators
must provide further supporting programs tothese teachers to acquire the linguistic tools
and content specific instructional strategies tohelp them teach effectively.

However, the US bilingual programs
do benefit from the vast number of researchand years of experience in implementing avariety of bilingual programs. Among the
successful classroom practices utilized are thecontent
based
instruction,
Sheltered
Instruction
andCognitive
Academic
Language Learning Approaches.

US experience
One of the main concerns regarding
bilingual education in the US is the lack ofqualified teacher. Over the last five years,
many EL teachers had little or no professional
development designed to help them teachthese students, and the quality of training was
uneven. Although the number of ESL students
in US public schools has increased
dramatically in the past decade, teacher
education programs have not greatly adapted
their curricula to accommodate thesedemographic shifts. Thus, teachers of ESL
students have not received the appropriate
training necessary to work with these students.

Content-Based Language Instruction.
In this approach, bilingual teachers use
instructional materials, learning tasks, andclassroom techniques from academic content
areas as the vehicle for developing language,
content, cognitive, and study skills. The
second language is used as the medium of
instruction for mathematics, science, social
studies, and other academic subjects.
Instruction is usually given by a language
teacher or by a combination of the language
and content teachers.

188Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Sheltered Subject Matter Teaching.
This approach involves adapting the languageof texts or tasks and use of scaffolding
strategies (demonstrations, visuals, or
cooperative work) to make instruction moreaccessible to students of different English
proficiency levels. This type of instruction is
given by the regular classroom or content
teacher, or by a language teacher with special
expertise in another academic area (Brinton,
Snow, & Wesche, 1989).

students’ simultaneous acquisition ofacademic content and English language andliteracy.
Staff development programs could
offer teachers encouraging support, such asproviding them with appropriate teachingmaterial
andresources,
promotingcollaboration among teachers as well as withparents, and developing techniques forteaching the English language more
effectively and efficiently. These training
efforts will not only enhance teaching practiceand knowledge, they will also provide
teachers with the appropriate support andservices necessary to improve the quality ofbilingual education.
Parental involvement is instrumental
in contributing to the academic success ofbilingualstudents.
Supportandencouragement of several people including
teachers and parents could help students tosucceed in their academic program. However,the language barriers of the parents could be
the reason that hinders them from getting
involved in their children’s learning. Thus,bilingual teachers are in a unique position of
being able to communicate with these parents
in their native language about the importanceof parental involvement and the ways inwhich they can participate in their children’s
education.

Sheltered Instruction. Here, a content
curriculum is adapted to accommodate
students' limited proficiency in the languageof instruction. This model was originallydeveloped for elementary foreign language
immersion programs to enable some portionof the curriculum to be taught through theforeign language (Genesee, 1987). It is
commonly used in immersion and two-way
bilingual programs (Met, 1991) and has been
adapted for use in second language programswith large numbers of limited English
proficient students of intermediate oradvanced English proficiency.
Cognitive
Academic
Language
Learning Approach (CALLA). This approach
integrates language, content, and learning
strategy instruction into a transitional ESL
approach for students of intermediate oradvanced English proficiency (Chamot &O'Malley, 1987). CALLA emphasizes active
learning, in which students are given the skills
and opportunities to take an active role intheir own learning.

Tosummarise,
immersion
programmes were originally established to filla need in the United States society for better
English as a second language programmes.
Assuming similarities between first andsecond language learning in children, parents
and educators believed that by providing
young
children
with
a
rich
and
comprehensible input of the target languagein school, high levels of proficiency in that
language would result.

Summary and Conclusions
Analyses of the challenges andexperiences of bilingual teachers in bothcountries provide strong implications for
professional development. For example,
teacher development efforts must address how
to seek effective ways to accommodate
varying students’ academic experiences andlanguage abilities.
Teacher training endeavours may betailored to discuss many specific pedagogicalstrategies and practices when working withbilingual students, such as how to facilitate

Of course, Malaysian’s solutions will
be different because its starting point isdifferent. However, the cycle of discovery of
successful approaches to second language
teaching might well be the same. Like any
innovation, it takes time and a lot of work
remains to be done to ensure the success ofthe policy implementation.

189

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Practice (pp. 75-99).
Clevedon :Multilingual Matters Ltd.
References
Asmah Hj Omar (1996). Nationism andexoglossia : The case of English in Malaysia.
In Abdullah Hassan (Ed.), Language
planning in Southeast Asia. Selangor:
DBP.

Met, M. (1991). Learning language throughcontent; learning content throughlanguage. Foreign Language Annals,
24, 281-95.

Brinton, D.M., Snow, M.A., & Wesche, M.B.
(1989). Content-based second
language instruction. New York:
Harper & Row.

Ministry of Education. (2002). English forteaching mathematics and science(ETeMS) facilitator’s notes. English
Language Teaching Centre, Teacher
Education Division.

Chamot, A.U., & O'Malley, J.M. (1987). The
cognitive academic language learning
approach: A bridge to the mainstream.
TESOL Quarterly, 21, 227-249.

Pandian, A. & Ramiah, R. (2004).
Mathematics and science in English: Teacher
voice. The English Teacher, XXXIII,
50-61

Chan, S.H. and Ain Nadzimah, A. (2005)
After an English Language Policy
Initiative: Listening to the Voices ofClassroom Implementers.
Pan
Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics 9 (1), 139-149.

Yeh, C. J., Chen, J., Kwong, A., Chiang, L.,
Wang,Y., and Pu-Folkes, F. (2002).
Educators of Asian Bilingual
Students: Pedagogical Techniques,
Strategies and Challenges Journal ofMultilingual and Multicultural
Development Vol. 23, (4), 296-315.

Gandara, P., Maxwell-Jolly, J., and Driscoll,A. (2005). Listening to Teachers ofEnglish Language Learners: A Surveyof California Teachers’ Challenges,
Experiences, and Professional
Development Needs. The Regents of
the University of California. The
Center for the Future of Teaching and
Learning.
Genesee, F. (1987). Learning through two
languages: Studies of immersion andbilingual education. Cambridge, MA:
Newbury House.
Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and learning in
the language classroom. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Martin, P. (2005) Safe Language Practices in
Two Rural Schools in Malaysia:
Tensions between Policy and Practice.
In A. Lin and P. Martin (eds)
Decolonisation,
Globalisation:
Language-in-Education Policy and190

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Suggestion for Teaching English Based on the Concept of Internalization
Naomi Kakihara

Hosei University
naomiruri.msn.com

1.1
Interlanguage
Selinker(1972) introduced the term ‘interlanguage’
which is used to refer to both the internal systemand to the series of inter connected system (Ellis,
1994). If the interlanguage shows the learners’
internal knowledge, the result of the same test may
show the different state of internalization.

Abstract
In this paper we try to clarify the concept ofinternalization and indicate the gap between
teaching and learning. Two adult classes andprimary fourth, fifth and sixth graders participatedthe researches. We assume the results indicate thestudents’ inner knowledge.

Keywords
internalization,knowledge

1.2

interlanguage

internal

Two adult groups (foreign students-A ,university students-B) answered fifty basic
questions based on the grammar in theauthorized textbook for junior high first graders.
A are from China and studied English for one
year as beginners using the authorized textbook.
The result of A indicates that forty-five- hour
instruction for one year is not enough to have agood foundation in English (Figure 1).
Meanwhile, it seems to be natural that almost
all B students could get full marks (Figure 3).

Introduction
Teachers are always concerned with the result ofteaching. It is not often the case that teachers are
satisfied with the result. Some may regret thematerials they chose. Another may complain thesurroundings such as class size, hours of instruction,variety of the academic ability of students and soforth. These factors are indispensable to teaching.
Furthermore, we must not miss the concept ofinternalization. To begin with, we define the idea ofinternalization and try to show the result of theinternalization.

1

Basic Questions

Internalization

Piaget (1970/2007) classifies people’s conduct in
two ways, actions in narrow sense and other actions
such as blinking and yawning. Actions in a narrow
sense includes two different actions, internal action(=thinking) and external action (=behavior).
According to Piaget, thinking is construed asinternalized external action. When people can do
one thing without any help, those actions are
assumed to be internalized.

Figure 2: Frequency Distribution-Ainternal action(thinking)actionconduct

external action(behavior)other actions(Piaget,1970/2007 p.93)
Figure 1: analysis of conduct
Figure 3: Frequency Distribution-B

191

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

2

second one is to choose the word that is notincluded in the story. Tapes they listened were madefor native speakers of English. They were notmodified for learners.It is likely that diffeculty issimilar both for fifth graders and sixth graders(Figure 6).

English Quiz

To compare primary students’ inner knowledge ofEnglish, fourth, fifth and sixth graders answered
more than forty questions. According to thehomeroom teachers, they do not learn how to readat school. Therefore those questions can be
answered easily if they are able to read words in
English. Others are listening questions. They arefrom two different tapes based on two different
picture books which are not familiar with them. The
purpose of the quiz is to examine how the students
respond to unfamiliar factors.
2.1
Reading
The first question is to fill the blanks with capitalletters alphabetically. Next question is to match
capital letters to small letters. Others are to match
pictures and words. Figure 4 indicates that thestudents increase the scores (fourth graders-23.14,
fifth graders-26.3, sixth graders-32.48) as they getolder. Compared to the differences in detail, thestudents could answer better as they get older(Figure 5).

Figure 6: Average Score on Listening
3

Discussion

The results of basic questions show that repeatedpractice is essential. Even though teachers andstudents think they finished certain factors, it does
not mean those factors are not internalized. In thisrespect, A-students seem to require more time torealize what they learned.
The results of primary students indicate that there
are differences among different ages. Althoughstudents are not familiar with questions, the numberof six graders who got better scores is bigger than
younger students. One of the reasons may be theamount of time of English lessons. Older students
have more time to be exposed to English not only at
school but at their homes. The other reason may be
due to their development. Children’s behaviors are
influenced by their cognitive development. In thisrespect, older students can understand the meaningof the questions better and guess what they aresupposed to do.

Figure 4:Average Scores-primaryStudents

Figure 5: Frequency Distribution-primary
students

4
Suggestions
In this paper, we reveal that immediate
understanding does not always lead to truelearning. On the other hand, primary students
tell us that they acquire something that they do
not learn explicitly. The results suggest thatteachers are supposed to notice the concept ofinternalization and try to find alternative way ofteaching

2.2
Listening
Listening questions are to check whether or notthey can catch the words in the story.The first one isto number the word along the narrative line. The

4.1
References
Conform to the styles of the Publication Manual of
the American Psychological Association. Citationsin the text appear in parenthesis as (Author, year) or

192

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics(Author, year: page). If the author’s name appears
in the text, as Author (year) or Author (year: page).
Full citation of literature referred to should begiven in References. Arrange the referencesalphabetically by first author’s name, rather than by
the order of occurrence in the text. Punctuate andcapitalize as in References of this document.

Language Acquisition. Oxford
University Press.
Piaget, J. (1970). Piaget’s theory.
P.H. (Ed.). Carmichael’s manual ofchild psychology (3rd ed.): Vol.1. N
New Yoek: John Wiley & Sons.
Slinker, L. (1972). ‘Interlanguage’
International Review of Applied
Linguistics 10: 209-31.
Nakagaki, A. (2007). Translation of Piaget’s
Theory. Kitaoji Shobo.

4.2
Appendices
Any appendix should be appeared directly after thereference, and should be given an informative title:
Appendix A. Title of Appendix A.
References

Ellis, Rod. (1994) The Study of Second
Appendix A
基礎問題
名前：
2．次の文の()のなかから正しい語を選び、その語を○でかこみなさい。
(1) You (aren’t, don’t, doesn’t) like coffee.
(2) Mike can (play, plays, playing) basketball.
(3) Do you (get, gets, getting) up early?
(4) Does she (get, gets, getting) up early?
(5) (Is, Does, Are) your mother a teacher?
(6) This is (I, my, me) bag.
(7) (Me, We, Our) study English.
(8) (You, His, He) name is Jack.
(9) I (do, does, am) playing soccer.
(10) She’s (cooks, cook, cooking) now.

Appendix B
英語クイズ
年
組
１）アルファベットが順にならんでいます。抜けているところに【】の中から順番にふさわしい文字を選び（）の中に書き入れましょう。
A B C () E F G () I J K () M N O () Q R S () U V W X Y Z
【H
D
T
L
P】

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

5) テープの英語を2回聞きましょう。絵をよく見て、聞こえた話にふくまれる言
葉の順番を(1～6)の中に書きれ入れましょう。

）

（

（

）

（

）

）

）

（

）

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The Development and Implementation of Task-based Writing
Performance Assessment for Japanese Learners of English: (3) Main
Experiment 1
Yoshihito Sugita

Faculty of Nursing, Yamanashi Prefectural University

sugita@yamanashi-ken.ac.jp

In Japan English language has been traditionallytaught with a focus on accuracy, and indirect
measurement is widely used in the field ofassessment. There seems to have been a paradigm
shift from accuracy-oriented to fluency-oriented
writing instruction, but no significant changes haveoccurred in assessment of writing. Judging from thepresent state of teaching and assessing writing inJapan, it would be meaningful to develop scoringprocedures for writing performance assessment inplace of traditional indirect tests of writing. This
study is motivated by such an urgent need for
improved assessment of writing, which is
conducted in order to develop a task-based writing
test for Japanese learners of English.

Abstract
This research examines the main data of thesecond task-based writing performance test. The
same task-based writing test used in the pre-testing
was conducted on the participants comprised of 20
university students. Each of forty scripts was scoredby five identical teacher raters who displayed
acceptable levels of consistency in the pre-testing.
Along with the findings of the pre-testing, theresults suggest that the students ability waseffectively measured using these tasks and raters.
The FACETS analysis showed that the difficulty ofthe two tasks and the impressionistic scoring wereequivalent. The interrater correlation coefficients
between pairs of raters were high, and the raters
displayed acceptable levels of consistency withthemselves. There were, however, significant
differences between raters in terms of severity. A
bias analysis research was conducted inrater-subject interactions and in rater-task
interactions. These analyses indicated that three ofthe five raters were significantly biased towards
certain types of subjects, and these raters’ bias
patterns were unique. The equivalence of taskdifficulty may indicate that task development basedon the construct-based processing approach could
be reliable and valid to estimate students’ writing
ability. The modified scales associated with the fiverating categories and their specific written samples
were shown to be mostly comprehensible andusable by raters, and demonstrated acceptable fit.
However, there is still room for argument about thereliability and validity of assessment tasks andrating scales.

1. The Study
1.1 Purposes and research questions
In order to examine the degree of reliability andvalidity of the task-based writing performance test,
the following are focused on: raters’ severity,interactions with writers’ abilities and taskdifficulties, the reliability of elicitation tasks andrating scales, and the measure’s validity.
The specific research questions are as follows:
1) Is student ability effectively measured?
2) Are teacher-raters equally severe?
3) How much do tasks that are designed to beequivalent actually differ in difficulty?
4) How well do scales conform to expectations
about their use? Do raters use all parts of them, anduse them consistently?
5) Do individual raters score a particular group of
subjects more harshly or more leniently? If so, what
are the sub-patterns of ratings in terms ofrater-subject interaction for each rater?
6) Do the raters score particular tasks more harshly
or more leniently than others? If so, what are thesub-patterns of ratings in terms of rater-task
interaction for each rater?
7) To what extent, statistically, is the task-based

Keywords
writing performance, task-based assessment, bias
analysis

Introduction

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writing test a reliable and valid measure?
2.4 Data analysis
Tables 1, 2 and 3 show the descriptive statistics forthe scores of the two test tasks and theimpressionistic scoring. Since the average of theinter-rater coefficients for each scoring is relatively
high (0.76, 0.83, 0.81), the five raters appear to beof acceptable reliability.

2.2 Test participants and materials
The data for this study were 40 scripts (20 scripts
for each of two tasks) collected from 20
undergraduate students (6 males and 14 females)
who took an English teaching methodology coursein the first semester of 2008. The subjects were 14
second-year and 6 third-year students from thefaculty of global policy management andcommunications. All of the subjects were native
speakers of Japanese with an intermediate level ofEnglish language proficiency.
The TBWT was conducted in thecomputer-assisted learning room. The time limits
for Task 1 and Task 2 were 20 minutes and 10
minutes, respectively. After finishing the tasks,
each student was required to submit an essay using
a web-based essay evaluation service, Criterion.
They had to finish writing the essay within 30
minutes. The prompt was as follows: People attend
college or university for many different reasons (forexample, new experiences, career preparation,
increased knowledge). Why do you think people
attend college or university? Use specific reasonsand examples to support your answer.

Table 1: Descriptive statistics of scoring Task 1
Rater
Mean
SD
Min.
Max.

1
3.20
0.87
2.0
5.0

2
3.10
1.30
1.0
5.0

3
3.50
1.00
1.0
5.0

4
2.85
1.19
1.0
5.0

5
2.40
0.91
1.0
5.0

Table 2: Descriptive statistics of scoring Task 2
Rater
Mean
SD
Min.
Max.

1
2.95
0.97
1.0
5.0

2
3.10
1.37
1.0
5.0

3
3.05
1.20
1.0
5.0

4
2.65
1.19
1.0
5.0

5
2.85
0.96
1.0
5.0

Table 3: Descriptive statistics of impression
Rater
Mean
SD
Min.
Max.

2.3 Scoring materials and procedure
In order to give raters a shared understanding of theconstruct of writing ability as defined by the test
writers and reduce the differences or biases caused
by variation among raters, the TBWT scoring guide
was edited for this testing. The first section is the
background of the TBWT. The second section is the
explanation of assessment tasks. The third section is
the implementation method of the testing. The
fourth section is comprised of the rating scales andwritten samples accompanied by detailed
commentary on each sample at five levels, 1-5.
Each of the forty scripts was scored by fiveraters, who were all experienced Japanese highschool teachers of English. They were all native
speakers of Japanese, and they shared similar
backgrounds in terms of qualifications of ten or
more years of teaching experience. They displayed
acceptable levels of consistency with themselves in
the pre-testing conducted in January, 2008. Bothscripts and scoring guidelines were given to theraters by mail at the end of July, 2008. Each of thefive raters rated the entire set of forty scripts andsent them back by the end of August, 2008. They
were instructed to rate the 20 scripts of Task 1 first,
and then to rate the 20 scripts of Task 2. Finally,
they were asked to rate each of the participants’writing proficiency based on the total impression atfive levels, 1-5.

1
3.10
0.88
2.0
5.0

2
3.20
1.20
1.0
5.0

3
3.25
1.13
1.0
5.0

4
2.85
1.23
1.0
5.0

5
2.50
1.57
1.0
5.0

Table 4: Descriptive statistics of different scoring
N
Mean
SD
Min.
Max.

Task
1
100
3.01
1.12
1.0
5.0

Task
2
100
2.92
1.16
1.0
5.0

Impression
100
2.98
1.14
1.0
5.0

Criterion
TWE
20
2.40
0.94
1.0
4.0

Table 4 reports results for each test task, theimpressionistic scoring and the scores of Criterion,
including its mean and standard deviation. The
mean scores for all variables are very close, ranging
from 2.92 to 3.01. The alpha coefficients for the test
tasks and the impressionistic scoring were
calculated. Using Davies’ cut-off (.90) as an
acceptable level of internal consistency on ahigh-stakes test, each Cronbach’s α would meetthe point: .9386, .9582 and .9570 for Task 1, Task 2
and impressionistic scoring, respectively.
The correlation coefficients between the scoresprovide a preliminary estimate of the parallel-form
reliability of each test task. As seen in Table 5, thecorrelation coefficients between each task and theimpressionistic score fall in a range of .778 to .910,
which are all significant at the 0.01 level. The
correlation between the two test tasks (.778) is,
however, slightly lower than the established196

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

estimate of reliability (.80). Table 6 also shows thatthe two tasks and impressionistic scoring correlate
positively with the scores of Criterion (p<.01). The
highest correlation is between the Criterion scoreand Task 2 (r=.708), followed by that between the
Criterion score and Impression (r=.703) and finally,
between the Criterion score and Task l (r=.621).

range from a high of 5.94 logits to a low of －5.92
logits, indicating a spread of 12 logits in terms ofstudents’ ability. Subject separation value was 6.85,
meaning that populations like the students in thisstudy can be spread into about seven levels. The
reliability index was .98, which demonstrates it ispossible to achieve reliable ability scores.

Table 5: Pearson correlation coefficients------------------------------------------------------------|Measure|+Raters|+Subjects|+Tasks| S.1 | S.2 | S.3 |------------------------------------------------------------+ 6 ++9++ (5) + (5) + (5) +
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+ -6 ++ 11++ (1) + (1) + (1) +------------------------------------------------------------|Measr|+Raters|+Subjects|+Tasks| S.1 | S.2 | S.3 |---------------------------------------------------------------

Task 1
Task 2 Impression.778**.910**.903**
Criterion.621**.708**.703**
Note: **all correlations significant at 0.01 level.

Task 2
Impression

There is a possibility that the test data can be
influenced by errors of measurement resulting fromvariation in rater harshness and test tasks, as well as
by the nature of the rating scale used and by therange of ability of the subjects who are being
assessed. Therefore, it was necessary to use
statistical models which take into account all of thefactors that might affect a student’s final score.
The analyses for the present study were doneusing FACETS version 3.63 (Linacre, 2008). To
examine the measurement characteristics of thistesting, the data was specified as having three
facets, namely, the ability of the subjects, thedifficulty of tasks and the severity of raters. The
partial-credit model was chosen because the scoring
criteria for the rating scales were qualitatively
different.
3. Results
3.1 FACETS summary
Figure 1 shows a summary of all facets and theirelements. They are positioned on a common logit
scale, which appears as “measure” in the firstcolumn. The second column shows the severity
variation among raters. The most severe rater (ID:3) is at the top, and the least severe rater (ID: 5) isat the bottom. The third column shows the ability
variation among the 20 subjects. The subjects areranked with high ability at the top (ID: 9) and low
ability at the bottom (ID: 11). The fourth column
shows the difficulty variation among tasks. The
most severely scored task (Accuracy) is at the top
and
the
least
severelyscoredtask(Communicability) is at the bottom. The last threecolumns graphically describe the three rating scales.
Each of the two tasks and the impressionistic
scoring has their own scale. The most likely scalescore for each ability level is shown.

Figure 1 FACETS summary2) Are teacher-raters equally severe?
The severity span between the most severe rater andthe most lenient rater was 2.38 and the difference,
based on fair average scores, is 0.65 of one grade in
the scale. The reliability of the separation index(which indicates the likelihood to which raters
consistently differ from one another in overall
severity) was high (.92). The chi-square of 62.8
with 4 df was significant at p<.00 and, therefore,
the null hypothesis that all raters were equally
severe must be rejected. There was a significant
difference in severity among raters. On the other

3.2 FACETS analysis
1) Is student ability effectively measured?
As shown in Figure 1, subject ability estimates
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

hand, no raters were identified as misfitting: fit
values for all raters were within the range of two
standard deviations around the mean (0.90±[0.17× 2]). In other words, all raters behaved
consistently in the scoring.

Table 7 shows the rating scale statistics forcommunicability. All outfit mean-squares are lessthan 2.0, which meet (2). All step difficultyincreases fall within 1.4 and 5.0, which does meet
(3).
Table 8: Rating scale statistics for Impression
Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5

3) How much do tasks that are designed to beequivalent actually differ in difficulty?
The analysis of the two test tasks andimpressionistic scoring shows that no significant
variation in difficulty exists among them. Raters are
considered to be self-consistent in scoring, and thetasks do not appear to separate the subjects to asignificant degree meaning that the difficulty of thetwo tasks and the total impression of the tasks canbe considered equivalent. An estimate of the item
discrimination was computed according to the“Generalized Partial Credit Model” approach. 1.0 is
the expected value, but discriminations in the range
0.5 to 1.5 provide a reasonable fit with the Raschmodel (Linacre, 2007, p.132).

Outfit (meansquare
.9
1.1
1.4
.8
1.0

Step
Difficulty
-5.28
-1.54
1.96
4.86

Table 7: Rating scale statistics for Communicability
Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5

Average
Measure
-5.35
-3.04
.26
2.74
4.97

Outfit (meansquare
1.2
1.6
.9
.6
.7

Step
Difficulty
-5.13
-1.65
2.27
4.51

5) Do individual raters score a particular group of
subjects more harshly or more leniently? If so, what
are the sub-patterns of ratings in terms ofrater-subject interaction for each rater?
There were a total of five significantly biased
interactions among Rater 1, Rater 3 and Rater 5.
The three raters’ views are summarized, andindicate that each rater had a unique rater-subject
bias pattern as follows:・Rater 1 becomes harsher on accuracy when thenumber of words are exceeded and the script
lacks an organizing principle and development.
Rater 1 becomes more lenient when the script
demonstrates linguistic accuracy. Rater 1
becomes harsher on communicability when thewritten items are similar, and its number islimited. Rater 1 becomes more lenient when thescript displays adequate communicative effect.
・Rater 5 becomes more lenient on accuracy when
there are a number of words and the script
demonstrates clear organization with a variety oflinking devices. Rater 5 becomes harsher when
the script displays a lack of organizational skills.
Rater 5 becomes harsher on communicability
when the written items are similar, and its
number is limited. Rater 5 becomes more lenientwhen the script displays adequate communicative
effect.
・Rater 3 becomes harsher on accuracy when thescript displays a lack of organizational skills, but
becomes more lenient when the script
demonstrates communicative effect.

Table 6: Rating scale statistics for Accuracy
Average
Measure
-5.77
-2.69
.26
2.87
4.95

Outfit (meansquare
.7
.5
.7
.7
.8

Table 8 shows the rating scale statistics for
Impression.
Averagemeasuresadvancemonotonically with each category. All outfit
mean-squares are less than 2.0. All step difficultyincreases fall within 1.4 and 5.0, which does meet(3).

4) How well do scales conform to expectations
about their use? Do raters use all parts of them,and use them consistently?
Linacre (1997) has proposed guidelines for a rating
scale: (1) average category measures should
advance monotonically with each category, (2)outfit mean-squares should be less than 2.0, and (3)the step difficulty of each scale should advance byat least 1.4 logits and by no more than 5.0 logits.
Table 6 shows the rating scale statistics for
accuracy. Since higher category scores are intended
to reflect higher measures, the average category
measures are expected to rise. All outfit
mean-squares are less than 2.0, meaning that eachof the five categories has expected randomness inchoosing categories. All increases in step difficulty
fall within 1.4 and 5.0, which does meet (3).

Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5

Average
Measure
-5.87
-3.19
.55
2.96
5.05

Step
Difficulty
-4.97
-1.49
1.98
4.49

6) Do the raters score particular tasks moreharshly or more leniently than others? If so, what
are the sub-patterns of ratings in terms of rater-task

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

There is also evidence that detracts from themeasure’s validity. Table 10 shows the resulting
correlation coefficients for the relationship between
each of three raters’ scores and the Criterion score,
and they were statistically significant (p<.01) for
Task 1, Task 2 and impressionistic scoring. This
result supports the validity of the task-based writing
test including these three scores.

interaction for each rater?
There were two interactions with a significant bias
out of the entire 15 interactions. The interactions
that displayed a significant bias were distributed in
one rater (Rater 5), which indicate that Rater 5 isharsher on communicability and more lenient on
accuracy.
Bias/Interaction: 1. Raters, 3. Tasks

1. Accuracy

3. Tasks
2. Communicability

3. Impression

3

1. Raters: t-value relative-to-overall (+)

2

1

0

1
2
3
4
5

-1

-2

-3

7) To what extent, statistically, is the task-based
writing test a reliable and valid measure?
(1) Reliability
All raters displayed acceptable levels of consistency
with themselves, but there were significant
differences between raters in terms of severity. The
difference, based on fair average scores, is 0.65 of
one grade in the scale, suggesting that there would
be no impact on scores awarded in an operationalsetting. The analyses of the two tasks and theimpressionistic scoring show that no significant
difference occurs between the tasks and theimpressionistic scoring. The scoring forms do notappear to separate the subjects to a significant
degree. This means that in normal operations thethree scoring forms can be considered equivalent.
(2) Validity
An estimate of the item discrimination wascomputed according to a “Generalized Partial
Credit Model” approach. 1.0 is the expected value,
but discriminations in the range 0.5 to 1.5 provide a
reasonable fit to the Rasch model (Linacre, 2007,
p.132). All the estimates fall in this range (0.90,
1.05, 1.37), which indicates that the randomness inthe three sets of data fit the Rasch model. The twotasks and the impressionistic scoring were,
therefore, of relevance to dependent dataacquisition.
Table 10 Inter-rater correlation coefficients between
raters’ scores and the Criterion score
Rater
1
2
3
4
5
Avg.
T1
.71
.70
.65
.63
.60
.66
T2
.74
.71
.67
.70
.79
.72
IS
.74
.78
.70
.72
.68
.72
Note. T1=task1; T2=task 2; IS=impressionistic scoring

199

4. Discussion
The findings suggest that the TBWT scoring guide
may have contributed to the reduction of biased
interactions, but training for certain raters withhis/her unique bias patterns might still be required.
It was assumed that the scoring guide gave raters ashared understanding of the construct of writing
ability as defined by the test writers, and thus thescoring guide may effectively reduce thedifferences or biases caused by variation amongraters. However, as previous research suggests,
training and experience improve agreement amongraters (Shohamy et al., 1992; Weigle, 1994).
Lumley (2002) suggested that trained teacher raters
garner the benefit of training by simply coping withthe demanding task, shaping their naturalimpression to what they are required to do, andusing the scale to frame the descriptions of their
judgment of a text. This view of the function oftraining suggests that training plays an importantrole in influencing raters’ behavior, so it may
contribute to the variation in frequencies of biased
interactions.
From the results of the present study using
FACETS, three implications are drawn. First, fiveteacher raters were found to be self-consistent inscoring 20 different subjects’ writing performance.
However, there were relatively small but significant
differences in overall rater severity. In addition,
three of the five raters had a unique bias pattern
toward a certain type of text. Fit statistics analysisof the raters in this study suggested that training fora certain rater with his/her unique bias pattern could
have a major impact on rating behavior, meaningthat the rater facet does not necessarily represent a
problematic or validity-threatening part of thetesting process.
Second, the 5-point scales were found todemonstrate acceptable fit, and seemed to be a morereliable tool in determining the estimate of subjects’
writing ability. The scales associated with the fiverating categories and their specific written samples
were shown to be mostly comprehensible andusable by raters. However, it must be said that theraters in this study were all participants in the
pre-testing. Raters tend to increase their internalconsistency in assigning ratings as they gain
experience (Weigle, 1998). Whether new teacher

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

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raters are self-consistent in scoring the same writing
samples with the rating scales must be observed andconfirmed in further studies.
Finally, one source of score variance in thewriting performance test, task, was negligible interms of difficulty. The assessment tasks used inthis study provided reasonable fit to the Raschmodel. This result implies that task development
based on the construct-based processing approach
could be a reasonably solid basis to estimate
students’ writing ability, and those tasks may draw
valid inferences to their writing performance.
5. Conclusion
In the present study, the results showed that thestudents’ ability was effectively measured using thedeveloped elicitation tasks and five teacher raters,
and that all raters displayed acceptable levels of
consistency with themselves. There were, however,relatively small but significant differences amongraters in terms of severity. The bias analyses also
indicated three of the five raters were significantly
biased towards certain types of subjects, and theseraters’ bias patterns were unique. These findings
suggest that the TBWT scoring guide may havecontributed to the reduction of biased interactions,but training for certain raters with his/her uniquebias patterns might still be required.
The FACETS analysis for this study showedthat the difficulty of the two tasks and theimpressionistic scoring were considered equivalent,
which provided reasonable fit to the Rasch model.
The equivalence of task difficulty may indicate thattask development based on the construct-based
processing approach could be reliable and valid toestimate students’ writing ability. The rating scales
associated with the five categories and their specific
written samples were shown to be mostly
comprehensible and usable by raters, anddemonstrated acceptable fit. However, there is stillroom for argument about the reliability and validityof assessment tasks and rating scales.
References
Alderson, J.C., Clapham, C. and Wall, D.
(1995). Language test construction andevaluation.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press.
Bachman, L.F. and Palmer, A.S. (1996). Language
testing in practice: designing and developing
useful language tests. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Bachman, L.F. (2002). Some reflections on
task-based language performance assessment.
Language Testing 19, 453-76.
Brown, J.D. (1996). Testing in language
programs. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Incorporating Information Gap Activities in EFL ElementaryClassrooms
Chiou-hui Chou
National Hsinchu University of Education
joyce@mail.nhcue.edu.tw

Abstract
communicative language teaching (Littlewood,
2007; Nunan, 2003). More recently, as Nunan(2003) indicates, teachers are urged tomove on from earlier forms of CLT andintroduce task-based language teaching in Asia
(e.g., Hong Kong, Korea, and China).
Task-based teaching has been recognized as thelatestmethodologicalrealizationofcommunicative pedagogy” (Hu, 2005).
During the past decades, in keeping up withthe trend of initiating English programs inelementary education, most Asian countries have
implemented one-to-two English instruction
periods into their curriculum (e.g., Taiwan,
Japan, and Korea). For example, in Taiwan theGrade 1-9 Curriculum was implemented in 2001.
Following this new curriculum, English courses,
embedded in language arts, were officially
implemented for fifth and sixth graders with two
periods of instruction per week. Later, in 2003,
one 40-minute period of English course per
week was officially implemented for third andfourth graders. According to the curriculum
guidelines, the goal of English education
generally focuses on developing students’ basic
communicating competences, cultivating theirEnglish learning interests and habits, andintroducing international culture and social
customs. This is just an example of EFL context
in Taiwan. Other Asian countries might havedifferent polices.
However, rarely have researchers discussed
how communicative approach is applied inelementary
education.
Literatureoncommunicative approach has been discussed
prevalently in high schools and universities.
Little is known about how teachers can use
communicative activities in EFL elementary
classrooms. In order to gain insight into this
topic, this study investigates teachers’
experiences and perceptions of applying
communicative activities in their teaching. It
describes a project led by the researcher in an
inservice teacher training course, which guided agroup of teachers to incorporate information gap

In second language education, researchers
indicate that task-based teaching has beenrecognized as the latest methodologicalrealization of communicative pedagogy. How
can this approach be applied in EFL elementary
classrooms? What are teachers’ perceptions ofapplying information gap activities inelementary classrooms? This study sets out toexplore about the above questions. It reports a
project led by the researcher to guide a group ofteachers to incorporate information gap activities
in their English teaching for their professional
knowledge
development.
It
investigates
teachers’ perceptions and experiences ofapplying information gap activities in EFLelementary classrooms during their learning toteach in Taiwan. A questionnaire wasadministered to collect the data. It draws
conclusions from the aspects of teaching asecond language in terms of linguistic andpedagogical considerations. It finds thatteachers’ experiences of applying information
gap activities in EFL elementary classrooms
make them believe that information gap
activities can help students reinforce vocabulary
and grammatical structures, allow students to
use linguistic forms and functions in acommunicative way, and increases more student
engagement. It offers suggestions for TESOL
training programs to adopt a similar training
approach to help teachers to gain practicalexperiences of applying a theory into practice.

Keywords
information gap activities, EFL, task-based
instruction

1. Introduction
As Littlewood (2007) points out “educators andgovernments in Asian countries are intensively
addressing the need to increase the number ofpeople in their population who can communicate
effectively in English” (p. 243). In order toachieve this goal, national policies andsyllabuses have been moving towards

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These activities bring the language to life forlearners, (d) Learners have the opportunity to
use the building blocks of language we teachthem to speak in the target language, and (e)Learners have to be involved in their learning,
and not as passive instruments who seem to get
knowledge from others, but as active individuals
who practice what they learn.
Based on the above advantages, in order toactively engage students in speaking activities
based on a communicative approach, teachers
can design information gap activities forstudents to practice speaking English. Following
Pica’s (2005) perspectives on learning, teaching,
and research and other researchers’, this study
hopes to add examples to the literature oftask-based communicative language teaching.

activities in their English teaching for theirprofessional knowledge development.
2. Literature review
Why are information gap activities chosen? An
information gap activity involves the exchange
of information among participants in order tocomplete a task (Larsen-Freeman, 2000). As
Pica (2005) indicates, the information gap task is“characterized by several features: Only one
outcome or answer is considered possible,
appropriate, or correct, and reaching it requires averbal exchange of information among task
participants” (p. 341). This type of activity camefrom task-based teaching (Ellis, 2003; Nunan,
2004), which Richards (2005) explains as anextension of the CLT movement and which
Littlewoods (2004, 2007) regards as adevelopment
withinthecommunicative
approach, to develop learners’ communicativecompetence. It focuses on meaningfulinteraction while drawing students’ attention tolanguage forms (Long & Crookes, 1993). As
Willis and Willis (2007) point out, a focus onform means that “teachers isolate one or two
specific forms, specific grammatical structures
or functional realizations, and identify these as
the target forms” (p. 4). Also, learners know that“by the end of the teaching sequence, often
contained in a single lesson, they will be
expected to produce these forms with anacceptable level of accuracy” (p. 4). Thus,task-based teaching “aims primarily at helping
learners get ready to use the language in real-lifesituations” (p. 131). In addition, in form-focused
work, learners “work on recognizing ormanipulating the forms of the language in a
number of ways: conscious raising, recall,extension, correction, and exam practice” (p.
133).
Pica (2005) in her review article discusses
the contributions of information gap tasks as
seen from our learning, teaching, and research
perspectives, describes the issues and challenges
we have faced in integrating and implementing
them, and presents an approach that we havedeveloped for designing information gap tasks
both as authentic activities for teaching andlearning and as reliable instruments for research.
Teachers and researchers have shown that
information gap activities have the following
advantages: (a) They can reinforce vocabulary
and a variety of grammatical structures taught inclass; (b) They allow learners to use linguistic
forms and functions in a communicative way, (c)3. The study
The main purpose of this study is to explore
inservice teachers’ perceptions of applying
information gap activities in elementary
classrooms. These teachers volunteered to join
an English teacher certificate program offered by
the researcher’s university, funded by the bureauof education in their county. In order to be aqualified English teacher, the Ministry of
Education in Taiwan requires the bureau of
education in every county or city to hire teachers
who possess both an elementary teacher’s
certificate and an English teaching qualification.
This training program was offered to help
inservice teachers to be qualified as English
teachers in this county. In this program, there
were ten TESOL training courses, each of whichlasted for 36 hours. The focus group consisted oftwenty-one inservice teachers, eighteen females
and two males, all coming from the same county
as the researcher’s.
The present study used the data from oneof the courses taught by the researcher, which
was about designing English teaching andlearning activities and materials. In this course,
participants were required to complete two main
assignments, which were to plan two lessons by
incorporating information gap activities anddesigning the worksheets, and then to teach thelessons to a chosen class in their schools. They
chose the lessons from the textbooks theirstudents were using. During their teaching, they
videotaped their lessons and took snapshots.
Then, they shared their teaching video clips,
snapshots, and reflections with the peers during
their mid and final presentations. After eachpresentation, they gained insights and comments

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from the researcher and peers. Last, they wrote a
paper to reflect and report what they had learned
from the experiences.
The main portion of the data in this study
came from a post-course questionnaire (SeeAppendix A). The questionnaire was designedby the researcher. It consists of 14 items
measuring teachers’ perceptions of applying
information gap activities, using a 5-point Likert
scale (1: strongly disagree, 2: disagree, 3: neutral,
4: agree, and 5: strongly agree). It wasadministered to the twenty present participantsat the end of the course; 18 respondents returned
the questionnaires. A response rate of 90% wasachieved.

Three participants are novice teachers,
teaching less than five years. Ten participants
have been teaching for more than 5 and less than
10 years. Five participants have been teaching
more than 10 years. The average of theparticipants’ teaching year is 10.
Items 1 to 6 ask about participants’
perceptions of how information gap activities
can help students’ English learning in the aspectsof vocabulary, sentences, speaking, meaningfulcommunication, and structures. The results areshown in Table 2. The means of the six items areabove 4, indicating that participants agree that
applying information gap activities can help
students learn English better.

4. Results

Table 2: How Information Gap Activities Can
Help Students’ English Learning

4.1 An example
Figure 1 is an example of an information gap
activity designed by one of the participants. It
presents a basic format of worksheet A and B,
each of which has parts of information missing.

Items
M
1. …learn vocabulary better
4.1
2. …practice saying sentences better
4.4
3. …practice speaking more English
4.5
4. …have the purpose of practice English 4.2
5. …have meaningful communication
4.2
6. …learn English structures better
4.2
Note: The elipsis means the information has been
omitted.

Table 3 presents the results of Item 7 toItem 14. They show teachers’ feelings andexperiences of teaching with information gap
activities, the difficulties of using pairwork, theiropinions about applying this type of activity toteach lower graders, the time they spent indesigning the activities, and whether they would
value this type of activity in their future teaching.
All the results show teachers have positive
experiences in applying this type of activities sin
their teaching. However, they needed to spend a
lot of time and efforts designing this type ofactivity.

Figure 1: An Example of the Worksheets
The sentence structures and pictures wereadopted from students’ textbook. The sentence
structures are: What is your______ doing?
He’s_____. She’s _____. Learners have to workwith a partner and to use the sentence structures
to get the information to fill in the blanks.

Table 3: Teachers’ Perceptions of Teaching with
Information Gap Activities
Items
7. Ss did not like my teaching with IGA
8. IGA can’t attract ss’ … to learn Eng
9. …difficulties grouping ss… 1st IGA
10. …difficulties grouping ss… 2nd IGA
11. …not suitable for lower graders
12. I won’t use IGA in my future teaching
13. … spend a lot of time designing IGA
14. I will design IGA in my future teaching

4.2 The data
Table 1 shows teachers’ years of teaching inelementary schools.
Table 1: Teachers’ Years of Teaching
Years of Teaching
0-5 years
6-10 years
11 plus years
Total

Number
3
10
5
18

M
1.8
2
2.4
2.1
3.2
2
3.8
4.4

Item 7 asks, “My students did not like myteaching with information gap activities.” The203

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

require pairwork. Did the teachers havedifficulties grouping the students? The results ofthis study show teachers are capable of dealing
with this type of situation. One possible reason
might be that most of the teachers are veteransand they have more sophisticated skills inclassroom management. In this study, teachers
did not show they had difficulty using pairwork.
As this study engages inservice teachers in the
research, other studies that engage novice
teachers or pre-service teachers might yield
different results.
Thirdly, modern second language teachingapproaches
emphasize
learner-centeredclassrooms. Using pairwork or groupwork
activities to engage learners in learning arecommon.
Task-based
instruction
alsoemphasizes learner-centered instruction. As Paul
(2003) talks about learner-centered classrooms,
he notices that many Asian EFL learners do nothave the language ability to work on complex
projects in groups, but he suggests that “at least
they are able to do simpler activities where they
are cooperating together” (p. 30). He thus
recommends some possible activities thatteachers can encourage children to cooperatewith each other. One of the activities is the
puzzle project, which I think has the same
meaning to promote cooperative learning indoing information gap activities. In an
informatin gap ctivity, in order to complete eachassigned speaking task, learners have tocollaborate with the partner to solve the problem.
Information gap activities require learners to be
active learners, not as passive knowledge
receivers. In order to help the young learners tobe active participants in speaking activities,
teachers have to pay more attention to provide
language supports for students. The information
gap activity can provide sufficient language
supports for learners to practice speaking before
they can speak freely. It thus increases more
student engagement. In addition, in pairwork,
the learner may engage with “more capable
others (teachers, advanced peers, etc.), who may
provide assistance and guidance” (Oxford, 1997).
Thus, this type of activity creates more
opportunities for EFL learners to have more realexperiences
for
using
Englishforcommunication. It may contribute to increasing
the number of people who can communicate
effectively in English (Littlewood, 2007; Nunan,
2003).
Lastly, for second language teachers andresearchers, this study presents an example ofmean of this item is 1.8, which indicates thatteachers thought students liked their teachingwith the activities. Item 8 asked, “Information
gap activities can’t attract students’ interests tolearn English.” The mean of this item is 2,
indicating that teacher disagreed with thisstatement. Examining Items 7 and 8, the study
finds that teachers’ perceptions of students’
feedbacks about the teaching of information gap
activities are positive.
Item 9 asks, “I had difficulties grouping
students to do the first information gap activity.”
Similarly, Item 10 asks about the difficulties inthe second activity. The means of the two items
are 2.4 and 2.1, respectively, indicating teachers
did not have difficulties in grouping students.
Item 11 asked, “I think information gap
activities are not suitable for lower graders.” Themean is 3.2, indicating teachers did not agreewith this statement. Item 12 asked, “I won’t use
information gap activities in my future teaching.
The mean is 2, showing they did not agree withthis statement. Item 14 asks a similar question,“I will design information gap activities in myfuture teaching.” The mean is 4.4, showing thatteachers are likely to design the activities in theirteaching.
Item 13 asks, “I need to spend a lot of time
designing information gap activities.” The meanis 3.8, showing teachers slightly agree with thisstatement.

5. Discussion
Firstly, information-gap activities include a
tremendous variety of techniques in whichlearners are either to convey or to request
information. They give learners opportunities topractice using both the language forms of asking
and answering. Linguistically, they drawlearners’ attentions to “focus on forms.” They
reinforce vocabulary and grammatical structures
taught in class, and they allow learners to use
linguistic forms and functions in acommunicative way (Pica, 2005). As EFL
elementary learners have limited exposure tointeractive language learning contexts andinstruction hours per week, this study shows thatteachers find information gap activities not only
can help elementary students have the necessityof communicative interaction but also attract
their attention to linguistic forms as well (Willis& Willis, 2007) . Thus, teachers think that thistype of activity can help learners be equippedwith linguistic forms better.
Secondly, information gap activities

204Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

trainees to explore about the language teaching
principles, to explore about the process ofengaging learners, and to reflect and share theirlearning results. By setting up a sound training
program, we can help more teachers to gosmoothly in their teaching career, which willthen benefit more successful EFL learners.

applying and adapting task-based approach in an
EFL elementary context (see Littlewood, 2007).
It demonstrates how teachers can apply alanguage teaching approach into a realclassroom practically. It advocates that only ifteachers are well-equipped with the knowledgeof modern language teaching approaches, will
they be able to confidently move forward intheir teaching career successfully. I thus argue
that a solid and fundamental TESOL training
program is imperative to promote teacher
efficacy. Furthermore, providing an opportunity
for teachers to conduct a lesson and demonstrate
their teaching in a training course like the ones
proposed in this study can help trainees todevelop their professional knowledge and learn
how to apply theories into real teaching practice.

7. References and appendices7.1 References
Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching byprinciples: An interactive approach tolanguage pedagogy (2nd ed.). Longman.
Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based learning andteaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hu, G. W. (2005). English language educationin China: Policies, progress, and problems.
Language Policy, 4(1), 5-24.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques andprinciples in language teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Lee, J. F., & VanPatten, B. (1995). Making
communicative language teaching
happen. McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Littlewood, W. (2004). The task-based
approach: Some questions and suggestions.
ELT Journal, 58(4), 319-326.
Littlewood, W. (2007). Communicative andtask-based language teaching in East
Asian classrooms. Language Teaching,40, 243-249.
Nunan, D. (2003). The impact of English asa global language on educational
polices and practices in the Asia-Pacificregion. TESOL Quarterly, 37(4),589-613.
Nunan, D. (2004). Task-based teaching.
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Oxford, R. (1997). Cooperative learning,collaborative learning, and interaction:
Three communicative strands in thelanguage classroom. Modern Language
Journal 81(4), 443-56.
Richards, C. (2005). Communicative
language teaching today. Singapore:
RELC.
Paul, D. (2003). Teaching English to children in
Asia. Hong Kong: Longman.
Pica, T. (2005). Classroom learning,teaching, and research: A task-based
perspective. The Modern Language
Journal, 89(3), 339-52.
Long, M., & Crookes, G. (1993). Units ofanalysis in syllabus design: The case

6. Conclusion
This study investigated teachers’ perceptions andexperiences of applying information gap
activities in EFL elementary classrooms during
their learning to teach in Taiwan. It has
demonstrated an example of putting theory into
practice based on task-based instruction in favorof communicative approach. In sum, it draws theconclusions from the aspects of teaching alanguage in terms of linguistic and pedagogicalconsiderations. It finds that teachers’ experiencesof applying information gap activities in EFLelementary classrooms make them believe that
this type of task can help learners achieve better
language accuracy and fluency, creates more realcommunication opportunities for learners, andincreases more student engagement.
In conclusion, second language teachers
are continually exploring pedagogical means foreducating more successful language learners.
This study finds by maximizing the classroom
opportunities for learners to practice speaking
through communicative activities such as
information gap activities, we can get ourlearners to develop not only linguistic fluency,
but also accuracy. Moreover, inviting teachers toapply a teaching method in the training course
helps them know how they can apply thelanguage teaching approach to their realteaching context, which also promotes theirprofessional knowledge development.
Thus, this study suggests that TESOL
training programs can follow this line ofresearch and training method to help teachers
gain authentic experiences of applying theories
into practice. In the training, TESOL trainers andresearchers can provide opportunities for the205Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

for task. In G. Crookes and S. Gass(eds.), Tasks in a pedagogical context.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Willis, D., & Willis., J. (2007). Doingtask-based teaching. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
7.2 Appendices
Appendix A. The Questionnaire
Items
1. Information gap activities canhelp students learn vocabulary
better.
2. Information gap activities canhelp students practice saying
sentences better.
3. Information gap activities canhelp students practice speaking
more English.
4. Information gap activities canhelp students have the purposeof practice speaking English.
5. Information gap activities canhelp students have meaningfulcommunication with peers.
6. Information gap activities canhelp students learn English
structures better.
7. My students did not like myteaching with information gap
activities.
8. Information gap activities can’t
attract students’ interests to learn
English.
9. I had difficulties grouping
students to do the first
information gap activity.
10. I had difficulties grouping
students to do the second
information gap activity.
11. I think information gap
activities are not suitable forlower graders.
12. I won’t use information gap
activities in my future teaching.
13. I need to spend a lot of time
designing information gap
activities.
14. Once in a while, I will design
information gap activities in
my future teaching.

Mean
4.1

4.4

4.5

4.2

4.2

4.2

1.8

2

2.4

2.1

3.2

2
3.8

4.4

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Greetings and EFL Teachers
James Martin Ronald1 and Timothy Floyd Hawthorne2

1
2

Faculty of Humanities, Hiroshima Shudo University

International Exchange Center, Hiroshima International University

ronald@shudo-u.ac.jp, h-timoth@it.hirokoku-u.ac.jp

and, out of class, either to greet and have shortconversations with the students in English or tofacilitate such conversational opportunities. Thissecond role is of particular importance inenvironments in which there are few other English
speakers or opportunities to use the target language.
In order for teachers to fulfill these roles
satisfactorily, we need to know what our students
already know, and to know what they need or wantto know. We focused on greetings, partly for theircrucial role in short conversations, and partly
because we felt that awareness raising and teachingin this area were most likely to produce tangible
results.
This research is conducted with university
students in two provincial universities in Japan, formost of whom there is little or no contact withEnglish speakers other than their teachers outside
the classroom. In order to gain some understandingof the range of knowledge and preferences ofstudents at university level, we decided to focus on
two types or levels of English learner: false
beginners with little ability or confidence in using
English; and students majoring in English who are
more able and confident about using the language.
Our study involved the administration of aquestionnaire in which students were asked to rate
preferences regarding greetings to be used outsideclass, or to be learned or practiced in class.
Following in-class focus on the learning andpractice of greetings over a two-three week period,
the same questionnaire was administered a second
time.

Abstract
Greetings are a typical part of many conversations,
yet for less confident language learners they may
represent a particular challenge, either resulting in a
feeling of success or of failure. More proficientlearners, however, may feel limited by basic
greetings and want to learn and use a wider range ofgreetings. There were three main reasons forfocusing on greetings: they preface muchperson-to-person interaction; success or failure in
their use may directly impact learner motivation;
and, finally, greetings may be effectively taught.
This research is conducted with students in
two provincial Japanese universities, for most ofwhom there is little or no contact with English
speakers outside the classroom. We decided tofocus on two types of learner: false beginners withlittle ability or confidence in using English andmore able and confident students majoring in
English. Our study involved the administration of aquestionnaire in which students were asked to rate
preferences regarding greetings to be used outsideclass, or to be learned or practiced in class.
Following in-class focus on the learning andpractice of greetings over a two-three week period,
the same questionnaire was administered a second
time.

Keywords
Pragmatic competence, failure, greetings

1

Introduction

Especially at beginner or false-beginner level,
communicating in a foreign language outside theclassroom can be a high risk venture. Attempts at
communication, or even simple greetings, mayeasily result in misunderstandings and confusion,and cause the learner to be discouraged. On theother hand, successful conversations in the target
language, however short, may be exhilarating andmotivating experiences.
The EFL teacher has two main roles withregard to out-of-class communication: in class, toprepare students to cope with these language needs

1.1
OutlineFollowing the Introduction, in the Literature
Review we will consider issues relating to greetings,
such as cultural issues, pragmatic failure, adjacency
pairs, and the teachability of pragmatic competencein this area. We will then report our research,
together with research questions and results, before
going on to report our findings. Finally, based on
this preliminary study, we will offer suggestions forEnglish teachers’ use and teaching of greetings both207

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

An issue related to the surface reading of greetings
is that of the extent of freedom of choice of
response to greetings. Schegloff and Sacks (1973)
describe how adjacency pairs, such as greeting andresponse, are not fixed word-for-word exchanges,
but that the response must be chosen from one of a
few types of second pair parts. Both Yamada (1997:49) and Stephens (2003) point out the relative fixityof greeting response types in Japanese as comparedwith English, and suggest the consequences that it
may have for successful communication. Yamada
explains this as follows: “The Japanese prefer favor
conventional greetings to responses, while
Americans prefer ones that are more individualized.
This does not mean that American responses are
altogether original, but that a variation from “Finethank you, and you?” is considered more interesting
and more hip – in short, preferable” (1997: 49).

in and out of the language classroom.

2

Literature Review

Greetings, as many dictionaries implicitly testify,
typically do not mean something. “Hello”, forexample, does not mean something; rather, it isused in a particular context to acknowledge
someone's presence, with intonation and bodylanguage often conveying the speaker's attitude
regarding that person's presence.
While the speech act of greeting is as familiar
to Japanese speakers as it is to English speakers, therange of greetings and responses available in eachlanguage, together with the pressure to perform,
may render this seemingly simple act complex andconfusing.
The choices available in greeting and responsetypes leads us to three related areas of research:language and culture; adjacency pairs, andpragmatic competence or failure. Finally, we willaddress the question of whether pragmaticcompetence, specifically relating to greetings, issomething that can be taught.

2.3
Pragmatic failure
Japanese learners’ selection of such dispreferred
responses is found not only in direct culturalpreferences but also in classroom learning ofgreetings and responses which may leave manywith the perception that “Fine thank you, and you?”is the only acceptable response to “How are you?”
Stephens, again, addresses the issue of teacher
responsibility to help learners overcome these
problems: “Pragmatic failure must be addressed by
the teacher because of the danger of creating
misunderstanding. If the speaker's intent is notcommunicated accurately [...] misunderstanding
may ensue” (2003).

2.1
Language and culture
Our starting point in focusing on similarities anddifferences is similar to the goal stated by Brown
and Levinson (1987: 56), “to show that superficial
diversities can emerge from underlying universal
principles and are satisfactorily accounted for only
in relation to them”. Indeed, it is often the failure to
identify the universal in differently expressedgreetings that causes confusion. Yamada (1997: 49)
gives the following example: “When Americans ask
each other “What’s happening?” they don’t reallymean for you to give them a complete summary ofwhat has happened to you since you last saw them.
Unless you are good friends and have a chance tosit down and chat, a greeting like, “What’s up?” istreated as a conventional expression like “How areyou?”
As Stephens (2003) points out, learners ofJapanese are just as likely to be misled by thesurface meaning of greetings in that language:“Like the English greeting “How are you?” theJapanese equivalents odekake desu ka (“Are you
going out?”), kaimono desu ka (“Are you going
shopping?”) or dochira made desu ka (“Where areyou going?”), are not requests for information anddo not require a direct answer”. This situation,
leading to pragmatic failure, is described byThomas (1983) as “the inability to understand what
is meant by what is said”. Such pragmatic failure
with greetings may have dire consequences for thewhole conversation.
2.2

2.4
Teachability of greetings
This issue of teacher responsibility, finally, brings
us to the question of whether pragmatic competence,
specifically that relating to greetings, will either betransferred from the learner’s L1 or acquired
through observation of, and interaction with,speakers of the target language. In other words, thatit does not require attention in the language
classroom. Kasper (1997) has addressed thisquestion in detail. As she points out, “somepragmatic knowledge is universal, and other aspects
may be successfully transferred from the learners’
L1”. She also notes that learners often fail to takeadvantage of this and transfer L1 pragmatic
knowledge for application in the L2. This may beespecially true of peoples, and languages, which arecommonly seen as being very different from eachother, as Japanese and Americans or the Japaneseand English languages are. The tendency to literalinterpretation of greetings rather than a recognitionof shared pragmatic value, is a case in point.
As for opportunities for learning throughcontact with target language speakers, this is only a

Adjacency pairs
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

levels of ability, motivation, and interest in English
typical of students in each field.
For these participants the study comprised thetwo administrations of the survey described above,and focused teaching informed by the first survey
results in the three weeks between the surveys.
Specifically, the teaching involved explicit
explanation and practice of response choices bothfor familiar greetings such as "How are you?" or"How are you doing?" and for greetings lesscommonly encountered in the language class, suchas "What's up?" or "Holding down thefort?".

realistic option if such contact exists outside thepassive media of television and cinema. Where it
does not, the responsibility for addressing areas oflikely pragmatic failure remains with the teacher.
This brings us to the question of whether pragmatic
routines such as greetings can be effectively taught.
Kasper (1997), following a review of research into
teaching areas of pragmatic competence, concludes
that pragmatic routines can indeed be successfullytaught to foreign language learners with lower
levels of proficiency. This conclusion leads us toour study, in which through awareness-raising anddirect teaching or practice we aimed to do precisely
that.

3.

3.2
Results
Sets of data drawn from the two surveys arepresented below in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1 shows
general participant preferences for out-of-class useof greetings for each group of participants
according to their major at university as expressedboth prior to the classroom focus on greetings (Pre)and at the end of the study (Post), while Table 2
provides data for preferences for in-class teachingand practice of the greetings.

Research and Results

Our study was focused on Japanese language
learners' knowledge of, and attitudes towards,
greetings used in English. We addressed threequestions through our research:
1. With which English greetings would ourlearners prefer to be greeted outside class? Whatvariation is there for different proficiency levelclasses?
2. Which greetings do they want to learn orpractice? What variation is there for different
proficiency level classes?
3. What change in responses are there following
in-class focus on greetings?

3.2.1
Out-of-class preferences
As Table 1 shows, there was considerable
difference for overall preferences among the groupsof participants, with English Department students
selecting Often or Sometimes for a total of over
90% of greetings as compared with around % for
Nursing students and 57% for Pharmaceutical
Science students. Regarding differences between
the first and second administration of thequestionnaire, there was very little difference
overall.

3.1
Instruments, participants, and teaching
The research instrument, a basic questionnaire (seeAppendix A), required the students to rate a set of
24 English greetings according to whether theywould wish to be greeted with these outside class,and to whether they wished to learn or practice thegreetings in class. Specifically, for each greeting,participants were first asked to indicate thefrequency with which they would want the greeting
to be used to address them outside class, choosing
between Sometimes, Often, and Never. Then, for thesame set of greetings, participants were asked foreach greeting whether they wanted to learn orpractice the greeting in class: Learn, Practice, orNot do. To avoid the first question having an undue
influence on answers for the second, questionnaires
were folded in half so that only one question or theother would be visible at one time. The survey wasadministered one more time, around four weeks
later.
A total of 86 participants, mostly aged 18 to 21,
took part in the study: these included classes of
Nursing students, of Pharmaceutical Sciences
students, and of English Department students. The
reason for including groups of students withdifferent majors was not so much concerned with
their particular field of study as with the varying

Table 1: Greeting preferences for out of class
Pharmacy Nursing English
No.
135
245
187
%
19.4
27.6
43.3
Post Often No.
256
331
207
%
38.1
36.3
47.9
Pre Some- No.
479
516
212
times
%
68.8
58.2
49.1
Post Some- No.
384
488
186
times
%
57.1
53.5
43.1
Pre Never No.
82
126
33
%
11.8
14.2
7.6
Post Never No
32
93
39
%
4.8
10.2
9.0
Note: Asterisk for figures not available when submitted
Pre

Often

In addition to the figures above, it is worth looking
at the most and least popular greetings for teachers
to use with students outside class. The top fivegreeting for each participant group was as follows:
Pharmaceutical Sciences: Hi!, Hello!, How are209

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

you?, Nice day, isn’t it?, and How are you doing?
Nursing: Hi!, Hello!, How are you?, Nice day, isn’tit?, and How are you doing?.
English: Hi!, Hello!, How are you?, How are you
doing?, and Nice day, isn’t it?.
The least popular greetings were:
Pharmaceutical Sciences: How’s the family?,
Holding down the fort?, Keeping out of trouble?,
Keeping up with your studies?, and Getting much
sleep lately?.
Nursing:
English: Keeping out of trouble?, How’s life beentreating you?, How’s the family?, Getting much
sleep lately?, and Holding down the fort?.
Table 2: Preferences for in-class learning andpractice.
Pharmacy Nursing English
No.
313
392
*
%
45.0
46.7
Post Learn No.
306
245
141
%
51.0
30.0
32.6
Pre
Prac- No.
335
370
*
tice
%
48.1
44.0
Post Prac- No.
257
500
273
tice
%
42.8
61.3
63.2
Pre Not do No.
48
78
*
%
6.9
9.3
Post Not do No
37
71
18
%
6.2
8.7
4.2
Note: 1. Asterisk denotes figures not available at time ofsubmission
Pre

Learn

The top three greetings for learning were as
follows:
Pharmaceutical Sciences: Holding down thefort?What’s new with you? How are you holdingup?
Nursing: How’s life been treating you?, Holding
down the fort?, and How are you holding up?.
English: How’s life been treating you?, Holding
down the fort?, and How are you holding up?.
For practicing, these were the most chosen
greetings:
Pharmaceutical Sciences: Hi!, How are you?, andHello!.
Nursing: Hello!, Nice day, isn’t it?, and How are
you doing?.
English: Hello!, What’s new?, and How are you?.
We will now go on to consider these results indetail.

1. With which English greetings would ourlearners prefer to be greeted outside class? Whatvariation is there for different proficiency levelclasses?
As we saw in the Results section above, thelargest number of participants selected the mostfamiliar and basic greetings as those with which
they would prefer to be addressed on campus: Hi!,
Hello!, How are you?, Nice day, isn’t it?, and How
are you doing? The same few greetings were,
surprisingly, most popular among all three groupsof participants, including the more confident andcapable English Department students. However, acloser look at the figures shows that the highresponse rates of Often and Sometimes for the
majority of greetings for these participants resulted
in the near universally Often rated being counted as
most popular; in other words, less confident
participants within this group had the “voting
power” to relegate other greetings to the not quite
so popular level. Another valid interpretation of thedata may be to consider that participants would
consider the everyday greetings they selected as
suitable to be used, literally, every day, while lessfamiliar greetings were less familiar precisely
because they are used less frequently. This
impression may not be accurate, and based onclassroom or textbook-mediated exposure to
English, since, at least for native speakers of theirage, greetings such as “What’s new?” or “What’sup?” may be used at least as frequently as the moreprosaic “How are you?”.
The gap between Often and Sometimes wasoften greater in Pharmaceutical Science andNursing groups, suggesting that while they felt
ready for the most familiar of greetings, theygenerally did not wish to be greeted with the othergreetings about which they were not confident.
Finally, regarding the Pharmaceutical Science
students, one interesting response was the
popularity of the less common greeting “How’s
your health?”. While in the world in general, thismight be seen as a less common greeting, or a more
specific one, in the world of health care it iscertainly an everyday greeting; it is precisely thisworld for which this group of participants is being
prepared.
2. Which greetings do they want to learn andpractice? What variation is there for different
proficiency level classes?
As is clear from their answers, the majority ofparticipants differentiated between learning andpracticing. As a rule, unfamiliar or unusual
greetings were identified as ones that mostparticipants wanted to learn:

4.
Discussion
We will begin by returning to address the threequestions raised earlier. As we do this, we willconsider why we obtained the results we did, andinclude any further data that may be relevant tothese questions.
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How’s life been treating you?, Holding down thefort?, and How are you holding up?.
This raises a couple of issues. It may be perfectly
reasonable that language learners are drawn tolanguage that they do not know yet. At the sametime, it is important for learners to have a sense of
the words and phrases they need to learn out of all
the whole target language.
3. What change in responses are there following
in-class focus on greetings?
There was surprisingly little change in thisarea, most probably due to the short length of thelearning period of this study. Generally, though,responses suggested increased interest andconfidence in using greetings that were previously
less well known.
5.
Conclusion
This study has been of value largely in bringing toour attention the importance of greetings, and in
identifying greetings that learners want to know.
Teachers need to be sensitive to these questions so
as to do the best for their learners both in and out ofclass.

References
Brown, P., & Levinson, S.C. Politeness: Some
universals in language usage. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Kasper, G. (1997). Can pragmatic competence betaught?
Hawaii:
SecondLanguage
Teaching and Curriculum Center.
Schegloff, E.A., & Sacks, H. (1973). Opening up
closings. Semiotica 8: 289-327.
Stephens, M. (2003). Sources of Pragmatic Failure
by Japanese EFL Learners: A Discussion ofGreetings and Leave-Taking. Studies in the
Humanities and Sciences, Hiroshima Shudo
University, 44, 1, 373-390.
Thomas, J. (1983). Cross-cultural pragmatic failure.
Applied Linguistics, 4 (2), 91-112.
Yamada, H. (1997). Different games, different rules:
Why Americans and Japanese misunderstand each other. New York: Oxford
University Press.

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Appendix A. Title of Appendix A.
学生のみなさんへ
次のアンケートへの協力をお願いします。英語のあいさつに関する 2 種類の質問に答えてください。これはテストではなく、成績に関係するものではありませんが、授業の内外で教師の参考にさせてもらいます。協力ありがとうございます。紙を半分に折って始めてください。
Tim Hawthorne
教室外(例えばキャンパス内、食堂など)で、あな
たは次のどのあいさつを外国人の英語の先生からしてもらいたいと思いますか？
下の欄に O, S, X から選んで書き入れてください。
O＝Often(よくこのあいさつをしてもらいたい）
S＝Sometimes(時々このあいさつをしてもらいたい)
X ＝Never(ぜったいこのあいさつをしてほしくない)

教室内で、あなたは次のどのあいさつを教えてもらいたいですか？または練習したいですか？
下の欄に L, P, X から選んで書き入れてください。
L＝Learn(授業でこのあいさつを習いたい。まだ知らない)P＝Practice(授業でこのあいさつを使う練習をしたい。もう知っている)
X＝Not do
(授業でこのあいさつを習いたくない、練習
したくない)_____ What’s up?

_____ What’s up?

_____ Hi!

_____ Hi!

_____ How’s it going?

_____ How’s it going?

_____ What’s new?

_____ What’s new?

_____ How’s life been treating you?

_____ How’s life been treating you?

_____ How are you doing?

_____ How are you doing?

_____ How are things going?

_____ How are things going?

_____ How have you been?

_____ How have you been?

_____ How’s the family?

_____ How’s the family?

_____ Nice day, isn’t it?

_____ Nice day, isn’t it?

_____ How are you getting along?

_____ How are you getting along?

_____ Staying busy?

_____ Staying busy?

_____ Keeping out of trouble?

_____ Keeping out of trouble?

_____ Getting much sleep lately?

_____ Getting much sleep lately?

_____ Hello!

_____ Hello!

_____ Holding down the fort?

_____ Holding down the fort?

_____ How are things with you?

_____ How are things with you?

_____ How are you?

_____ How are you?

_____ Keeping up with your studies?

_____ Keeping up with your studies?

_____ How’s your health?

_____ How’s your health?

_____ How are you holding up?

_____ How are you holding up?

_____ How are you getting on?

_____ How are you getting on?

_____ How are your classes?

_____ How are your classes?

_____ What’s new with you?

_____ What’s new with you?

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Interaction of Native and Target Phonology in Learner Speech:
A Study of Korean English
Yunju Heo, Jin Hyun Kim and Jong-mi Kim

Department of English Language and Literature, Kangwon National University
excelsior8@hanmail.net, tgjykh@hanmail.net, kimjm@kangwon.ac.kr

studying the comparative rules in L1 and L2
alternation. To answer these, we make a working
hypothesis that to resist L1 phonology interferenceis easier than to acquire the L2 phonology ofalternation.

Abstract
In the development of learner speech, we expect
both the decreasing interference of native
phonology and the increasing acquisition of target
phonology. We examine how these two types ofphonological interaction occur as the learnerproficiency increases.
For this study, we collected 2672 word data of
L1 English, L2 English, and L1 English loanwords,
which were elicited from 124 Korean adult learnersof American English and 23 native speakers of
Korean and English. Learners were tested for thelistening proficiency in terms of a standardized test
TOEIC as a covariance unit, and scaled into fiveranks. We measured the acoustic features that are
relevant to the phonological phenomena in Korean
and English. We focused on l-alternation in Korean
and deaspiration rule in English.
Our results show that the learner speech resists
the native phonology interference in significantly
earlier stage of second language acquisition than thestage when the target phonology is acquired.
Furthermore, the error rate drops drastically after
instruction to indicate that an explicit instruction iseffective to phonological acquisition of the learnerspeech.

(1) HYPOTHESIS 1: Learner speech avoids thenative phonology interference faster than theacquisition of target phonology rules.
The answer to the question of native versus target
phonology transition may depend on thedevelopmental aspects of learner speech, because
studies have shown that learner speechprogressively assimilate to the value of the target
speech (L2) as the proficiency increases (Han,2006; Kim et al., 2006). In other words, there is apossibility that learner speech in its early stage issimilar to the form of L1 or loanword phonology,
and later develops toward the target value as L2
fluency increases. We thus make another working
hypothesis that resisting L1 phonology interferenceis easier than acquiring the L2 phonology ofalternation.
(2) HYPOTHESIS 2: According to the increase of
the L2 proficiency, the learner speech resists L1
phonology interference and acquire the L2
phonology of alternation.

Keywords
English loanwords into Korean, Korean learnerspeech of English, English rule of de-aspiration,
Korean rule of l-alternation, learner speech,
loanword phonology

1

Hypothesis 2 can be confirmed if a cross-sectionalor longitudinal study in learner speech shows adevelopmental transition of decreased insertion anddeletion in L2 words.
The hypothesis on developmental enhancement,
however, is controversial in literature, as Scovel(1988) claims that adult learners improveinsignificantly in foreign pronunciation. We,
therefore, investigate our second question: Whether
or not learner speech develops from the form ofloanword phonology toward the form of target
speech.
We investigate the developmental enhancement
by using both a cross-sectional and longitudinal

Introduction

Will easier or harder be the elimination of native
phonology than the acquisition of target
phonology? Previous studies show that there are
varying degrees of acquisition rate in L2 speech, foreasier elimination of vowel insertion by L1
interference (Park & Kim, 2008), easier acquisitionof stress assignment rules of L2 (Kim, 2005), anddifficult acquisition of vowel reduction in L2 (Kim,
Flynn & Oh, 2007). The discrepancy in results
observed between tasks may be resolved by213

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

methods. The longitudinal method is to test
cognitive and affective factors in adult language
learning -- such as the role of attention and theimportance of motivation in learning, as Schmidt(1995) claims, “In order to acquire phonology, onemust attend to phonology” (Schmidt, 1995: 17).
The following sections test these two
hypotheses by means of a set of acoustic andperceptual phonetic experiments.

2

2.1

Speech materials

Three types of speech materials and the recording
lists were used: 1) recorded L1 Korean speechmaterials of English loanwords in Korean context,2) recorded L1 and L2 English speech materials ofEnglish words in English context, 3) listening test
materials in English for Korean learners to serve as
co-variance reference to the development in speech
production.
The listening test materials were the listening
component of Test Of English for International
Communication (TOEIC). Two TOEIC listening
tests were used as a standardized test to recognize
the improvement of listening comprehension before
and after instruction.
For recorded speech materials, the native andlearner participants read words in isolation, andthose embedded in English or Korean contexts.
Table 1 is the recording list, in which underlined are
the segments to contrast for L1 and L2 rule
application. The Korean context is romanizedaccording to the Official Romanization System of
Korean.

MethodIn order to accomplish our objective, we
administered the phonetic experiment thatcomprises four sub-experiments on native andlearner speech in cross-sectional and longitudinalstudies. The four sub-experiments are on: 1) Koreannative speech of English loanwords in Korean
context, 2) English native speech of the English
loanwords in English context, 3) Korean learnerspeech of the English loanwords in English context
by a cross-sectional study, 4) Korean learner speechof the English loanwords in English context by alongitudinal study. Each sub-experiment useddifferent sets of speech materials, participants, andthe data acquisition steps.

Table 1: Recording list for L1 and L2 rule application in L2 English words, spoken by L1 Korean speakers.
L1 and L2
(a)
(b)
(c)
Words in English context
Words in Korean context
phonology Words in isolation
1. geuneun inlaine seukeiteu seonsuya.
Korean1. light [r]1. We like inline skates. [r](He is an in-line skate player.)rules of2.only [nn / ll]
2. Where are they playing tennis?
liquid
2. oneul peulei eottaetseo?
[r]alternation 3. plate [r](How was play today?)
1. apple [p=]1. I have four apples.[p=]1. eoje aepeul keompyuteoreul sasseo.
English2. application [p=] 2. Fill in the application form.[p=] (I bought an apple computer yesterday.)rules ofaspiration 3. screen [k=]2. yeonghwa “seukeurim”
3. I screamed at him.[k=]alternation 4. splendid [p=]4. How splendid the idea was.[p=] gaebonghaettae.
(The movie “scream” was released.)
5. style [t=]5. I stared at her. [t=]Words in Table 1 are subject to the phonologicalalternation of Korean and English segments. For
Korean rules of liquid alternation, Korean has asingle phoneme for liquid phones, that becomes [r]in onset and [l] in coda of a syllable (e.g., [r]for light and [l] for tile). The phoneme triggers theassimilation of sonorants, to make the input soundsequence nl to either [nn] or [ll] (e.g., only). The
phoneme is expected to become a geminate lateral[ll] in an onset cluster as in the word slide (Official
Loanword Transcription Regulations, Art.6, sec.1).
In comparison, English rules of alternation in
Table 1 show various kinds of aspiration alternation.
Stop consonants in English are not aspirated in an
unstressed syllable as in apple, or after an onset [s]as in screen.

The recording lists in columns (a) and (c) wereused to obtain L1 Korean speech materials ofEnglish loanwords in Korean context, while thelists in columns (a) and (b) were to obtain L1 andL2 English speech materials of English words in
English context.
2.2

Participants

Research participants consisted of 11 Korean native
speakers who read English loanwords in Korean
context, 12 native speakers of American English
and 124 Korean learners of English who read theEnglish loanwords to Korean in English context.
All native speakers spoke the General
American English, while learners the Standard214

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

South Korean as their native
language.
Thelearner'sEnglish proficiency levelvaried with respect to thescale of five ranks inaccordance to TOEIC score.
We then putatively used thescaling of score intervals in
TOEIC Can-Do Guide (2000)
as co-variance units for ouranalysis. 1 This follows thedevelopmental effects that themore proficient the speaker is,
the more target-like the Figure 1: Illustration of an incorrectly produced nasal [n] for the target
perception of the target sound liquid [l] in L2 English word only, spoken by a female Korean learner.
is for the listener.
loanwords in English context by a longitudinal
study, the procedure consisted of three stages: 1)
2.3 Data acquisition procedure
pre-listening and production tests after a brief listen
The data acquisition procedure varied for all fourand repeat practice of the recording stimuli, 2)
sub-experiments. For the first sub-experiment,
pronunciation instruction in class for 7 weeks that
where we aquired Korean native speech of English
included many different aspects of pronunciation
loanwords, we used the following three stages ofincluding, but not focused on, avoiding the Koreaneliciting the reading speech. At the first stage, thel-alternation and applying the English de-aspiration
Korean native speakers were given the English
rules, and 3) post-listening and production tests onword list in English alphabet, and asked tothe same data after 7 weeks, and again on thetranscribe the words into Korean alphabet. The
different data after next 7 weeks.
transcription was done for the words in isolation. At
the next stage, the speakers were given the Korean
2.4 Analysis
sentence list where the English loanwords are
We measured the acoustic features that are relevant
embedded hidden in empty blanks. The speakers areto the phonological phenomena in Korean andthen asked to fill in the blanks by copying down
English. To evidence the application of Korean rule
their own previously transcribed English loanwordsof l-alternation, we identified the expected L2
in Korean alphabet. At the last stage, the speakers
phones as presented in Table 1: [r] for light, [nn] or
were asked to read the completed Korean scripts for[ll] for only, etc. Figure 1 illustrates an incorrectly
recording the words in isolation and the words
produced nasal [n] for the target liquid [l] in L2
embedded in sentences.
English word only, spoken by a L1 Korean learner.
For the second sub-experiment, where we
Nasal consonant quality was determined by a very
aquired English native speech of the English
low first formant centered at about 250Hz, and aloanwords in English context, the native speakers oflarge region above the first formant with no energy.
American English underwent only one stage of theThis speaker has a second, rather faint, nasal
recording of the production stimuli.
formant just below 2000 Hz. We do not see a
For the third sub-experiment, where weformant in the neighborhood of 1100 or 1200 Hz
acquired Korean learner speech of the Englishthat is typical of most initial laterals for mostloanwords in English context by a cross-sectional
speakers.
study, the learners took listening and production
On the other hand, we also identified th
tests after a brief listen and repeat practice of the
expected L2 phones by not applying the English
recording stimuli, on a very first week of any classrule of de-aspiration in unstressed onset or after an
instruction to avoid experimental intervention.
onset [s]. For example, the English word "screen" in
For the fourth sub-experiment, where welearner speech may have an aspirated [kh], unlike
acquired Korean learner speech of the English
the target phone [k=]. The aspiration was detectedby the acoustic cues of 1) silence (stop gap), 2)
1
This edition of the Can-do Guide fits to our learner
release burst indicated by a strong vertical spike,speech data, as we used the previous version of TOEIC
and 3) a long VOT of more than 30 ms as shortlistening test using the General American English. The
frication noise (scattered marks after the release)next edition was published on 2009 to reflect the recent
before vowel formants begin.
modification in TOEIC to contain different English
accents around the world.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

find that the developmental results in Figures 2 and3 support Hypothesis 2.

For analysis, we compared the learner speechwith the native speech. For less clear cases of
acoustic features, we used the additional means of
the perceptual judgment by researchers and native
speakers of English. We counted only the expected
errors that are shown in the loanwords for thedifferent L2 phones in question.

4

Discussions

The results indicate that the learner speech
manifests significantly more difficult L2 ruleacquisition than L1 rule resistance, in bothword-level and sentence-level production. In
addition, the error rate decreases according to the
speech proficiency. Furthermore, the error ratedrops more distinctively after instruction to indicatethat an explicit instruction is effective tophonological acquisition of the learner speech.
Additional findings in this study are thefollowing. Firstly, learner speech is far more distantfrom loanwords, and much closer to target
phonology. In other words, learner speech is far
more faithful to target phonology than loanword
phonology. Secondly, another difference between
learner speech and loanword phonology is thatlearner speech develops toward target phonology,
while loanword phonology is rather constant.
Thirdly, needless to mention is an additional factthat loanwords conform to native phonotactics,
whereas learner speech does not.
Currently, the discussions in this study arebased on the average values of a large number ofdata. The phonological alternation involve only theL1 rules of l-alternation and L2 rules ofdeaspiration. We plan to do a more sophisticatedanalysis with statistical significance.

3 Results
A total of 2,672 word data were acquired from therecorded corpus of native and learner speech inword-level and sentence level production by 124
Korean learners of English and 11 Korean and 12
English native speakers. The results of the study are
shown in Figure 2 for word-level production and
Figure 3 for sentence-level production.
These figures represent the interference error
rate in percentage in which either the native
phonology rule applied as in (a), or the target
phonology rule failed to apply as in (b). To be
specific, the application rates of Korean rule ofl-alternation are shown in (a), and the failure rates
of applying the English rule of de-aspiration are
shown in (b). The results in (a) and (b) are from thecross-sectional study, while those in (c) are from thelongitudinal study.
In both Figures 2 and 3, the relative frequencyof L1 and L2 rule interference is higher in L2, asgraphically demonstrated in 2(c) for word-levelproduction, and 3(c) for sentence-level production.
At all stages in Figures 2(c) and 3(c), failure ratesof L2 rule application are higher than theinterference rate by L1 rule application. The results
thus support our Hypothesis 1 that learner speech
avoids the native phonology interference faster than
the acquisition of the target phonology rules.
To move on to the developmental results inrelation to Hypothesis 2, Figures in 2 for word-levelproduction clearly supports the hypothesis that error
rate decreases as the speaker proficiency increases.
In Figures 2(a) and 2(b) for cross-sectional study,
learner speech resists L1 phonology interference
and acquire the L2 phonology of alternationaccording to the increase of the L2 proficiency.
Figure 2(c) shows the results from the longitudinal
study, in which the average error rate before
instruction decreases after instruction regardless thetest is on the same data or on new data. The
aquisition of L2 rule shows more difficulty than theresistence to L1 rule as demonstrated in Post-test
with new data. The developmental results are lessobvious in Figure 3 for sentence level production,although the average rate in 3(c) shows the similar
results, in which the error rate decreases as thelearner proficiency increases. The aquisition of L2
rule for new data in 3(c) also shows more difficultythan the resistence to L1 rule, as in 2(c). We thus

Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the Korea
Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean
Governmen (MOEHRD) (KRF-2006-321-A00933).

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Figure 2: Error rate (%) of word-level productionin L2 English speech by L1 Korean learners. L1
Korean rule of l-alternation applied in (a), while
L2 English rule of de-aspiration failed to apply in(b). The results of a cross-sectional study are in (a)and (b), and the longitudinal results are in (c).

Figure 3: Error rate (%) of sentence-levelproduction in L2 English speech by L1 Koreanlearners. L1 Korean rule of l-alternation applied in(a), while L2 English rule of de-aspiration failed toapply in (b). The results of a cross-sectional study
are in (a) and (b), and the longitudinal results are in
(c).
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

References
ETS. (2000). TOEIC Can-Do Guide: Linking
TOEIC Scores to Activities Performed
Using English. Princeton, NJ: Author.
[TOEIC_CAN_DO.pdf, www.ets.org]
Han, J-I. (2006). On the development of
anticipatory
coarticulationin
Korean/English interlanguage, Studies in
Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology,
12.1, 199-210. The Phonology-Morphology
Circle of Korea.
Kim, J-M. (2005). Stress assignment rules in
Korean English, Studies in Phonetics,
Phonology and Morphology, 11.2, 247-258.
The Phonology-Morphology Circle of
Korea.
Kim, J-M., S. Flynn, & M. Oh. (2007). Non-native
speech rhythm: A large-scale study ofEnglish pronunciation by Korean learners,
Studies in Phonetics, Phonology andMorphology,
13.2,
219-250.
The
Phonology-Morphology Circle of Korea.
Official Loanword Transcription Regulations.
(1995). [The current edition in official use].
Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Republicof Korea. [www.korean.go.kr].
Official Romanization system. (2000). [The current
edition in official use]. Ministry of Culture
and Tourism, Republic of Korea.
[www.korean.go.kr].
Park, M. S. & J-M. Kim. (2008). How different arevowel epentheses in learner speech andloanword phonology, Speech Sciences, 15.2,
33-51. The Korean Association of Speech
Sciences.
Scovel, T. (1988). A Time To Speak: A
Psychololinguistic Inquiry Into The
Critical Period For Human Speech, New
York: Newbury House.
Schmidt, R. (1995). Consciousness and foreign
language learning: A tutorial on the role ofattention and awareness in foreign language
learning. Attention and awareness inforeign language learning ed. by R.
Schmidt, 1-63. Honolulu. HI: Univ. of
Hawai’i. Second Language Teaching andCurriculum Center.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

A corpus study of passive unaccusative verbs in L2 English
produced by advanced Japanese learners
Kazuharu Owada1, Victoria Muehleisen2 and Hajime Tsubaki3

1

Tokyo College of Music, 2 School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University, 3 GITI / Language
and Speech Science Research Laboratories, Waseda University
qwq03702@nifty.com, vicky@waseda.jp, and hjm.tsubaki@asagi.waseda.jp
these structures, some using judgment andelicitation tasks and some using corpora (see forexample Rutherford 1998; Zobl 1989; Oshita 1997,
2000; Hirakawa 2003).

Abstract
There has been extensive research on the use of‘passive’ unaccusative verbs (e.g., *the accident was
happened, *the mobile phone was appeared) in L2
English produced by English learners of various L1s,
some using judgment and elicitation tasks and someusing corpora (see for example Rutherford 1998; Zobl
1989; Oshita 1997, 2000; Hirakawa 2003).
Several accounts for the passive unaccusatives
have been proposed: 1) L1 transfer of a tense/aspect
auxiliary
verb
+
a
past
participle,2)
overgeneralization of the English adjectival passive
formation, 3) non-target lexical causativisation, 4)
identification of the lack of a logical subject and the
be + en, and 5) non-target overt marking of syntactic
NP movement (Oshita 2000).
This corpus study describes the actual uses ofpassive unaccusatives by Japanese English learners
based on the method of analysis used by Oshita(2000).

3

3.1
Unaccusative verbs
It has been widely recognized that intransitive verbs
are classified into two classes: unergative verbs andunaccusative verbs in the literature (e.g., Perlmutter,
1978; Burzio, 1986; Levin and Rappaport Hovav
1995).
Unaccusative Hypothesis(1) a. Naomi worked. (unergative)(Agent)b. Naomi arrived. (unaccusative)(Theme/Patient)

Keywords
learner corpus

1

passive unaccusatives

Some linguists make a further distinction
between alternating unaccusative verbs andnon-alternating unaccusative verbs.

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to describe the actual
uses of passive unaccusatives by Japanese English
learners based on the method of analysis used by
Oshita (2000). Examples of both passive
unaccusatives
as
well
as
correctly-usedunaccusatives are extracted from a corpus of morethan 5,600 essays by college-level students, andexamined for semantic and contextual factors that
explain their use.

2

Previous research on the acquisitionof passive unaccusatives

Two types of unaccusative verbs
A. Alternating unaccusatives (unaccusatives with atransitive counterpart)(2) a. The window broke.
b. Ken broke the window.
(3) a. The door opened.
b. Ken opened the window.

What are passive unaccusatives?

B. Non-alternating unaccusatives (unaccusatives
without a transitive counterpart)‘Passive’ unaccusative verbs (e.g., *the accident
was happened, *the mobile phone was appeared)
are forms which do not occur in native varieties ofEnglish, but which have been noticed in L2 English
produced by English learners of various L1s.
There has been extensive research on the use of(4) The leaves fell.
(5) The guests arrived.
(6) Something happened.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

In English, the alternating unaccusatives canoccur in passive structures, but the non-alternating
unaccusatives cannot.

According to this explanation, non-alternating
unaccusatives are causitivised in L1 English.
Passive unaccusatives are genuine verbal passives.

(7) The door was opened.
(8) *The leaves were fallen.

4. Identification of the lack of a logical subject
and the be + en

3.2

Grammatical passives and unaccusative
passives are the same in that they do not require alogical subject. L2 learners associate the lack of alogical subject, that is, the immediate causer of anevent, with the form be + Ven. If non-target be +Ven indicates simply the lack of a logical subject,
the NP does not need to move to the subject
position, placing expletives such as there and it andpro in the subject position instead.

Passive unaccusatives
Second Language (L2) researchers have been
conducting extensive research on why L2 learnersof English produce passive unaccusatives, eventhough they do not normally encounter such forms
in English input. Some of them have proposed a
UG-based account regarding this issue.
Although most of the previous studies haveused such tasks as grammatical judgment andelicitation, only a small number of them have usedlearner corpora. Among them, Oshita (2000) is oneof the pioneering studies using learner corpora forthe analysis of the passive unaccusatives producedby L2 learners of English.

4

5. Non-target overt marking of syntactic NP
movement
In this account, L2 learners move an internalargument within the unaccusative to the subject
position as native speakers do, but mistakenly andovertly mark be + Ven.

Oshita (2000)

4.1
Five accounts for passive unaccusatives
Several accounts for the passive unaccusatives havebeen proposed. Oshita (2000) categories theprevious studies on passive unaccusatives into fiveaccounts: 1) L1 transfer of a tense/aspect auxiliaryverb + a past participle, 2) overgeneralization of the
English adjectival passive formation, 3) non-target
lexical causativisation, 4) identification of the lackof a logical subject and the be + en, and 5)
non-target overt marking of syntactic NP movement(Oshita 2000).

4.2

The corpus study
To test which account best describes theacquisition of passive unaccusatives, he analyzes
the passive unaccusatives using the ten syntactic
patterns for classification. The corpus used in his
study is the Longman Learners Corpus (Version 1.1.,
March 1993, henceforth LLC), which consists of
3,362 essays written by four L1 English learners:
684 for Italian, 1,079 for Spanish, 236 for Korean
and 1,363 for Japanese.
The target unalternating unaccusatives and thesyntactic patterns are show below:

1. L1 transfer of a tense/aspect auxiliary verb + apast participle(9) The target non-alternating unaccusatives

In many languages such as Italian, which have acompound tense/aspect system, unaccusatives takea be-type auxiliary verbs while unergatives andtransitives requite a have-type auxiliary verb.
Therefore, it is said, Italian speakers, for instance,transfer their L1 system, thus producing passive
unaccusatives.

appear, arise, arrive, die, disappear, exist, fall,
happen, occur, rise(10) The syntactic patterns for classification of
token sentences with unaccusatives
a. NP-Vb. NP-be-Venc. there-V-NP
d. it-V-NP
e. pro-V-NP
f. there-be-Ven-NPg. it-be-Ven-NPh. pro-be-Ven-NP
i. NP1-V-NP2
j. there-be-NP-V

2. Overgeneralization of the English adjectival
passive formation
In this account, passive unaccusatives occur
based on the rule of deverbal adjectives. Therefore,passive unaccusatives should have a ‘stative’
meaning. However, it is noted that L2 learners
rarely produce ‘died person’ and ‘happened people.’
3. Non-target lexical causativisation220

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

English Learner Corpus, a corpus compiled at the
School of International Studies at Waseda
University. It contains more than 5,600 essays bycollege-level students. In this study first-draft
essays written by Japanese students have been
extracted for the analysis.
The tokens are 3,600,607. The types are 53,551.
The type/token ratio is about 0.015. Although no
information is given on the number of types andtokens in the Japanese data which is made up of
1,363 essays in Oshita (2000), the SILS corpus islarger in its scope.

4.3
The results and discussion
The results in Ohita (2000) are summarized below.
1. L1 transfer of a tense/aspect auxiliary verb + apast participle
Since learners whose L1 does not have a compound
tense/aspect system produce passive unaccusatives,
this account is untenable.
2. Overgeneralization of the English adjectival
passive formation

5.2
The target verbs
The same non-alternating unaccusative verbs usedin Oshita (2000) are analyzed.

In most cases it is difficult to interpret thepassive unaccusatives as ‘stative.’ Out of 38 passive
unaccusatives extracted from the corpus, only a few
have ‘stative’ meanings.

(11) The target non-alternating unaccusatives in thisstudy

3. Non-target lexical causativisation
The ratio of non-target causatives to passive
unaccusatives is 38: 11. Since the frequency of
non-target causatives is low, causativisation does
not always occur.

appear, arise, arrive, die, disappear, exist, fall,
happen, occur, rise
5.3
The results
5.3.1
Syntactic patterns for the unaccusatives
We can see from Table 1 that out of 4,609 sentence
patterns in which the unaccusatives appear, 169(3.7%) are passive unaccusatives. This is similar to
the ratio in Ohista (2000), which is 5.6% (17/304).

4. Identification of the lack of a logical subject
and the be + en
Grammatical passives and unaccusative
passives are the same in that they do not require alogical subject. L2 learners associate the lack of alogical subject, that is, the immediate causer of anevent, with the form be + Ven. If non-target be +Ven indicates simply the lack of a logical subject,
the NP does not need to move to the subject
position, placing expletives such as there and it andpro in the subject position instead.

Table 1. The frequency of the syntactic patterns inwhich the target unaccusatives appear
Structural patterns
a. NP-Vb. NP-be -Venc. there-V-NP
d. it -V-NP
e. pro-V-NP
f. there -be -Ven -NP
g. it -be -Ven -NP
h. pro-be -Ven -NP
i. NP1-V-NP2
j. there -be -NP-V
Total

5. Non-target overt marking of syntactic NP
The fact that there are a very few instancesof‘expletive-V-NP’ indicates that in most cases the
NP movement occurs.
Based on a study of the LLC, he argues that
non-target marking of NP movement provides themost valid explanation for the passive
unaccusatives.
Although Ohista (2000) analyzed the data
produced by Italian, Spanish, Korean, and Japanese
speakers, in the following section, we will restrict
ourselves to his Japanese data so that we can makea comparison.

5

Oshita (2000) this study
269
4387
17
169
1
43
1
0
1
0
4
0
0
0
0
0
7
10
4
0
304
4609

Next we will focus on the three syntactic
patterns: NP-V, NP-be-Ven and NP1-NP2, as can beseen from Table 2 and Figure 1.

This study

5.1
SILS English Learner Corpus
In this study we use a corpus called the SILS
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Table 2. The breakdown of three syntactic patternsof each unaccusative

million years ago. (age: 19, TOEFL CBT: 227, classlevel: advanced)

NP-be -Ven NP1-V-NP2
51
0
2
2
0
0
11
0
17
0
16
0
1
1
32
2
38
0
1
5
169
10

(13) TV personalities are appeared in both TVcommercials. (age: 18, TOEFL PBT: 503, classlevel: advanced)

NP-V
appeararise
arrivediedisappear
exist
fall
happen
occur
rise
Total

864
63
37
1367
203
189
208
582
555
319
4387

(14) Furthermore, a lot of Latino directors areappeared in Hollywood and it helps to take away
stereotypes of Latino. (age: 20, TOEFL CBT: 205,class: advanced)
As shown above, ‘are appeared’ in (12) is meant
to be ‘appeared,’ while ‘are appeared’ in (13) and(14) should have been ‘appear.’occur(15) In conclusion, bullying is occurred both inJapan and the West but why students carry out
bullying is a bit different. (age: 19, TOEFL PBT:
NA, class level: intermediate)

1400
1200

Frequency

1000
800

NP-V

(16) However if Japanese President would speak
English by spreading English, meeting could domore smoothly and miscommunication which isoccurred by interpreter would be disappeared. (age18: TOEFL PBT: 505, class level: intermediate)

NP-be-Ven600(17) The tragic case is occurred in all over theworld. (age: 19, TOEFL: NA, class level:intermediate)

400
200

In both (15) and (16) ‘is occurred’ can beinterpreted as ‘is caused,’ while in (17) ‘is occurred’
should mean ‘occurs’ or ‘has occurred.’

fa
l
ha l
pp
en
oc
cu
r
ris
e

ap
pe
ar
ar
ise
ar
r iv
e
d i d ie
sa
pp
ea
r
ex
ist

0

happenFigure 1. The breakdown of three syntactic patternsof each unaccusative(18) Children in western country think that bullying
means strong one offend weak one, on the contrary,children in Japan think that bullying is happened bygroup and one person. (age: 20, TOEFL PBT: NA,class level: intermediate)

Among the ten unaccusative verbs investigated,‘appear’ was the most frequently used in the passive
construction (51 cases), followed by ‘occur’ (38cases) and ‘happen’ (32 cases). We will present
some examples of those unaccusative passives
extracted from the corpus.

(19) Others say single-sex education is better thancoeducation. This discussion is happened becauseof some differences between coeducation andsingle-sex education. (age: 19, TOEFL PBT: 547,
class level: intermediate)

5.3.2

Some example of passive unaccusatives
and non-target causativisation
Some examples of passives unaccusative are shown
below.

(20) This phenomenon is happened because Arabpeople do not have much power to change theimages in Hollywood compared to other racial
minorities like blacks. (age: 18, TOEFL PBT: 560,
class level: advanced)

appear(12) We human beings, are appeared about 4~5
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 4. The tense/aspect of ‘be appeared’

In (18) ‘is happened’ may mean ‘is caused’
because of the by-phrase. In both (19) and (20) ‘ishappened’ should mean ‘happens.’
As for the causitivization of unaccusatives, only
10 cases are observed. Among them, that of ‘arise’and ‘rise’ may be due to the confusion with the verb
‘raise.’ The two cases of the causitivization of‘happen’ are shown below:

Tense/aspect pattern freq.
be appeared12
is appeared12
am appeared0
are appeared
14
has been appeared1have been appeared2
was appeared8
were appeared2
had been appeared
0
Total
51

happen(21) The only global language will happen
innovation. (age: 19, TOEFL PBT: 453, class level:intermediate)(22) This spread of race may be one of theadvantages for Disney, but this situation happened
some problems. (age: 18, TOEFL PBT: 477, classlevel: advanced)

Out of 51 instances of the passive unaccusative,
38 instances use non-past simple tense. This result
may indicate that the learners use non-past simple
tense of ‘be appeared’ as a cross between non-past
simple tense of ‘appear’ and non-past perfect simple
tense of ‘have appeared.’ This result might alsomean that the learners interpreted the non-past
simple tense of ‘be appeared’ as having a ‘stative’
meaning. This issue needs to be investigatedfurther.

5.3.3
The tenses used in ‘appear’
Let us look at the tenses used in the most frequently
used unaccusative ‘appear.’ Table 3 shows thetense/aspect of ‘appear.’
Table 3. The tense/aspect of ‘appear’

6
Tense/aspect pattern
appearappearsappeared
am appearing
is appearing
are appearing
have appeared
has appeared
have been appearing
has been appearing
had appeared
had been appearing
be appearing
was appearing
were appearing
Total

freq.
469
136
232
0
5
5
0
11
2
0
3
1
0
0
0
864

Conclusion

Although this study does not provide a definitive
answer as to which account best describes passive
unaccusative, several findings can be drawn from it.
First, even advanced-level Japanese learners
produce passive unaccusatives (3.7%; 169 instancesout of 4,609 sentence patterns in which theunaccusatives appear. Secondly, among the ten
passive unaccusatives, ‘appear’ was the mostfrequent (51 instances), followed by ‘occur’ (38instances) and ‘happen’ (32 instances). Thirdly, thelearner data allows researchers to interpret passive
unaccusatives in more than one way, as we haveseen in the case of ‘are appeared.’ Fourth, thecausitivisation of unaccusatives is a rare
phenomenon. And finally, more detailed research isneeded to determine what semantically motivatesthe learners to produce passive unaccusative.
References
Balcom, P. (1997). Why is this happened? Passive
morphology and unaccusativity. Second
Language Research, 13(1), 1-9.
Italiansyntax:A
Burzio,L.
(1986).
government-binding approach. Dordrecht:
Redidel.
Hirakawa, M. (1995). L2 acquisition of English
unaccusative constructions. Proceedings of
BUCLD 19, 291-302.
Hirakawa, M. (1997). On the unaccusative/

Table 4 shows the passive unaccusative use of‘appear’ in terms of tense/aspect.

223

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

unergative distinction in SLA. JACETBULLETIN 28: 17-27
Hirakawa, M. (2003). Unaccusativity in second
language Japanese and English. Tokyo:
Histuzishobo.
Levin, B. and M. Rappaport Hovav. (1995).
Unaccusativity: at the syntax-lexical
semantics interface. Cambridge: MIT
Press.
Levin, B. (1993). English verb classes andalternations: A preliminary investigation.
Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Oshita, H. (1997). The unaccusativity trap: L2
acquisition of English intransitive verbs.
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern
California.
Oshita, H. (2000). What is happened may not be
what appears to be happening: a corpus
study of 'passive' unaccusatives in L2
English. Second Language Research 16,
293–324.
Perlmutter, D. (1978). Impersonal passives and theunaccusative hypothesis. Proceedings ofthe 4th Annual Meeting, Berkeley
Linguistics Society, 157-89.
Rutherford, W. (1998). A workbook in the structureof English: Linguistic principles andlanguage acquisition. Oxford: Blackwell
Shomura, Y. (1996). A study of the acquisition of
ergatives by Japanese learners. Proceedingsof the JACET 35th Annual Convention,229-32.
Sorace, A. (1993). Unaccusativity and auxiliary
choice in non-native grammars of Italianand French: Asymmetries and predictableindeterminacy. French Language Studies 3,
71- 93.
Sorace, A. (2000). Gradients in auxiliary selection
with intransitive verbs. Language 76:
859–890.
Zobl, H. (1989). Canonical typological structuresand ergativity in English L2 acquisition. In
S. Gass & J. Schachter (Eds.), Linguistic
perspectivesonsecondlanguageacquisition (pp. 203–221). New York:
Cambridge University Press.

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A corpus analysis of intransitive verbs used in junior highschool English textbooks in Japan
Kazuharu Owada1, Hajime Tsubaki2, and Daisuke Yoshizaki3
1

Tokyo College of Music, 2 & 3 GITI / Language and Speech Science Research Laboratories, Waseda
University
qwq03702@nifty.com, hjm.tsubaki@ asagi.waseda.jp andd_yoshizaki@toki.waseda.jp
unaccusative verbs in the literature (e.g., Perlmutter,
1978; Burzio, 1986; Levin and Rappaport Hovav
1996).

Abstract
There has been a great deal of research in corpus
studies of textbooks and learner data (see Ishikawa
2009 for recent developments in this field). Since
textbooks used in junior and senior high schools
provide the students with crucial portions of input,
it is important that the textbooks present verbs sothat learners can notice the difference between
intransitive and transitive verbs.
In the school year 2009-2010 six kinds ofjunior high school textbooks published by six
publishing companies are currently used in Japan,
although the market share of each series widely
varies. These textbook series are: Columbus, New
Crown, New Horizon, One World, Sunshine, andTotal English. Since one company publishes three
textbooks for the 1st year, the 2nd year and the 3rdyear, we create a junior high school textbook corpus
based on 18 textbooks.
In this paper we will first present the frequency
data of English intransitive verbs in junior highschool textbooks, and secondly to describe softwarethat outputs the frequency information of theintransitive/transitive uses.

Unaccusative Hypothesis(1) a. Naomi worked. (unergative)(Agent)b. Naomi arrived. (unaccusative)(Theme/Patient)
Some linguists make a further distinction
between alternating unaccusative verbs andnon-alternating unaccusative verbs.
Two types of unaccusative verbs
A. Alternating unaccusatives (unaccusatives with atransitive counterpart)(2) a. The window broke.
b. Ken broke the window.
(3) a. The door opened.
b. Ken opened the window.
B. Non-alternating unaccusatives (unaccusatives
without a transitive counterpart)

Keywords
junior high school textbooks
corpus analysis

1

intransitive verbs(4) The leaves fell.
(5) The guests arrived.
(6) Something happened.

Introduction

The purpose of this study is twofold: 1) to examine
the frequency data of English intransitive verbs
such as unaccusative verbs and ergative verbs injunior high school textbooks currently used in Japan,
and 2) to show software that outputs the frequency
information of the transitive/intransitive uses ofverbs.

2

3

Junior high school textbooks in
Japan

3.1
Six textbook series
As of the school year 2009-2010, six kinds of juniorhigh school textbooks are used in Japan. These
textbook series are: Columbus (1-3), New Crown(1-3), New Horizon (1-3), One World (1-3),
Sunshine (1-3) and Total English (1-3).

English intransitive verbs

It has been widely recognized that intransitive verbs
are classified into two classes: unergative verbs and225

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

B. Non-alternating unaccusative verbs (11 verbs)

3.2
Intransitive/transitive verbs
None of the textbooks explicitly use thegrammatical terms such as ‘intransitive’ and‘transitive’. Out of the six textbook series, only twoseries (Columbus and New Crown) draw thelearners’ attention to the distinction between
intransitive and transitive verbs. These textbook
series briefly mention that there are two kinds ofverbs: those that have an object and those that donot.
As for the instruction of passive constructions,
all the six series simply state that passives areformed using ‘be + past participle.’ Most of thempresent sareteiru and sareta as the Japanesetranslation for ‘be + past participle’ without
explicitly stating that only transitive verbs areconverted into the passive voice in English.
Japanese learners of English should be taughtthat although some intransitive verbs can bepassivized in Japanese, this is not the case in
English.

4

appear, arrive, come, die, disappear, fall, go,
happen, live, rise, stay
C. Unergative verbs (8 verbs)
cry, dance, jump, laugh, sleep, smile, swim, work
D. Transitive verbs which can omit an object (28verbs)
answer, change, choose, clean, cook, draw, drive,
eat, explain, forget, help, know, learn, leave, paint,
play, read, remember, ride, sing, speak, steal, study,
type, understand, wash, watch, write
Although we are well aware that we need toconsider the semantic role or argument structurelevel when we classify verbs, we will restrict
ourselves to the intransitive/transitive distinction inthis study.

This study

4.3
The results
For the following analysis, we used AntConc3.2.1.
The frequency of verbs is shown in the following
tables.

4.1
The data
Junior high school textbook series currently used inJapan are: Columbus, New Crown, New Horizon,
One World, Sunshine, and Total English. We createda junior high school textbook corpus based on 18
textbooks. Although we made use of theaccompanying data files produced by the publishingcompanies, we edited the text data so that we could
use them as a corpus data source. For instance, wedeleted the lyrics included in the text files.
We ran the computer program in the JACET listof 8000 basic words and found that this textbook
corpus contains 3,996 types (indexes) and 94,226
tokens.

Table 1. Alternating unaccusative verbs (17 verbs)
alternating unaccusative verbs
bake
begin
break
close
drop
end
finish
grow
melt
move
open
rest
shake
stand
start
stop
turn

4.2
The target verbs
The target verbs are categorized into four classes
mainly based on the verb classification in Collins
Cobuild intermediate English grammar (2005) andprevious studies (see for example Oshita 1997,
Hirakawa 2003). The verbs which do appear in the
text corpus are omitted from the list.

intransitive (freq.)
0
23
4
4
1
3
3
20
2
14
7
3
0
21
23
5
31

transitive (freq.) Total
7
21
11
18
4
1
23
15
0
1
18
0
1
1
35
16
0

7
44
15
22
5
4
26
35
2
15
25
3
1
22
58
21
31

We can see from Table 1 that some verbs (e.g.,turn, move) tend to be used intransitively, whilesome verbs (e.g., finish, bake) are likely to be usedtransitively.
Table 2 shows that ‘go’ is the most frequently
used unaccusative verb.

A. Alternating unaccusative verbs 1 (17 verbs)
bake, begin, break, close, drop, end, finish, grow,melt, move, open, rest, shake, stand, start, stop, turn1

These verbs are called ‘ergative verbs’ In Collins
Cobuild intermediate English grammar (2005).
226Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 2. Non-alternating unaccusative verbs(11 verbs)

Table 4. Transitive verbs which can omit an object(28 verbs)

unaccusative verbs freq.
appear11
arrive
31
come
109
die
47
disappear
14
fall
24
go
586
happen
19
live
177
rise
1
stay
73

transitive verbs
answerchangechoose
clean
cook
draw
drive
eat
explainforget
help
know
learn
leave
paint
play
read
remember
ride
sing
speak
steal
study
type
understand
wash
watch
write

Table 3 shows that ‘work’ is the mostfrequently used unergative verb.
Table 3. Unergative verbs (8 verbs)

unergative verbs freq.
cry
26
dance
13
jump
3
8
laugh
sleep
22
smile
18
swim
37
work
93

intransitive (freq.) transitive (freq.) Total
23
4
19
31
12
19
2
0
2
26
0
26
35
10
25
15
0
15
5
4
1
17
116 133
6
2
4
19
0
19
5
129 13459
168 22723
83 106
45
9
36
7
0
7
38
252 2903
111 114
18
2
16
26
2
24
67
34
33
28
72 1004
0436
120 156
3
0
3
48
5
43
4
0
4
3
103 10618
99 117.

5

Developing software

With the results in the section 4 in mind, we willdevelop software which outputs the frequency dataof intransitive/transitive verbs. This software will
extract lexical information based on two functions:the frequency of intransitive/transitive verbs in eachtextbook and the concordance lines in the textbook
corpus
The first function is to show the frequency ofverbs in each textbook, as in Figure 1.

As can be seen in Table 4 below, the top five of
the most frequently used verbs are play, know,
study, help, and eat. All these verbs tend to be usedtransitively. Given this level of ample input,
learners may not have difficulties with using thetransitive form. However, considering the relative
low frequency of the intransitive form, learners
need to be explicitly taught how to use theintransitive form

Figure 1. The frequency of verbs in each textbook
When you input a certain verb into the Verb
input area and then press the enter key, its
227

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

frequency is shown in accordance with theclassification of verb attributions of each textbook.
Additionally, the total frequency is displayed in the
ALL TEXTBOOKS section.
The second function is to display concordancelines in the textbook corpus, as in Figure 2.

(Ed.). (2003). JACET list of 8000 basic
words. Tokyo: JACET.
Laurence,
A.
(2007).
AntConc3.2.1.
<http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/antcon
c_index.html>
Levin, B. (1993). English verb classes andalternations: A preliminary investigation.
Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Levin, B. and M. Rappaport Hovav. (1995).
Unaccusativity: at the syntax-lexical
semantics interface. Cambridge: MIT
Press.
Oshita, H. (1997). The unaccusativity trap: L2
acquisition of English intransitive verbs.
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern
California.
Perlmutter, D. (1978). Impersonal passives and theunaccusative hypothesis. Proceedings ofthe 4th Annual Meeting, Berkeley
Linguistics Society, 157-89.

Figure 2. Concordance lines in the textbook corpus
The classification of verbs is based on the rules
related to a morphological analysis. This function isto retrieve occurrence lines containing the target
verb and display the occurrence line in the textbook
corpus. Figure 2 shows the results of the verb make.
Only sentence lines which include make aredisplayed on the Retrieval view in the concordance
format. When you click one line, the corresponding
sentence line in the textbook corpus is shown on the
Text view. This function is executed by afile-retrieval-software with a text viewer called
KWIC Finder (http://www31.ocn.ne.jp/~h_ishida/).

6

Conclusion

So far we have seen that junior high school
textbooks do not provide learners with enoughinformation on the intransitive/transitive distinction.
With software specifically designed for the
intransitive/transitive verbs, we can make full useof its output in the areas of material development
and grammar instruction.
References
Burzio,L.
(1986).
Italiansyntax:A
government-binding approach. Dordrecht:
Redidel.
Collins Cobuild intermediate English grammar(2nd ed.) (2005). Glasgow: Harper Collins
Publishers.
Hirakawa, M. (2003). Unaccusativity in second
language Japanese and English. Tokyo:
Histuzishobo.
Ishikawa, S. (2008). Eigo copasu to gengo kyoiku[English corpus and language education].
Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten.
Japan Association of College English Teachers(JACET) Basic Words Revision Committee

228

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Effectiveness of Student Perception on Need-based Grouping
Handan Girginer

School of Foreign Languages, Anadolu University
hgirginer@anadolu.edu.tr

Flight Training and Air Traffic Control departments
at the School of Civil Aviation, Anadolu University.

Abstract
This study was carried out in the English Speaking
Skills course designed for flight training and air
traffic control departments students. The started out
as a personal project of mine to research thepositive effects need-based grouping. From my own
experience I felt positive especially from my own
motivation. Therefore, I inverstigated the validity ofthese proportions to satisfy personal curiosity. I
would like to start my presentation with an
explanation of how this study came about. I am
teaching an English Speaking Course at the Schoolof Civil Aviation. intelligibility in different social
settings necessary for their future careers.

2

The research questions examined in this study were:
1.
2.

3

What are students’ perceptions of need-basedlearning?
How do psychological and instructional items
compare?

Data collection

3.1
Participants /Informants
20 students – took English Speaking Skills Course
in 2008-2009, 10 in Flight Training;10 in Air
Traffic Control

Keywords
Keywords are your own designated keywords

3.2
The instrument
A questionnaire was distributed by the researcher
and used in the study to gather data.
The items of the questionnaire were written by
the researcher with the references used in otherstudies (Lui, 2008; Chen, Lin & Feng, 2004; Chien& Ching, 2002; Yu, 1994) Items from the
instrument were mainly designed to measure how
students perceive the effects of need-based
grouping on two dimensions: psychological factors(their confidence, motivation, interest, academispressure) and instructional factors (speaking andlistening ability, teaching materials and theteacher’s instructional method). See Appendix A.

Introduction
The focus of the English Speaking Skills Course isimproving the students’ speaking and listening
skills. The aim of the course is to enable thestudents to learn how to communicate in English indifferent social settings and in their future careerswith a reasonable degree of fluency, accuracy andintelligibility. This course is designed to help
students develop their spoken English. It also
makes students speak effectively, accurately andfluently in academic situations. The course takes
place at the Aviation School. It is a 4 hour- a - weekcourse, and it takes 24 weeks spanning both fall andspring semesters.
The syllabus is designed according to the needsof the students to refresh and improve their English
after taking a one year intensive English program at
Prep school.

1

Research Questions

4

Findings and discussion

Need-based grouping is beneficial to my English
learning

Purpose of the Study

The study started out as personal project of the classteacher to research the positive effects ofneed-based grouping. From my own experience I
felt positive especially form y own motivation.
Therefore, I investigated the validity of these
proportions to satisfy personal curiosity for an
English Speaking Skills Course for students of the229Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

item 1item 450
percentage

percentage

4030Seri 1
20
10
0
1

2

3

4

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

5

Seri 1

1

2

3

4

5

responses

Need-based grouping helps me feel less pressure tolearn English

After I have been grouped by need, the teachingmaterials used are more suitable for me.

item 2

item 5

60

60

50

50
percentage

precentage

responses

40
30

Seri 1

20
10

40
30

Seri 1

20
10

0

0
1

2

3

4

5

1

2

responses

3

4

5

responses

Need-based grouping helps
confidence in learning English.

me

build

more

After I have been grouped by need, the teachingmaterials used help me become more interested inlearning.

item 3
item 6
50

60
50

40

40

percentage

percentage

70

Seri 1

30
20
10
0
1

2

3

4

5

30
Seri 120
100
1

responses

2

3

4

5

responses

Need-based grouping helps increase my motivationin learning English.

The key to further improvement in English is mylearning attitudes, not need-based grouping.

230

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

item 10

60

60

50

50
percentage

percentage

item 740
30

Seri 1

20
10

40
30

Seri 1

20
10

0

0
1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

responses

The key to further improvement in English is mylearning strategies, not need-based grouping.

Need-based grouping benefits my English listening
proficiency level.

item 8

item 11

50

70

40

60
50

percentage

percentage

responses

30
Seri 120
10040Seri 1

30
20
10
0

1

2

3

4

1

5

2

3

4

5

responses

responses

The key to further improvement in English isteachers’ instructional methods, not need-based
grouping

Need-based grouping benefits my English
speaking proficiency level
item 12

item 9percentage

50
percentage

4030Seri 1
20
10
0

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Seri 1

1
1

2

3

4

5

2

3

4

5

responses

responses

I feel I am appropriately placed in the groupthatmatchesmyEnglishlistening
proficiency level.

Need-based grouping causes me more anxiety overlearning English.

231

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

needs.
As shown by items 5 and 6, students report ahigher suitability of the teaching materials when
their needs are taken into account. Moreover, theyfind the materials more interesting. In brief, theapplication of NBG seems to serve students muchbeter vis-a-vis appropriateness and inducing
enthusiasim.
In the line with the responses to 3, 4, 2, and 10(which are related to the student affective factors)
items 7 and 8 indicate that NBG is much more
important for students’s linguistic improvement
than both learning attitudes and strategies. Besides,
as shown by the responses to item 9, NBG is seen
as a more important factor in linguistic proficiency
enhancement than teacher’s instructional methods.
Analyzed from a skill-based perspective, students
consistenly report a high degree of positive impact
of NBG on their speaking and listening proficiency.
Only a small number of students (12%) report some
negative effects of NBG
Items 13, 14 and 15 demonstrate that students
strongly feel that they are apprpriately placed in theright group and NBG helps them improve theirEnglish.
Item 1 well summarizes the overall finding of
this study: that is, NBG is found by the students
very beneficial. This beneft is twofold: the first isaffective ( as shown by the responses to items 1, 2,
3, 4, 7, 10), the second is instructional (as shown by
the responses to items 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15).
While NBG id found helpful and effective in bothdimensions, affective factors seem to have more
useful impact on student learning.

item 1350
percentage

4030Seri 1
20
10
0
1

2

3

4

5

responses

I feel I am appropriately placed in the groupthatmatchesmyEnglishspeaking
proficiency level.
item 1450
percentage

4030Seri 1
20
10
0
1

2

3

4

5

responses

Need-based grouping does not have any
impact on the improvement of my English
speaking/listening level.

5

I strongly believe that such queries (questionnaires
to determine student perceptions) can also be
successfully applied to other language teachingsituations as well.
Besides the findings I discussed above I also
noticed a higher awereness of the issues and classactivities more attention given to the tasks at hand.
Through the implementation of NBG, I have also
observed a lowered affective filter on the students’s
part.

item 1560
percentage

50
40
30

Implications for teaching

Seri 1

20
10
0
1

2

3

4

5

References
Lui, Hui-ju, (2008). An analysis of the effects of thegrouping
onstudent
learning
inuniversity-wide English classes. Feng Chia
Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences.
16, 217- 249.

responses

NBG: Need-based grouping
Items 2 and 10 confirms that students tend to feelless pressure and anxiety when grouped by their232

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Elaboration of Tasks as Means to Mediate Classroom Learningand the Outside World: Analyses of Language Learning Activitiesin Three EFL Classrooms for Children
Hirokatsu Kawashima1, Naoki Sugino2, and Yuya Koga3

Department of English, Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies1, College of Information Science andEngineering, Ritsumeikan University2, Department of Child Education, Shukugawa Gakuin College3
kawashima@tc.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp,
gwisno@is.ritsumei.ac.jp, koga@shukugawa-c.ac.jp

Teaching) Observation Scheme by Spada and
Fröhlich (1995), analyzed and compareddifferent series of language learning activities inthree EFL classrooms.

Abstract
Task-based language teaching/learning iscommonly seen in EFL classrooms for children,and recent theoretical developments from thesociocultural perspective have suggested thattasks should function as means to link learners’
language learning experience in the classroom
with their real-world experience (e.g., Samuda
and Bygate, 2008, p. 18). In an attempt to grasp
how language learning tasks can be transformed
and developed to fulfill such a function, thepresenters have been conducting a series ofdescriptive and comparative studies of three
Japanese EFL classrooms for children for the
past several years.
One of their preliminary studies (Sugino etal., 2008) has shown, for example, that a seriesof language learning tasks used in acontent-oriented classroom were woven together
to function as means to mediate between theclassroom and the outside world, and that the
selection of their topic/content, which had
personal relevance with the children’s
experiences in their immediate environments,
played a crucial role in elaborating the series oftasks.
However, it is still unclear exactly how
selected tasks can be elaborated in the classroom,
because such an elaboration process is complex
and multi-faceted, involving collaborative
aspects of constantly-changing verbal andnon-verbal interactions between the instructors
and learners (the instructor’s directions inducedby the learners, and the learners’ utterances andattitudes influenced and changed by the
instructor, etc.). In order to disentangle this kindof complexity and to consolidate their argument,
theauthors,
employingthe
COLT(Communicative Orientation of Language

Keywords
language learning; socialcultural perspective;
task sequence; task elaboration/development;
media; English language activities for preschool
children; classroom; content-oriented; outside
world; Communicative Orientation of Language
Teaching (COLT) Observation Scheme

Introduction
For the past 20 years, task-based language
teaching (TBLT) has attracted the attention of
second language acquisition (SLA) researchers,
curriculum developers, educationalists, teacher
trainers and language teachers, worldwide (Vanden Branden, 2006, p.1), and task-based
language teaching/learning is commonly
observed in EFL classrooms for children. It can
be claimed that one of the possible roles that
TBLT may play is to bridge classroom learningand the outside world. The importance of such asocialcultural perspective on language learning
tasks is supported by a number of scholars. For
example, Skehan (1998, p.95) claims that “a task
is an activity in which there is some sort ofrelationship to comparable real-world activities.”
The same kind of view is presented by Samuda
and Bygate (2008, p.18), who hold that language
learning tasks should embrace “the role ofpersonal relevance and purposeful activity inmediating the world of the learner and classroom
learning.”
Although it is uncertain how much this kindof socialcultural viewpoint is reflected andutilized in actual EFL classrooms for children in233

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

may offer valuable suggestions to instructors in
EFL classes for children, but it must be notedthat this study represents limited aspects oflanguage learning tasks. It is unclear, forexample, how “varied contexts” for “repetition”
as in 3) are elaborated and developed in tasks
based upon “the children’s immediate
environments and experiences” as in 1). There isa greater variety of EFL classrooms for children,which may involve more complicated andmulti-faceted elements of how language learning
tasks are elaborated and developed as means tobridge classroom leaning and the outside world.
Further studies are necessary to understand thenature of such elaboration and development
more closely and comprehensively.

Japan, it can certainly be claimed that relatively
little attention has been directed at how language
learning tasks are elaborated and developed asmeans to bridge classroom learning and theoutside world, and that there have been few
studies which empirically and extensively
explore aspects of such elaboration anddevelopment. Sugino et al. (2008) is apreliminary study conducted in order to improve
this research situation. First, employing the
COLT framework, the researchers carried out
observations and analyses of three Japanese EFL
classrooms for children and quantitatively
disclosed a number of distinctive features ofeach class, in which it is shown, for example,
whether the class is content-oriented orform-oriented, and whether the topic is related tothe children’s immediate environment andexperiences.
These classrooms were then examined
qualitatively from the perspective of task
selection, task use, task sequence, task
elaboration and task development, by paying
special attention to collaborative aspects ofconstantly-changing verbal and non-verbal
interactions between the instructors and learners.
A number of instructive points were revealedwith regard to the use of language learning tasks
in the classroom. The following summarize
some of its main findings (Sugino et al.,2008, p.
560):

1.

The Present Study

1.1
Aim
The present study, which employs the basic
analysis framework of Sugino et al. (2008), aims
to conduct observations and analyses of different
Japanese EFL classrooms for children, focusing
mainly upon relationships between the task andits constituent activities and interrelationships
among them, and to depict in detail how
language learning tasks are elaborated anddeveloped serving as means to interface theclassroom with the world beyond.
1.2
Data Collection
Three EFL classes for children with different
educational backgrounds were videotaped. Oneof the classes (Class A) was at a private
kindergarten,
which
had
incorporated
bilingual/bicultural education since 2001. This
class, composed of about 25 children (agedbetween 5 and 6), was led by a native speaker ofEnglish as its main instructor and aJapanese-speaking instructor as her assistant. A
day at the kindergarten started from 10 a.m. andfinished at 2 p.m., during which the children
spent most of their instructional time mainly inEnglish. The videotape recording was carriedout from June 2001 to December 2003 on a
weekly basis. Another class (Class B), with six
first graders (aged between 6 and 7), was taught
by a Japanese-speaking instructor. A lesson, of
about one hour, was provided weekly, which has
been videotaped since 2003. The third class(Class C) was at a nursery school, where college
students carried out their practice teaching aspart of their college’s English language learning

1) The choice of topic/content plays a crucialrole in making a task fulfill the mediating
function, and in order for a task to function
as a means to mediate between theclassroom and the world beyond, its
topic/content must be chosen among thechildren’s experiences in their immediate
environments.
2) When the topic/content is the linguisticform(s) in activities, the task falls into thetrap of self-circulation and loses its link withthe real world experience.
3) For any linguistic form to be consolidated ina learner’s knowledge, “repetition” is ofutmost significance, and the target linguisticfeature needs to be repeated in varied
contexts with different participants.
These findings, based upon a close
description and comparison of the three classes,

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

as “apologizing”. Each lesson was investigatedin these aspects: 1) what kind of task was usedin each class, including its aim and duration, 2)
how many activities the task was composed of,and 3) what range of reference each activity bore,
including its duration.
Second, the authors, employing the basic
framework of COLT Part B, conducted a morelanguage-based description of the three lessons.
Verbal and non-verbal interactions between the
instructors and the children were minutely
examined using some of its basic analytic
features, such as GENUINE REQUESTS FORINFORMATION, which examined if theinformation requested was not known inadvancebythequestioner(e.g.,ateacher-to-student question: Where did yourfamily go last Sunday?).
Lastly, the authors, based upon all these
depictions, characterized each of the threelessons, especially by investigating relationships
between the task and its constituent activities
and interrelationships among them, and made anumber of comparisons of the three lessons.

program. They taught English to twenty children(aged between 5 and 6) for about forty minutes
once a week for three months. Nine lessons by
these teacher-trainees were videotaped in total.
1.3
Target Lessons
The accumulated videotaped data were
scrutinized, and one lesson from each class was
selected for this study, 1) by counterbalancing
the children’s age ranges among the threelessons, and 2) by examining and verifying theinclusion of one single whole language learning
task covering most of the lesson and consistingof several different activities as its constituents.
Table 1 summarizes some of the basic
description of the three lessons:
Table 1: Basic Description of the Three Lessons
Type of
SchoolClass A
Kindergarden

Class B
PrivateEnglishSchoolClass C
Nursery
SchoolNumber25

6

20

Age Range

5-6

6-7

5-6

Date

25/06/
2003

01/07/
2004

19/12/
2007

2.
Main Results and Discussion
A number of findings have been made by
conducting description, characterization, andcomparison of the three EFL classes for children.
Due to space limitations, some of the major
results based upon an analysis of COLT Part A,
are reported in this paper.

1.4
Description and Analysis
The selected lessons were described utilizing thebasic concepts of the COLT observation
framework (Spada and Fröhlich, 1995), which
consists of two parts: Part A for describing“classroom events at the level of episode andactivity” (p. 13); and Part B for analyzing “thecommunicative features of verbal exchanges
between teachers and students and/or students
and students as they occur within each episodeor activity” (p. 13).
As a first step, a general description andanalysis of each lesson was carried out
employing four basic analytic features of COLT
Part A with slight modifications: 1) TIME,
which examined durations spent on the various
COLT analytic features, 2) RANGE OFREFERENCE, which determined types ofactivities by three categories, such as BROAD
referring to topics going well beyond theclassroom and immediate environment, 3)
FORM, which dealt with grammar, vocabulary,pronunciation, etc., and 4) FUNCTION, whichchecked functions and communicative acts, such

2.1

The Task and its Constituent
Activities
In each of the targeted three lessons, a language
learning task, composed of its several
constituent activities, was used. First, thetopic/content of such a task, including its aim,
was checked. Class A dealt with a shopping
game, in which the children were taught how to
do shopping in English. In Class B, a task
focusing upon English language itself was used,
where the children were taught how to write
capital letters from A to Z, for instance. Class C
used a task dealing with Christmas, in which thechildren were exposed to English in a Christmas
setting. Next, the duration of the tasks, thenumber of the constituent activities, and theirmean duration were investigated. Table 2
provides a basic description of the task and its
constituent activities in each of the three lessons:235

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 3 provides a description of Class A:

Table 2: Basic Descriptive Data of the Task andits Constituent Activities
ClassA
shopping
game

Class
B
Englishsound &
letters

Class
C
Christmas &
Santa
Claus

Table 3: Topic/Form/Function in Activities inClass A

Duration of the
Task (min.)

34.0

52.6

43.2

Number of
Activities of the
Task

10

3

3

Mean Durationof the Activities(min.)

3.4

Topic/Content

17.5

14.4

One point in this table deserves muchattention: Class A is composed of far more
activities than the other two despite the fact thatits duration is the shortest and that each activity
lasts for only a short time. Such a task could beinterpreted in various ways, such as in terms ofthe children’s English proficiency, but it may be
the most reasonable to assume that theconstituent activities of the task are elaborated
and developed to provide various contexts forthe children to learn certain aspects of the target
language repeatedly.
2.2

Constituent Activities of the Task
Such elaboration and development of theconstituent activities of the task are considered
to be complex and multi-faceted. The data fromthe three lessons have been processed in thefollowing four ways:
1) a brief description of the content of eachactivity

Topic

Form

FunctionA1: getting
started○○○A2: birthday
interview○

A3: talking aboutsome visitors○

A4: shopping
game: roleplay○

A5: how tocount,
paper
money

○

A6: names ofanimals to
buy

○

○

A7: expressionsfor
shopping○○

A8: coloring theanimals
they bought○○

A9: shopping
bag
and naming○

A10: demonstration of
shopping

○

○

○

○

○

This table shows in general that although
the topic of the whole task is more or lessreferred to or dealt with in every activity,
languageform-related
andlanguagefunction-related learning/teaching are notcontinuously performed in relation to the topic
of the whole task. A close look at the tableindicates, however, that there are three activities,
in which reference of the topic of the whole task
and performance of language form-related andlanguage function-related learning/teaching wereobserved at the same time: in Activity 1, Activity
7, and Activity 10. This view of the activities of2) whether the topic of the whole task is moreor less referred to or dealt with in eachactivity
3) whether language form-related learning/teaching is performed in relation to the topic
of the whole task
4) whether language function-related learning/teaching is performed in relation to the topic
of the whole task

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

This table shows that the topic of thewhole task is more or less referred to or dealt
with in every activity as in the other two classes,
and that language form-related and language
function-related learning/teaching are performedin every activity in relation to the topic of thewhole task. It may be possible to say that thewhole task was well elaborated and developed
continuously throughout its constituent activities,
although closer examination based upon COLT
Part B is necessary to be conclusive.
A comparison in data among these threetables reveals that the task in each lesson mayvary a great deal although each of its constituent
activities is more or less related to the task topic.
This variety is considered to be largely derived
from its selection which determines whether thetask topic is based upon children’s experiencesin their immediate environments. For example,
Class A, dealing with “a shopping game,” offers
a number of scenes that involve more or lesspersonal relevance with the children (Normally,
all children have done some shopping in their
immediate environments.), in which they areencouraged to learn certain aspects of the target
language, such the language function of
ASKING (the price) and to use them in somequasi situations (using toy money).

the task in Class A seems to represent more of
the nature of task-based language learning, andit may be possible to claim that although topicalconsistency and reference must be fully
maintained in task-based language learning,
languageform-related
andlanguagefunction-related learning/teaching do not have to
be continuously carried out or should be
conducted when necessary.
Next, let us look at Table 4, which provides
a description of Class B:
Table 4: Topic/Form/Function in Activities inClass BTopic
A1: writing capitalletters: A to Z○

A2: pronouncing
the letters of
the alphabets○

A3: learning
words

○

Form

Function

This table shows that although the topic of
the whole task is more or less referred to or dealt
with in every activity, as in Class A, languageform–related and language function-related
learning/teaching are not performed at all in
relation to the topic of the whole task. Basically,
it must be admitted that a non-language-basedtask is certainly used as in Class B , but it isquite conceivable, considering the nature of
Activity 2, that some kind of languageform–related learning/teaching would have been
carried out in the activity. An analysis based
upon COLT Part B may be able to examine it
more closely.
Finally, let us look at Table 5, which
provides a description of Class C:

3.

The authors have analyzed and comparedtask-based language learning in three EFL
classrooms for children. In this paper, some of
the major results based upon an analysis by
COLT Part A, have been reported. In thepresentation, employing the results from ananalysis by COLT Part B, they will make an
attempt to gain a better understanding of how
language learning tasks are elaborated anddeveloped, serving as means to interface theclassroom with the world beyond.

Table 5: Topic/Form/Function in Activities inClass C
Topic

Form

Function○○○A2: decorating:
Christmas
tree

○

○

○

A3: Christmas
Present○

A1: story time:
Santa Claus

Concluding Remarks

Acknowledgment
The present study was supported by
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)(19320092) from the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science.

References○○

Samuda, V. & Bygate, M. (2008). Tasks insecond language learning. NY: Palgrave
Macmillan.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach tolanguage learning. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
Spada, N., & Fröhlich, M. (1995).
Communicative orientation of language
teaching observation scheme: Coding
conventions and applications. Sydney,
Australia:
NCELTR,
Macquarie
University.
Sugino, N., Kawashima, H. & Koga, Y. (2008).
Tasks as means to mediate between theclassroom and the world beyond:qualitative comparison of language
activities in three EFL classrooms forchildren. Proceedings of CLaSIC 2008,554-561.
Van den Branden, K. (2006). Introduction:
Task-based language teaching in anutshell. In K. Van den Branden (ed.),Task-Based Language Education: From
Theory to Practice, 1-16. Cambridge
University Press.

238

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

A Case Study of the Development of Communication Skills
through Cross-Cultural Distance Learning
Akiko Watanabe and Annette Karseras Sumi
Graduate School of Education, Waseda University and Waseda University International Cooperation
aki49@fuji.waseda.jp, asumi@kurenai.waseda.jp

common across more than textbook. Others, such as
nonverbal communication skills, and high or low
context communication styles are specific mainly to
one course.
While not taught explicitly to students,
Goleman’s (2006) concept of ‘social competence’appears in some detail in teacher’s notes
accompanying the core textbook (Nakano et al,
2008: iii). The teacher uses this broadbased
understanding herself, to inform her own
instructions with the students when playing the roleof ‘teacher-facilitator’ during activities from thestudent textbook. All ten facilitation skills listed in
student text represent expressive communication
skills (Table 2). Facilitation skills were originallyformalized as a part of the CCDL course in order tohelp students cope with the low context (Hall,
1959), virtual environment of video-conferencing
and to mitigate against ‘white-noise’ and ‘time lag’endemic to this technology in such early stages of
its development. Effective use of technology tocommunicate across geographies and to manage
relationships despite distance is critically imported
for citizens that wish to be active transnationally.
Facilitation is most simply explained in terms of‘helping a conversation go smoothly’ between
peoplewithdifferent
personalities
andcommunication styles.
The course emphasises the development ofsocial competence and communication skills as“transferable skills” that can be “useful adapted to arange of situations beyond the end of the course”(Nakano et al, 2008: vii). The students who take
CCDL courses not only have the opportunity todevelop these skills with others from their own
country, but also with students from different
cultural backgrounds across East Asia. CCDL aims
tohelp
students
noticehowdifferent
communication skills, such as expressive andreceptive skills, are used to different extents bypeople with different cultural backgrounds andpersonalities. In this sense, the communication
skills developed through CCDL are considered
useful for participation in global, regional, and local
society.
As shown in Table 1, CCDL consists of three

AbstractThis
study
investigates
advantagesofCross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL) for
acquiringskillsforsocialandglobalcommunication. The results of the study
demonstrate a significant increase in reported use ofboth expressive and receptive communication skills.
Both these skills were taught explicitly throughout
the course as a part of a broader set of ‘facilitation’skills and in conjunction with nonverbal
communication skills. The study focuses on
discussion between university students based inJapan and Taiwan in which all the students used
English as a foreign language (EFL). Small group
discussions
were
held
using
internetvideo-conferencing. All Japan-based students fromone CCDL class completed a weekly
self-evaluation questionnaire during fall 2008. The
questionnaire was distributed to students at the endof each class and collected on completion. Fouritems on communication skills (3 expressive and 1
receptive) were assessed using a five-point scale.
Students were asked to indicate the extent to which
they had used each skill. The opportunities topractice specific communication skills through avariety of structured activities, prior to using themin discussion situations with overseas partners,
seems to have played an important role in thedevelopment of students’ communication skills.
Keywords
Global Communication skills, Cross-Cultural
Distance learning, Social and Emotional learning
(SEL)

1

Introduction

1.1
Cross-Cultural Distance Leaning
Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL) is “ajoint seminar between two universities in Asia using
an Internet video-conferencing system” (Nakano,
Yoshida, and Owada, 2008: 191). At present there isa series of three CCDL text books, each with adifferent theme: Social and Global Issues,
International Career Path, and Media. Some CCDL
communication skills, such as facilitation skills, are239

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

types of classes: ‘Preparation’, ‘Joint’, ‘Post Joint’
classes. All class-types give students discussion
opportunities.

5
6

Table 1: Media Course

8

7

9

Media Schedule Overview 2008
CLASS

Preparation/JointTOPICSKILLS

Homework

WEEK 1WEEK 2

HW1: Reading facilitation skills & B
self-introduction

Preparation
Introduction

WEEK 3

Joint Class 1

WEEK 4

Preparation

WEEK 5

Joint Class 2

WEEK 6

Preparation

WEEK 7

10

None

Joint Class 3(Source from Nakano et al, 2008: 20)

Facilitation
HW2: Reading & video conversation
management & Dr. Nakano's lectur

This is the first level in which students ‘learn by
doing’. Simultaneously, other students in the group,learn about facilitation through their experience ofbeing a participant in a discussion facilitated byanother student. They ‘learn by participating’.
Students experience first hand what it is like to be
invited to share their opinion, or to be asked“Why?” in order to clarify their reasons or checkassumptions. During this second experiential levelof learning, students can gain both positive andnegative examples as the novice facilitators climb
the ladder from unconscious incompetence tocompetence. The third level of learning occurs
during whole-class discussion. This ‘debrief activity
is facilitated by the teacher. She elicits content-level
learning from each small group in order to elaborate
the definition of skill used in each topic, either
explicitly with a definition or more tacitly throughexamples. As one member from each small groupshares something from their discussion, the teacher
is able to use many of the facilitation skills herself
as a model for students to learn from.
During Preparation Classes, the length ofgroup discussion time ranges from 1 to 15 minutes,
depending on the topics, activities, and purposes.
Students are given the chance to work in different
groups and with different individuals in order tomaximize their exposure to different personalities
and communication styles (at the process level),and their exposure to different ideas and points ofview (at the content level). Implicitly, thisopportunity creates the need for students to engage
with and adapt their communication style to agreater range of people than might occur if working
consistently with students of their own choice.
In Joint Classes, by contrast, there iscontinuity amongst ‘ChatRoom’ members eachweek (except for student absences). Joint Classes
consist of 50-minute discussion periods withoverseas students, in small ChatRoom groups of 2
to 6 students at least one student from eachcountry’s university. The remaining 40 minutes of
the regular 90-minute period is used for preparationand debrief. Avoiding the need for repeatedintroductions to new ChatRoom members eachweek and enabling rapport to develop with overseas

HW:3 Research Car Advert workshAdvertising

NonvervalCommunicationHW4: Reading
HW5: Reflection Paper Topic 1&2
HW6: Research Front page broashe
news

Front Page
Context

WEEK 8Preparation

WEEK 9

Joint Class 4

WEEK 10Preparation

WEEK 11

Joint Class 5Country Image
Popular Cultur

HW7: Reading D.I.E. & O.D.I.S.
D.I.E.1
O.D.I.S.2

HW8: Research
HW9: Reflection Paper Topic 3&4
HW10: Reading

HW11: Power PointWEEK 12WEEK 13Multiple HW12: Rehearsal
Post Joint Class Presentations
WEEK 14Intelligence

WEEK 15

Source from CCDL Teacher’s Notes (Nakano et al, 2008:1).
1.
D.I.E. stands for description, interpretations, and evaluation.
2.
O.D.I.S. stands for observation, description, interpretation,suspending ethnocentric evaluations.

Preparation Classes, conducted in a face-to-face
discussion environment, are structured around
one-to-one, small group, and whole class activity
depending on the communication skills beingtaught. This enables learning to take place on threelevels. Students learn about facilitator’s role byfacilitatinga
discussion
themselves,byexperiencing being a participant in a facilitateddiscussion, and by observing others facilitate (ibid:
20). First, students have the chance to learn
experientially through playing an active, expressiverole, such as being a facilitator. For example, at thestart of each small group discussion, students
choose one person to be a facilitator for that activity.
A different student takes this role each time to gain
practical experience using one or more of ten
facilitation skills as follows (Nakano et al, 2008:
20).
Table 2: Facilitation Skills
1
2
3

4

Preventing one person from dominating the discussion.
Deciding who should go first if 2 or more people want tospeak at the same time.
Directing discussion by calling on individual people byname.
Preparing extra questions and/or topic-related material
before discussion to deepen and/or extend the discussion.
Asking ‘why’ questions during the discussion to expand
understanding of reasons and avoid making assumptions.
Enabling group members to make personal andtopic-related connections at a deeper level.

Facilitation Skills
Helping things go smoothly; stopping things from getting
stuck, keeping the conversation going.
Ensuring everyone is participating and can understand thediscussion
Writing main discussion questions and keywords in the
TextBox to make sure everyone basically follows thediscussion.
Inviting a student to speak up or ask questions if they
have been quiet for some time.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

SEL has been widely used in primary school orhigh school, however, Shimai et al (2007) argues
for the value of applying SEL in a university
environment. According to Shimai et al’s study, theuniversity students group who had received
employment offers from more than three companies
showedhighestscoresinintrapersonal,
interpersonal, and situational abilities of emotional
intelligence (Shimai et al, 2007). This result shows
SEL use in university students is effective in their
future life. Such concept of using skills is alsosimilar to the concept of CCDL skill use in a reallife domain.
Two types of communication skills, ‘receptive
communication’ and ‘expressive communication’
were excerpted from the SEL categories. These
definitions were revised as question type for thequestionnaire (Appendix A).

students is considered an important for the qualityand depth of discussion. The two countries involved
take turns to facilitate. For example, a student fromJapan facilitates one week, followed by a facilitatorfrom Taiwan the next.
1.2
CCDL Media Course
The present study focuses on learning from theMedia course which includes both facilitation skills(expressive) and nonverbal communication skills(expressive and receptive). As the Media schedule
shows (Table 1), Joint Classes are held on alternate
weeks during week 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. The partnercountry in the case of the course observed was
Taiwan.
1.3
Research Objectives
What communication skill do students gain from
CCDL?

2

Communication Skills
1. Receptive communication: The capacity to attend
to others both verbally and nonverbally to receive
messages accurately
2. Expressive Communication: The capacity toinitiate and maintain conversation, express one’s
thoughts and feelings clearly both verbally andnonverbally” (Patricia et al, 2000).

Method

2.1

Applying Social Emotional Learning toUniversity Environment
Items on one receptive communication skill andthree expressive communication skills were adopted
in the questionnaire. Items on these communication
skills were excerpted from Social Emotional
Learning (SEL) category (Appendix A) andtranslated into Japanese. SEL has been mainly usedin United States, Denmark, Sweden, Israel, Englandand it has around eighty programs to solve current
social issues. It aims for each student to be a
successful person in a society. SEL was defined by
the Collaborative for Academic, Social, andEmotional Learning (CASEL) as “the process ofacquiring and effectively applying the knowledge,
attitudes, and skills necessary to recognize andmanage emotions; developing caring and concern
for others, making responsible decisions;establishing positive relationships; and handlingchallenging situation capably” (Zins and Elias,
2004: 1). Such processes of acquiring and applying
the knowledge, attitudes, and skills refer to themain learning point in CCDL.
Take one of the core skills sets in CCDL,
facilitation skills, as example, students learn about
what facilitation means by observing a facilitator ina group, experiencing being as a participant in thediscussion facilitated by another student, as well as
facilitating a discussion themselves. In the conceptof SEL, such facilitation in CCDL can be explained
as “making responsible decisions; establishingpositive relationships; and handling challenging
situation capably” (ibid: 1). Therefore it is possible
to say that SEL concept covers some of CCDL
skills.

From Receptive communication, “The capacity
to attend to others both verbally and nonverbally toreceive messages accurately” was revised as Survey
Question Two. From Expressive communication,“The capacity to initiate and maintain conversation”
was revised as Survey Question One, “express
one’s thoughts and feelings clearly both verballyand nonverbally” as Survey Question Three. Survey
question Four was “Did you check if the listenerunderstood you”. Each item on communication
skills in the questionnaire is shown in Table 2.
Table 3: Receptive/Expressive Communication
SkillsReceptive/Expressive Communication Skills
1. Did you initiate and maintain conversation?
2.
3.
4.

Did you attend to the other to receive
messages accurately?
Did you express your thoughts and feelings
clearly?
Did you check if the listener understood you?

*Q1, Q3, and Q4 are Expressive Communication*Q2 is Receptive Communication

The questionnaire has a five-point scale(1. not at all, 2. not much, 3. somewhat, 4. a little, 5.
a lot). (Appendix B).

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

2.2
ParticipantsParticipants comprised ten university students, One
Chinese and nine Japanese, who took CCDL Media
course, fall semester in 2008. Although the majority
were not EFL majors, most had an interest in either‘maintaining’ or ‘improving’ their English skills.
Other reasons given for taking CCDL include‘interest in other Asian cultures/countries’ and ‘tocommunicating with students in Asia’. As CCDL is
not a compulsory course, participation in the course
was entirely for voluntary. Each student had acomplement of different study purposes. All
students except one had experiences of study
abroad from one month to a year. Departments ofthe students varied such as Education, Humanities
and Social Sciences, International Liberal Studies,Law, Letters, Arts and Social Sciences, Political
Science and Economics, Social Science, and Sport
Sciences. The grade of the students varies fromsophomore to senior.

Weekly Average of Communication Skill Questionnaire

5

4

3

2

1

W3

W5

W6

W7

W8

W9

W10

W11

W12

W13

W14

W15

Week

From top to bottom line,■ (Q2)Have you attended to other to receive messages
accurately?
▲(Q3)Have you expressed your thoughts and feelings clearly?
◆（Q１）Have you initiated and maintained conversation?
×(Q4) Did you ask listeners if they understood you?

Figure1: Students’ Weekly Self-Evaluation ofCommunication Processes

2.3
Data processing
This questionnaire was conducted weekly after theclass and collected following completion on thesame day. The sum of the individual rate in each
item was divided by the numbers of the participants inthe class. Mean (M) and Standard Deviation (SD) of
the questionnaire were calculated.

3

W4

Along with increasing use of skills, students’
perception of the skills also seems to have become
more similar as the course progressed. There was adramatic decrease in the SD for each item. This
convergence is especially apparent for Q4 whichasks whether students confirmed understanding on
the part of the listener. SD for this item in week 3
was 1.48 (9 participants) and in week 14 was 0.53
(7 participants). Why did this alignment in ratings
occur? One interpretation is that students’
individual goals aligned as a result of discussion
over the course. The range of study purposes
students brought to this elective course became
more focussed on acquiring communication skills
per se as their understanding of different types ofcommunication skills increased and as their ability
to use them improved. Opportunities for structured
practice on three levels may have played a part inthis. Through observing others, experiencing beinga participant in the discussion facilitated by anotherstudent, and facilitating a discussion themselves,the students could focus more on a similar goal orsimilar direction. Another contributing factor may
have been the continuity of ChatRoom members in
Joint Lessons. Increasing familiarity with groupmembers may have provided students with theconfidence to communicate in a more active way.
This continuity may also have provided them with abaseline by which to compare their participationeach week. However, as there was no control groupin this research, the existence of experimenter
effects cannot be ruled out. It is possible that thepresence of the researcher and the simple act ofcompleting the questionnaire each week reinforced
the centrality of the skills in students’ minds.
Further research is needed to investigate the causes

Results and Discussion

This report discusses two main findings of theresearch. Other results are discussed elsewhere(Watanabe, 2008). (1) Overall, there was both anincrease and convergence in students’ reported useof all skills towards the end of the course. (2)Context-sensitive use of skills was observed in
respect to Joint and Preparation classes.
3.1

Increase and convergence in reported
use of skills
As shown in Figure 1, the average rate of thestudents’ self-evaluations increased over thesemester. This is true for each of the 4communication skills. Students reported using theskills less towards the beginning of the course andmore towards the end.

242

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

academic environment. This difference was moststriking in relation to Q4. The average rate of Q4
was explicitly high in Joint Class compared to therate in Preparation Class. In Table 3, the averagerate of their evaluation on Q4 was 3.22, 4.00, 4.22,
4.00, 4.29 in week 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 respectively,
while the one in Preparation Class was 3.00, 3.13,
3.25, 3.57 in week 4, 6, 8, and 10. Compared thesemean difference between Joint Class andPreparation Class, it can be said that the way thestudents use communication skill will be different
depending on class types. Furthermore, the resultshows that there were high average rate in Q2 andlow average rate in Q4 in Preparation Class. This
demonstrates that the students were more receptivein Japanese social context.

of this convergence.
Table 4: Mean and Standard Deviation of the Self
Evaluation Questionnaire
WEEK Q 1
M

Q2
SD

M

Q3
SD

M

Q4
SD

M

SD

N

W3

3.78 (1.20) 4.00

(1.00) 4.00

(1.22) 3.22

(1.48)

9

W4

3.80

(0.84) 4.40

(0.89) 3.60

(1.14) 3.00

(1.22)

5

W5

3.90

(0.88) 4.20

(0.79) 4.30

(0.67) 4.00

(0.94) 10

W6

4.00

(0.53) 4.50

(0.53) 4.38

(0.92) 3.13

(1.13)

W7

4.11(0.78) 4.33

(0.71) 4.33

(0.71) 4.22

(0.67)

9

W8

3.63

(0.92) 4.38

(1.06) 3.75

(1.04) 3.25

(1.39)

8

8

W9

4.00

(0.58) 4.43

(0.53) 4.43

(0.79) 4.00

(1.00)

7

W10

4.14

(0.38) 4.71

(0.49) 4.43

(0.79) 3.57

(1.51)

7

W11

3.71

(0.76) 4.57

(0.53) 4.29

(0.76) 4.29

(0.76)

7

W12

4.00

(0.82) 4.29

(0.76) 4.29

(0.76) 4.29

(0.76)

7

W13

4.29

(0.76) 4.57

(0.53) 4.43

(0.53) 4.00

(0.82)

7

W14

4.57

(0.53) 4.71

(0.49) 4.57

(0.53) 4.57

(0.53)

7

W15

4.75

(0.50) 4.75

(0.50) 4.75

(0.50) 4.50

(0.58)

4

4

Conclusion

The results of self-evaluation questionnairedemonstrate increase and convergence in reported
use of skill and context-sensitive use of skills.
Students’ high average rate of listening to others
can be said to reflect Japanese tendency to use amore receptive communication style according tocultural norms. This was particularly evident during
Preparation Classes. However, the students’increasing reported using a more expressive
communication style both in the practice situationof the Preparation Classes and during Joint Class
discussion with students in Taiwan. From theresults of decreasing SD in the average rate on each
communication skill, it seemed that students’
perceptions on skills became more similar as thecourse progress. An increase average rate of skills
use with decreasing SD shows students’ similarevaluation of themselves. This could be that thestudents shared a common goal with partners
involved in a discussion or even with wider
cross-cultural norms.

*Q1, Q3, and Q4 are Expressive Communication*Q2 is Receptive Communication* N: the number of the students attended in class*Joint Discussion was held in week 3, 5, 7, 9, 11.
（Q1）Have you initiated and maintained conversation?
(Q2)Have you attended to other to receive messages
accurately?
(Q3)Have you expressed your thoughts and feelings clearly?
(Q4) Did you ask listeners if they understood you?

3.2
Context-sensitive use of skills
The second finding discussed here regards
context-sensitive use of skills. The students used
receptive and expressive communication skills
differently in Joint Class and Preparation Class.
When using English in Japan, these learners
appeared use a more receptive communication style.
The result of the questionnaire demonstrates item of
Q2 (receptive communication item) is the highest
average among all. This tendency could be seenclearly in Preparation Class on week 4, 6, and10.
This shows that students used receptive
communication
skill
more
when
they
communicatedwithpeoplereceptive
communication skills more often when they
communicated with people who shared the same
cultural background. This also applies to someextent in the case of the Chinese student studying inJapan, as she had extended experience in theJapanese context and with its communicative norms.
In traditional Japanese social context, moreemphasis is placed on listening and interpreting themessageratherthan
directexpression(Ting-Toomey and Chung, 2005). In particular,
receptive skills, such as noticing people’s bodylanguage reaction, or lack of it, as part of listening
and understanding the other person’s point of viewand feeling, plays an important role. This highJapanese type of listening holds true also in the

Acknowledgement
I would like to express my sincerest thanks to Prof.
Michiko, Nakano introducing me to CCDL courses.
I also appreciate Karseras, Sumi Annette who
allowed me to observe her class and to collectquestionnaire from the students over the course
after their class hours.
References
Goleman, D. (2006) Social and Intelligence. New
York: Bantam Books.
Graczyk, P. A. et al. (2000). Criteria for evaluating
the quality of school-based social andemotional learning programs. In Bar-On,
Reuven & James, D. A. Parker (eds.), The
handbook of emotional intelligence: theory,development, assessment, and application at243Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

home, school, and in the workplace (pp.
391-410). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Hall, E.T. (1959) the silent language. New York:
Doubleday.
Nakano, M., Karseras Sumi, A., and Yokota, M.
(2008). Cross cultural distance learning
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International Corporation.
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skills and social intelligence throughtheme-based cross cultural distance learning
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Information
Communication Technology Practice &Research 2007 (pp.191-199). Tokyo: Waseda
University International Corporation,.
Nakano, M., Yoshida, S., and Owada, K. (2008,
November). Cross-cultural distance learning(CCDL) programs and program assessments.
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Association of Pacific Rim Universities 9th
distance learning and the Internet conference
2008, Tokyo, Japan, 189-198.
Shimai, S. et al. (2007). Jyoshidaigakusei ni okeru
jyoudouchinou no yakuwari. Japan journal of
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Ting-Toomey, S. and Chung, L. C. (2005)
Understanding Intercultural Communication.
CA: Roxbury.
Watanabe, A. (2008). CCDL Media classroom
observation notes in 2008.
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Minke (eds.), Children’s needs III:
Development, prevention, and interaction(pp.1-13).
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Items
on
receptive
andexpressive
communication
skillsexcerpted
fromQuestionnaire for this study.
Please give your frank opinion about today’s lesson.
Choose the number, which is suitable for yourfeeling about the lesson.
１=completely not ２＝not quite ３＝so-so ４＝
little ５＝very much
(1)Haveyou
initiatedandmaintained
conversations?(自分から会話を始め続けることができましたか？)

1-------2-------3-------4------5（2）Have you attended to other（both verbally andnonverbally) to receive messages accurately?
相手の意味することを正しく受け取るために（言葉であるいは言葉を使わないで）注意して話を聞きましたか？

1-------2-------3-------4------5(3) Have you expressed your thoughts and feelings
clearly (both verbally and nonverbally)?
自分の思ったことや感じたことを、言葉で、あるいは言葉を使わないで、はっきりと表現しましたか？

1-------2-------3-------4------5（4）Did you ask listeners if they understood you?
1-------2-------3-------4------5
あなたは相手に対してあなたの話を理解したかどうか尋ねましたか？

*Some of the items in the questionnaire were
excluded as they were not used in the study.

Appendices
Appendix A
Items on communication skills in the
Questionnaire excerpted from the SEL category.
Social and Emotional Learning（SEL): Key SEL
Competencies by Category
Communication Skills
3. Receptive communication: The capacity toattend to others both verbally and nonverballyto receive messages accurately
4. Expressive Communication: The capacity toinitiate and maintain conversation, express
one’s thoughts and feelings clearly bothverbally and nonverbally, and demonstrate toother speakers that they have been understood(Patricia et al, 2000: 400)
Source from The handbook of emotional intelligence.
Appendix B
244

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Vocabulary Frequency in Japanese Entrance Examinations from2005 to 2008
Takane YAMAGUCHI

Waseda University
takane@aoni.waseda.jp

Table 1: Word lists in this study

Abstract

2005

This paper describes on written English vocabularyfrequency in Japanese University entrance
examination corpus in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008
respectively, in terms of how different in word
frequency ranks each word family in each word list
is. The difference of the ranks seems to benecessary when attempts have been made to makeeducational word lists, because some educational
word lists happen not to contain words seemingly
necessary for learners. The research question is on
how many tokens are necessary for making wordlists for learners of English.

Token
numberLemma
number1

Vocabulary,

2008

74422

83217

6116

5086

9817

Table 2: ranks of the words in each corpus
AdmirePretendexplaineffective
Supposegovernment
workerWord

Procedure for word lists

1.1
Whole the procedure for word lists
All English words in each examination corpus were
picked up, decapitalized, lemmatized, and counted
by frequency. The procedure is the same as thatreported in Yamaguchi (2006).

2005
1798
2230
788
1038
11325
379
514

2006
2746
777
2048
1101
530
1836

2007
774
3384
1527
221
1889

2008
708
784
784
826
927
991

While the word “suppose” appears at the 11325th in2005 word list, it comes up at the 826th in 2008,
which shows the possibility that corpora containing
803096 tokens is not ideally correct as well as theone that 2008 corpus, which has fewer tokens than2005, cannot state ideal word orders.
The word “pretend” is not found in 2007 word
list. Because the author believes this word isnecessary for learners, 2007 corpus alone, which
token size is 74422, seems to be inappropriate formaking word lists.
Similarly, the word “admire” is not foundexcept 2005 word list. Given that the reason for its
absence from the other word lists is the size of
tokens, it is assumed that more than 177029 tokens
are needed for word lists appropriate for learners.
Thought along the same line, it can be doubt if
2005 corpus is appropriate for educational wordlists, which is to be examined in next research.

1.1.1
Decapitalization
Because of the decapitalization, the word lists inthis study cannot tell originally capitalized words
from originally non-capitalized words. For example,
word family ‘i’ contains the word ‘I’ as well as theword ‘i’.
1.1.2
Lemmatization
Lemmatization is the change of some word tokens
into the same word family or lemma. The table forlemmatization was originally made by using data
produced by Yasumasa Someya.

2

20733

2007

2.1
The size of tokens necessary
Table 2 is an example of ranks of the words
randomly selected by the author.

Keywords
Entrance
examinations,frequency, Word list

8030962006
177029Results

Table 1 shows all the word lists in this study.

245

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

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Reference
Yamaguchi, T. (2006). Vocabulary Frequency in

University Entrance Examination in
Japan. Proceedings of the 11th Conferenceof Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics.
Appendix A. 2005 Word list.
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
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47

Frequency Word
44203
the
28209
a
24451
to
21691
of
17460
and
16011
in
11097
that
10287
is
9429
i
8504
it
8324
b
7558
c
7170
for
7089
be
7082
you
6242
d
5888
was
5706
are
5676
s
5398
as
4797
on
4762
have
4713
with
4504
this
4371
they
4361
not
4061
he
3725
at
3621
by
3557
we
3447
but
3428
from
3363
or
3208
t
3207
people
3202
do
3111
their
2904
can
2808
what
2754
one
2747
more
2707
had
2655
an
2604
when
2585
about
2452
his
2393
my
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time
were
she
all
e
there
say
has
so
if
will
her
which
use
than
who
your
year
take
would
no
other
because
me
how
think
up
them
like
many
some
work
out
our
see
child
most
new
world
very
way
only
could
f
come
into
day
first
much
become
make
get
good
want
just
know
don

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

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even
life
well
may
now
after
its
should
also
thing
such
two
over
country
go
him
us
then
change
m
tell
too
woman
word
study
americanenglish
where
any
right
call
schooljapanese
madeproblemlanguagewrite
why
beforestudent
read
same
ask
different
long
place
each
importantneversomething
home
food
begin
show
start
another
while
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need
back
part
going
try
japan
howeveralways
often
own
must
throughdoes
oldbetter
help
book
every
personbetweenlittle
city
still
water
state
question
seem
great
speak
reallylessanimalparentmoney
manarounddown
humannumberplay
system
both
find
talk
ll
best
small
without
today
believethreeganswer
men
cause
since
few

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last
familyremotherdevelop
look
here
might
found
off
car
didn
put
high
young
age
accordyes
got
examplebuy
duringgive
reason
left
turn
next
university
computerfeelawaycentury
understand
class
story
having
lot
large
live
businessamothersbring
cultureenoughscientist
body
resultfollowing
able
fact
once
went
livingcompany
though
train
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let
authorcourse
spend
far
learn
societygroup
percent
house
kind
mr
information
until
week
area
almostsocial
run
close
stop
possibleunite
scienceagoamericafatherbighmeans
together
point
idea
order
friends
ever
hard
produce
early
sure
set
watch
cannotveyetteacher
controlpower
historynightchooselater
someonedifference
createkeepmakingProceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

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soon
technology
secondtest
eatjob
considernothinghand
again
healthmind
product
difficult
earth
room
walk
usuallyalthoughpassageratherwin
providecase
build
against
war
five
late
lives
public
phone
teach
stay
researchwhether
decide
thank
TRUE
air
known
themselves
already
hours
care
allow
government
john
value
modernanything
sleepucontinuepleaselikelytelevision
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die
doing
end
sense
rule
mattereveryoneplan
tree
morning
process
program
wait
among
view
four
pay
plant
commonspecialcost
brain
education
severalreportmakes
speciespopulation
situation
visit
break
done
bad
longersometimes
collegeform
mary
naturalability
sound
reach
least
concernunder
space
appear
given
name
past
strongfuturehalfparagraphprobably
experience
rememberProceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

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britishwritersupportdevelopment
receivegetting
land
quite
certaineuropelookingcoffeereal
doesninternationalpresent
sit
suggesthumansmillionlove
pass
popularforeigninsteadlookedside
languagesboyrequirecarry
friendlearning
news
stand
adult
easy
happy
death
rise
send
knowledge
mean
everything
term
oh
felt
leave
base
arriveenvironment
worry
main
share
amountact
britain
250

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save
music
remainmajor
similartown
lost
realize
skill
store
actually
travelworkeractivity
free
team
face
knew
light
whole
stressespecially
game
hear
paper
energyelsetennatureofficetend
picture
sell
heard
open
disease
eyes
move
sport
condition
culturalwithinresearcher
economic
along
lived
rate
frenchhopesurprisegave
sign
acceptthousandshortProceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Syntactic Categorization of Ditransitive and Dative Verbs
by Japanese EFL Learners
Naoki Sugino1, Simon Fraser2 , Chika Ikeda3, Hirokatsu Kawashima4, Yuya Koga5 and Naoki Sugimori1

1

Ritsumeikan University, 2 Hiroshima University, 3 Aichi Prefectural University,
4

Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies, 5Shukugawa Gakuin College

gwisno@is.ritsumei.ac.jp, fraser@hiroshima-u.ac.jp,
ikeda@for.aichi-pu.ac.jp, kawashima@tc.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp,
koga@shukugawa-c.ac.jp, naosugi@is.ritsumei.ac.jp

Abstract

dimensionally. In order to develop such a tool, it isnecessary to grasp how a word is represented inrelation to other words. In our review of theprevious studies in second language mental lexicon(Fraser et al., 2008), it has been pointed out that the
network structure of the mental lexicon consists ofseveral subnetworks, each of which represents the
subclasses of related words. Some examples of such
related words are different classes of English verbs
that share common lexico-syntactic features(Goldberg, 1995; Levin, 1993; Pinker, 1989).
In the context of SLA, such clusters canfunction as facilitative factors in learning new
vocabulary items. For instance, if a learner has
established a cluster with sufficient members and isaware of the shared features, s/he can use thatknowledge to infer the meaning and syntactic
behavior of a new word that also shares the samefeatures. At the same time, it has been also pointed
out that some of the clusters pose difficulties forlearners because different clusters share similar
semantic or syntactic features. One such difficulty
is concerned with dative alternation. While some ofthe verbs can be used both in the ditransitive
construction and in the prepositional dative
construction, there is a cluster of verbs that can beused only in the prepositional dative construction.
The present study focuses on this aspect andattempts to elucidate how Japanese EFL learners
represent these two classes of English verbs.

The present study attempts to explicate how
different classes of verbs are represented by
Japanese EFL learners with different proficiency
levels. Sugino et al. (2008), focusing on the English
psych verbs, reported that (a) the categorization of
the verbs by the participants defied thetheoretically-predicted two categories, i.e., theexperiencer-subject
(ES)
verbs
and
the
experiencer-object (EO) verbs, but (b) each verb
was represented with different weighting patters.
Also observed were (c) the high proficiency groupdisplayed three clusters, one of which appeared toreflect characteristics of the EO verbs, although theEO verbs were not always mapped onto this cluster,and (d) the low proficiency group displayed four
weighting patterns, none of which corresponded to
the EO-ES distinction, and (e) the ES verbs
appeared to be represented in two groups.
Using the same research design, this study
focuses on verbs that can be used both in the
ditransitive
andtheprepositional
dativeconstructions and those that can be used only in the
prepositional dative construction. Grammaticality
judgment scores are used to give differentiatedweightings to each verb, and the data are analyzed
using self-organizing maps (Kohonen, 1997). Major
findings of the present study will be reported in thepresentation.

Keywords
English verbs; ditransitive; dative; self-organizing
maps; mental lexicon; representation

1

The present study

1.1

Target verbs and structures

Introduction

Two classes of English verbs, four verbs that can beused in both constructions and for that can be used
only in the prepositional dative construction areused in the present study. All of them are in 900
words that are familiar to the Japanese EFL learners

This study is carried out as part of our research
project that aims at developing a computermediated vocabulary learning tool that displays alearner’s state of the mental lexicon three251

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

2(Yokokawa, 2006), and therefore, it would be safe
to assume that the participants in the present study
possessed some knowledge of these verbs.

Since this study focuses on how the two classes ofverbs are represented in the learner’s mental lexicon,
the analysis focused on the response patterns eachparticipant attributed to each of the target verbs. In
order to understand the logic behind the procedure
adapted in this study, suppose a hypothetical learner
A, who has acquired full competence in the twoclasses of verbs. A’s responses to the target
sentences (1a) to (1j) containing give will be as areshown in square brackets:

Table 1: Verbs used in the present study
Ditransitives
Dativesfamiliarity
familiarity
V
V
rank
rank
find
640
carry
640
give
61
discover
577
make
87
report447
send
877
select796
Note: Based on Yokokawa (2006)(1) a. Mr. Jones gave me some money.
[5]b. The company gave him a new job.
[5]c. Mr. Jones gave some money to me.
[5]d. The company gave a new job to him.
[5]e. I was given some money by Mr. Jones. [5]f. He was given a new job by the company. [5]g. Some money was given me by Mr. Jones. [1]h. The new job was given him by the company.
[1]i. Some money was given to me by Mr. Jones.
[5]
j. A new job was given to him by the company.
[5]

These verbs were used in all of the following
10 sentence patterns, yielding 80 target sentences.
Table 2: Target sentence structures
Dit.

Dat.

F1

Human NP1 + V + NP2 + NP3

5

1

F2

Inanimate NP1 + V + NP2 +
NP3

5

1

F3

Human NPi + V + NPii + PP

5

5

F4

Inanimate NPi + V + NPii - PP

55

Thus, A’s knowledge about give can be represented
as (2):

NP2 + be Vp.p. + NP3 + by
F5
5
1
Human NP1
NP2 + be Vp.p. + NP3 + by
F6
5
1
Ianimate NP1
NP3 + be Vp.p. + NP2 + by
F7
1
1
Human NP1
NP3 + be Vp.p. + NP2 + by
F8
1
1
Ianimate NP1NPii + be Vp.p. + PP + byF95
5
Human NPi
NPii + be Vp.p. + PP + by
F10
5
5
Ianimate NPi
Note: “Dit.” designates “ditransitive”, and “Dat.”“dative”. “5” indicates that the sentence is well-formed,
while “1” grammatically incorrect.

1.2

Analysis(2) give A (5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 1, 1, 5, 5)
Similarly, A’s responses to the other ditransitive
verbs will be the same as (2). Therefore, we canassume that A has formed a cluster of verbs, allsharing the same response patterns as (2’).
(2’) give A (5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 1, 1, 5, 5),find A (5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 1, 1, 5, 5),
make A (5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 1, 1, 5, 5),send A (5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 1, 1, 5, 5)
On the other hand, A’s knowledge about the othercluster of verbs can be represented as in (3):Participants and procedure(3) carry A (1, 1, 5, 5, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 5),discover A (1, 1, 5, 5, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 5),report A (1, 1, 5, 5, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 5),select A (1, 1, 5, 5, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 5)

The participants were Japanese EFL learners
studying at various universities and colleges inJapan. The participants were first instructed to takea general English language proficiency test,
Measure of English Grammar (Shimizu et al.,2006). The 80 target sentences, with 20 filler
sentences, were randomly ordered and divided into
two test sets, each consists of 50 grammaticality
judgment items. These tests were administeredeither on-line or as paper-based tests, as appropriate
to the testing situation. The participants were given
approximately 20 minutes to complete each.

In this way, it would be possible to depict alearner’s representation of a verb as a set of
responses; how the words are clustered, and how
they are different, can be understood in terms ofsimilarities in the response patterns.
Let us further suppose that other hypotheticallearners, with the same level of mastery in the twoclasses of verbs, participated in the present study.
252

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Their response patterns would be identical withthose of A’s, and we can observe that they share thesame categorization of the verbs.
As a matter of course, the real learners do notjudge the grammaticality as clearly and correctly asthese hypothetical learners. There will be somegradual differences and similarities among theparticipants’ response patterns.

degree the representations of the verbs are shared
among the participants. SOM is a kind of cluster
analysis, in which a “node” with a weight vector ispositioned onto a two-dimensional map.
New data, represented as new nodes with similar
vectors, are placed closer to the original node, while
those with different vectors are placed further awayfrom the original. Thus, the response patterns eachindividual attributes to each of the verbs are
regarded as these weight vectors, yielding
topological mappings of individual learner’s
representation. Consequently, if the nodes
concentrate in one cluster on the map, it would
mean that the response patterns are shared by theparticipants. By analyzing the characteristics of thecluster, the nature of the shared representation canbe obtained.

3

Results and observation

The data from 50 participants from a university
were examined as a preliminary analysis. Figure 1
shows participants’ responses in each of the 10
sentence structures (Table 2 above).
Combining these 10 figures, the software
supported 6 clusters that share similar response
patterns, as is displayed in Figure 2.

Figure 2: 6 representational clusters
Cluster I can be characterized by relatively
lower responses to F2 and F5. Cluster II shows
relatively higher responses to all sentence structures
but less in F7 and F8, and therefore, displays thecharacteristics of the ditransitive verbs. On theother hand, lower responses in F5, F6, F7 and F8
characterize Cluster III; taken together with therelatively lower response in F1 and F2 in this area,
Cluster III displays the characteristics of the dative
verbs. In between Clusters I and II is Cluster IV,
characterized by relatively lower, or sometimes
mixed, responses to F7, F9 and F10. Low responses
in F3 and mixed responses in other sentence
structures are the characteristics of Cluster V, andFigure 1: Responses to each sentence structure
Kohonen (1997)’s self-organizing map (SOM)
is employed to capture how each of the verbs are
represented by individual learners and to what
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

those lower responses in F5 and F6 characterize
Cluster VI.
Due to the limitation of space, only a few
examples can be reported here. Figure 3 shows the
responses to give, and clearly, we can observestrong concentration in Cluster II.

Some verbs concentrated in clusters other thanthose that shares target characteristics. One example
is send, as shown in Figure 5: The participants’
responses gathered in Cluster VI, characterized by
the negative responses in F5 and F6. In order for the
response pattern to be ideal, learners would need tolearn that send cannot be used in the sentence
structures F1, F2, F7 and F8. This implies that theSOM can be used diagnostically in understanding
learners’ difficulty in vocabulary acquisition.
In the presentation, results from larger samples
will be discussed and implications and points forfurther studies will be sought for.
Acknowledgement
The present study is supported by Grant-in-Aid for
Scientific Research (B) (19320088) from Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science.
References
Fraser, S., Sugino, N., Koga, Y., Kawashima, H.,
Ikeda, C. and Sugimori, N. (2003).
Methodological considerations of mental
lexiconresearch:
Focusing
onrepresentational links among lexical entries.
Hiroshima Studies in Language andLanguage Education, 11, 133-151.
Goldberg, A. E. (1995). Constructions: A
construction grammar approach toargument
structure.
Chicago,IL.:
University of Chicago Press.
Kohonen, T. (1997). Self-organizing maps, 2ndedition. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
Levin, B. (1993). English verb classes andalternations. Chicago, IL.: University of
Chicago Press.
Pinker, S. (1989). Learnability and cognition: The
acquisitionofargument
structure.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Shimizu, Y., Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Ohba, H.,
and Nakano, M. (2006). Developing asample-free grammatical proficiency test
for SLA research. Proceedings of the 10th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 227-236.
Sugino, N., Koga, Y., Ikeda, C., Kawashima, H.,
Fraser, S. and Sugimori, N. (2008).
Investigating lexical relatedness in EFL
learners’ mental lexicon: Focusing on thesyntactic features of English verbs. Poster
presentation at CLaSIC 2008, National
University of Singapore, December 5,
2008.
Yokokawa, H. (Ed.) (2006). Nihonjin eigo
gakushusha no eitango shinmitsudo:
Moji-hen. Tokyo: Kuroshio.

Figure 3: Mapping of responses to give
However, there were no dative verbs that displayed
clear concentration in Cluster II, except for weakconcentration of discover as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Mapping of responses to discover

Figure 5: Mapping of responses to send254

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Quantitative Analysis of Speaking in Group Oral Interaction– Range of Speaking on the Basis of CEF Assessment –Junko Negishi

Open Education Center, Waseda University
jnegishi@dream.com

also considered to be problematic for the reason
that they are inauthentic and asymmetric (Johnson& Tyler, 1998).
English ability that society calls for in thepresent circumstances is speaking ability in a
discussion or communication to some extent where
speakers negotiate meanings, which suggests that
there is a discrepancy between what schools focus
on and what society requires.
Group discussions have been introduced, forexample, to Cambridge First Certificate in English
and to an oral examination practiced by Council ofEurope (2001) within European Union which has
multi-languages and multi-cultures. It is impracticalto measure overall speaking ability by employing asingle group oral discussion; however, it has someadvantages. For example, speaking activities inclassrooms can be utilized and it is practicalbecause it is what companies and society call for.
Swain (2001) reports that participants can
co-construct a dynamic representation of interaction
in a given situation. In addition, teachers and raters
can concentrate on ratings with less time to moreexaminees, which could be utilized in schools.

Abstract
Speaking assessments in Japan are meant tofacilitate the use of picture description tasks orinterviews by individual examinees, while grouporal discussions are rarely carried out. Given thisfactor, this study aimed first to find some featuresand developmental phenomena of the participants
as second language learners of English at juniorhigh school, senior high school and university level
when they underwent group oral discussions in agroup of three. Second, the relationship between the
results obtained from the assessment given by raters
utilizing CEF rating scales and the variables
obtained by the analysis of subcategories wasinvestigated. This paper solely reports the results ofinvestigation about Range among the five rating
subcategories because of the space constraint.
For the first question, speaking ability of theparticipants given by multi-faceted analysis wasconverged to Basic Users (A1, A2) and Independent
Users (B1, B2) and no students were allocated toProficient Users (C1, C2). In terms of the second
question, one of the subcategories, Range, wasexplored by analyzing six items. The items that
explained Range most was Guiraud index followedby the number of complex sentences.

1.2

Ratings of group oral discussion using
CEF rating scales
The rating procedure for oral performance isclassified into two: a holistic rating and an analytic
rating. Council of Europe (2001) mentioned above
has released its Common European Framework ofReference for Languages: learning, teaching,assessment, (CEF hereafter) in which it gives two
kinds of rating scales: CEF Global Oral Assessment
Scale for a holistic assessment and CEF Oral
Assessment Criteria Grid for an analyticalassessment. What they have in common is that there
are 6-level ‘can-do’ descriptors, that is, A1, A2 for
Basic Users, B1, B2 for Independent Users, and C1,
C2 for Proficient Users. The difference between thetwo rating scales is that the former sees an
examinee’s performance from a holistic point ofview and the latter has 5 subcategorized analytic
grids: Range, Accuracy, Fluency, Interaction, andKeywords
Speaking, Group discussion, CEF, Rating

1

Introduction

1.1
Group oral discussion
The emphasis of English Test as a second language
in Japan has been put on writing for a long time. It
was not until a few years ago that listening test was
introduced to National Center Test for Universities.
The idea of giving an oral performance test to
students would be the last choice as it is costly andtime consuming.
Few oral performance tests available in Japanat present are predominantly for a single candidate.
Nonetheless, individual oral performance tests
typified by monologue cannot be regarded as an
actual language use (Long, 2000). Interviews are255Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Coherence. Table 1 shows the former, a part of CEF
Global Oral Assessment Scale. The latter is on
Table 3 below.

written as School, Family, Friends, Hobby andCulture, 3) the students were informed to have an
oral interaction about the topic for five minutes
after having a five-minute planning time
individually, 4) before the interaction, each memberof the group introduced themselves for about thirty
seconds as a warm-up activity, 5) they started anoral interaction based on the topic they drew
looking at each other’s face. The oral interaction
was videotaped and later burned to a DVD for
rating. The participants’ conversation was
subsequently transcribed for analysis.

Table 1: CEF Global Oral Assessment Scale
C2

Conveys finer shades of meaning precisely and naturally.

C1

Shows fluent, spontaneous expression in clear, well-structured speech.

B2

Expresses points of view without noticeable strain.

B1

Relates comprehensibly the main points he/she wants to make.

A2

Relates basic information on, e.g., work, family, free time, etc.

A1
Below A1

Makes simple statements on personal details and very familiar topics.
Does not reach the standard for A1.

1.3
Purpose of the study
As mentioned above, speaking assessments in Japanare meant to facilitate the use of picture descriptiontasks or interviews by individual examinees, whilegroup oral discussions are rarely carried out. Given
this factor, this study aimed first to find somefeatures and developmental phenomena of theparticipants as second language learners of English
at junior high school, senior high school anduniversity level when they underwent group oral
discussions in a group of three. Second, therelationship between the results obtained from theassessment given by raters utilizing CEF rating
scales and the valuables obtained by the analysis ofsubcategories was investigated. This paper solely
reports the results of investigation about Range
among the five rating subcategories.

2

2.3
RatersRaters were ten Japanese teachers of English who
had Master’s degrees in the field of English
education or linguistics. Before rating, theyreceived training using a DVD produced by theCouncil of Europe. They rated the students byapplying both a holistic rating scale and analytic
rating criteria. The latter consists of fivesubcategories;
Range,
Accuracy,
Fluency,Interaction, and Coherence. The raters assessed thestudents while watching a DVD by 7 scales: Below
A1, A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2.
2.4
Multi-faceted Rasch analysis
In most of the oral performance tests as a second
language, raters assess participants’ speaking ability
by means of rating scales. No matter how precise
the rating scales are, the assessment might besubjective or inconsistent because of the fact thatratings are administered by humans. Training is
mandatory which can reduce irregular errors andcan improve inter-rater reliability and intra-rater
consistency; however, it is impossible to remove all
the severity or leniency of the ratings (McNamara,
1996; Weigle, 1998).
Multi-faceted analysis compensates diverse
influences as much as possible, which are caused bymany facets such as raters’ differences, taskdifficulties, examinees’ abilities, and theirinteractions. It estimates and transforms original‘raw scores’ given by raters to ‘measures,’ which
are on an interval scale. This study utilized
multi-faceted analysis software, FACETS Version
No. 3.6.4.0 (Linacre, 2008) to eliminate subjective
judgement as much as possible.

Method2.1
Participants
The participants of the study were 135 students who
had been studying English at junior high schools,
senior high schools, and universities in and aroundTokyo area. Forty-five groups were composed by
the fifteen groups from three levels of educational
institutions: junior high, senior high and university
respectively. Each group comprised three students
participating in a discussion according to a given
topic. Table 2 shows the number of participants ineach educational institution, public or private, andthe ratio of males and females.
Table 2: Number of Participants in Each Educational Institution
Public Scho ol
ParticipantsGroupsJunior High School

Senior High School

27

24

15

66

Female

Total

19
0

27
18

18

(6)

21

(7)

19
21

5
0

24
21

15
15

(5)
(5)

8
6
4

7
9
11

15
15
15

69

(23)

84

51

135

(5)

(22)

Male
8
18

(8)

University

Total

Privat e School
Particip ants
Group s(9)

2.5
Items that may represent Range
What items should represent a subcategory, Range?
Table 3 shows CEF Oral Assessment Criteria for
Range. Seeing that the participants were proved to
be within the range of either A or B on the scale,several indicative words were extracted from thecriteria: words and simple phrases (A1), groups of a
few words and formulae (A2), sufficient vocabulary

2.2
Data collection
Spoken data of the participants were collected in
the following way: 1) three students were allocatedto one group at random, 2) each group drew one
card from five on which different topics were256

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics(B1), complex sentence forms (B2). According tothem, the following items, 1) to 6), were selected
for the analysis in the study.

information such as task difficulty, participants’ability, rater severity and so forth, this study solely
used the produced interval scores or ‘measures’ for
Global and for one of the subcategories, Range.

Table 3: CEFR Oral Assessment Criteria (Range)
C2

Shows grea t f lexibility reformulating ideas in diff ere nt linguistic for ms to convey finer shade s of meaning prec isely, to give emphasis, todiffere ntiate a nd to eliminate a mbiguity. Also has a go od command of idiomatic e xpre ssions and colloquialisms.

C1

Ha s a good c omma nd of a broad ra nge of langua ge allowing him/he r to selec t a formula tion to e xpr ess him/he rself cle arly in a n appr opriate
style on a wide range of ge ner al ac ademic, prof ession al or leisure topics without ha ving to restrict what he /she wants to say.

B2

Ha s a sufficie nt range of language to be able to give c lea r descr iptions, e xpre ss viewpoints on most gene ral topic s, without muchc onspicuous sea rch ing f or words, using some complex se ntence forms to do so.

B1

Ha s e nough la ngua ge to ge t by, with suff icient voc abular y to express him/herself with some hesita tion a nd circumlocutions on topics such a s
f amily, hobbies and interests, work, tra vel, and c urrent events.

A2

Use s ba sic sente nce patterns with memorised phra se s, groups of a few words and formula e in order to communicate limite d informa tion in
simple e veryday situations.

A1

Ha s a very basic r epe rtoire of w ord s and simple phrases re lated to personal details and pa rtic ula r concre te situations.

3.2 Global speaking ability
Figure 1 shows a histogram of the measures
supplied by multi-faceted analysis. There weremore lower level students than average = ‘0’ since
one-thirds of the participants were junior highschool students who were novice learners ofEnglish.

Below A1

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)
6)

Number of tokens (Tokens) which indicates thetotal number of words that a participant spoke
in a five-minute oral interaction in a group of
three.
Number of different Types of words (Types), or
index words, that is, how many different words
were used in the same text.
Type-token ratio (TTR): the ratio of different
words to total words used, which has been used
to indicate lexical diversity.
Guiraud index (Guiraud): TTR has beenreported as problematic because large numberof tokens produces lower TTRs than smaller
ones. As for the reason that the participants
produced different sizes of spoken samples in afive-minuteinteraction,mathematicaltransformations of TTR were carried out
according to Guiraud (1960) to make it
independent of the sample size which were
calculated as Types/√(Tokens)
Chunks: groups of a few words and formulae
were labeled as chunks in the study.
Complex sentences (Cmplx S.) including not
only literal complex sentences but also othersyntactically complex sentences such asembedded sentences, sentences with relative
clauses, and also compound sentences because
most of the sentences the participants uttered
were simple sentences and there were notmany real ‘complex sentences.’

30

25

20

15

10

5
Mean = -2.87
St d. D ev. = 3.101
N = 135
0
-10

-8

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

Figure1: Histogram of M easures (Global)

Figure 2 demonstrates the number ofparticipants divided by the three educational
institutions they belonged to (junior/senior highschool and university) with interval scales (unit:
logit) produced by FACETS. The left side of the
figure or the smaller number indicates that thestudents’ speaking ability was determined as low
and the right side or the bigger number as high.
14
12
10
8

JHS

6

SHS

4

Uni

2

3.

0

Results and Discussion

8
~
9
.
-8

3.1
Multi-faceted analysis and Measures
The results produced by the multi-faceted software,
FACETS, demonstrated that difficulties of rating
items did not indicate considerable difference andthat rating items were proved to fit Rasch model.
Reliability of rating scales was confirmed when theten raters assessed the participants by means of the
CEF rating criteria. In terms of the raters’ severity,
they showed different severities and their ratings
turned out to have fairly large differences while theraters were proved to be self consistent.
Although FACETS analysis provided varied

7
~
9
.
-7

6
~
9
.
-6

5
~
9
.
-5

4
~
9
.
-4

3
~
9
.
-3

2
~
9
.
-2

1
~
9
.
-1

0
~
9
.
0
-

.9
0
~
0

.9
1
~
1

.9
2
~
2

.9
3
~
3

Figure 2: Number of Participants with Different
MeasuresAn average measure of junior high participants
was -6.27 logits (A1 for CEF assessment), seniorhigh was -2.40 logits (A2), and university was 0.06
logits (B1), all of which showed a clear differenceof the participants which educational institution
they belonged to. While junior high participantstended to remain on the left side and did not overlap,
the other two, senior high and university students,
tended to overlap; however, no senior high students
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

obtained measures over 2 logits and their peaks forsenior high and university had a 2-logit difference.
Senior high and university students showed bigger
variances compared to junior high students.
Raters assessed not only Global speaking
ability but also five subcategories, Range, Accuracy,
Fluency, Interaction, and Coherence. However, thefollowing analyses were conducted on the measuresof Range. The Pearson correlation coefficient
between Global and Range measure was very high,showing .995.

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20

Level 1

10Over Level 2

0
JH

SH

U

Figure 3: Number of Tokens on Level 1 and Overin Three Educational Institutions
50

3.3
3.3.1

Range Variables
1) Number of tokens and 2) different
types of words
To analyze the number of tokens and different types
of words, a software ‘v8an’ included in JACET listof 8000 basic words (JACET 2003; JACET 8000
hereafter) was utilized. JACET 8000 was originallybuilt up from British National Corpus adding someJapanese-specific words. It lemmatized thetranscribed text and then ranked them from level 1(basic 1000 words) to level 8 (7001 to 8000 words
approximately). It also produced the number andpercentage of the total tokens or words, anddifferent types of words or index words, from thetext. The words that were not on the list weregrouped as ‘over 8’ and contracted forms as ‘cont.’,
proper nouns as ‘prop.’ and non-words such as
numbers as ‘non.’

40
30
20
10
Level 1

0
JH

SH

U

Over Level 2

Figure 4: Number of Different Types of Words
on Level 1 and Overin Three Educational Institutions

nearly 1.5 times from junior high to senior high andaround 2 times from junior high to university. In
terms of the use of level 2 to over 8 words, bothincreased two times from junior high to senior highand around 2.8 times from junior high to university,
which means that the participants demonstrated thatthey acquired more difficult words when they
proceeded to the higher institutions.

Table 4: Number of Tokens and Different Types of Words
level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 level 5 level 6 level 7 level 8 over 8
Tokens
Types

Total
%
Average
Total%
Average

8210
86.0%
60.81
4338
81.6%
32.13

337
3.5%
2.50
259
4.9%
1.92

172
1.8%
1.27
124
2.3%
0.92

59
0.6%
0.44
48
0.9%
0.36

48
0.5%
0.36
30
0.6%
0.22

119
1.2%
0.88
76
1.4%
0.56

7
0.1%
0.05
7
0.1%
0.05

44
0.5%
0.33
33
0.6%
0.24

172
1.8%
1.27
130
2.4%
0.96

160

cont. proper nontotal
forms nouns words
141
8
225
9542
1.5% 0.1% 2.4% 100.0%
1.04
0.06 1.67
70.68
89
5
176
5315
1.7% 0.1% 3.3% 100.0%
0.66
0.04 1.30
39.37

140
120
100
80
60
40

Table 4 shows the total number and percentage
of tokens (Tokens) and different types of words(Types) of 135 participants produced by v8an
(JACET 8000). On the condition that theparticipants had an oral interaction for five minutes
in a group of three, the average Tokens were 70.7
words, out of which, words uttered from level 1
were 60.8 words showing 86% of the total tokens.
On the other hand, the average Types were 39.4
words, out of which, words used from level 1 were32.1 words indicating 81.6% of the total Types.
Figure 3 displays the average Tokens theparticipants used and Figure 4 shows Types, both ofwhich were separated by the three educational
institutions. Both figures showed that the higher
educational institution they belonged to, the more
Tokens and Types they uttered, that is, their
vocabulary size grew. With regard to the use oflevel 1 words, both the Tokens and Types increased

20
Types

0

TokensFigure 5: The Relationship between Measures(Range) and Number of Tokens
and Different Type of Words

Figure 5 displays Tokens and Types the
speakers uttered in a five-minute conversationaccording to the measures they received regardlessof their institutions. As shown in the figure, themore measures the speakers gained, or the more
proficient they became, the more Tokens and Types
they tended to utter. Although Pearson correlation
coefficient between the measures for Range andTokens was .693** and Types was .786 **, showing
significant correlation, there were a few reversed
part. Qualitative analysis should be conducted to
explore the reason for the inverse.

258Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

3.3.2
3) TTR and 4) Guiraud index
Type-token ratio (TTR), the ratio of different words
to total words used, is often used to measure lexical
diversity as it has been believed to imply language
learners’ active vocabulary size. Nonetheless TTR
has equally been reported as problematic because
large number of tokens produces lower TTRs thansmaller ones. As the participants of the study
produced different sizes of spoken samples in afive-minuteinteraction,mathematicaltransformations of TTR was carried out according
to Guiraud (1960) to make it independent of thesample size. Guiraud index (Guiraud) was
calculated as Types/√(Tokens).

As shown in Figure 7, in terms of the numberof chunks (Chunks) the participants used, the morethey became proficient, the more Chunks they used;however, it was not always the case. The same
phenomenon was seen in the number of complex
sentences (Cmplx S.). The participants who
received less than -7.0 logits employed no Cmplx S.
at all. It is likely that the raters regarded the
speakers as less proficient when they spoke only
simple sentences.
3. 4
Correlations
The relationship between the Range measures andvariables of six items were explored by means ofPearson correlation coefficient.

7
6

Table 5: Pearson Correlation Coefficient between the Variables of Range (n =135)

5

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

4
3
2

Variables
Measure (Range)
No. of tokens (Tokens)
No. of index words (Types)
Type-token ratio (TTR)
Guiraud index (Guiraud)
No. of chunks (Chunks)
No. of complex sentences (Cmplx S.)

Measure0.693 **
0.786 **
-0.17 *
0.788 **
0.593 **
0.648 **

TokensType

TTR

Guiraud

Chunks

0.938 **
0.004
0.694 **
0.754 **
0.705 **

-0.386
0.894 **
0.702 **
0.691 **

0.004
-0.447 **-0.318 **0.543 **
0.542 **

0.621 **

Note : **p <.01, *p <.05 (two-tailed tests)

1

TTR

0

Guiraud Index

As Table 5 shows the correlation between themeasure and Types was the most significant,followed by Guiraud, Cmplx S., Tokens, andChunks. Only TTR indicated that there was nocorrelation toward the measure. In summary, thethree variables –Types, Guiraud and Cmplx S. –might be good indicators to explain whether or not
the speaker had wide range of speech.

Figure 6: The Relationship between Measures(Range) and TTR and Guiraud Index

Figure 6 shows the number of TTR and
Guiraud index with different levels of theparticipants according to the FACETS measures ofRange. As shown in the figure, TTR stayed stable
regardless of the speakers’ proficiency. On the other
hand, Guiraud index can be said that it had a
proportional relation between the proficiency levels.
The Pearson’s correlation coefficient between themeasures for Range and Guiraud index was
significant .791, p<.001; however, for Range and
TTR was -.142, indicating very weak inverse
correlation. This result suggested that Guiraud
index could be an indicator for Range, but not TTR.

3.5

Table 6 Multiple Regression for Range

Unstandardized Coefficients

Model

B
Step 1
Constant
Guiraud index
Step 2
Constant
Guiraud index
No of Cmplx S.
No of Types

3.3.3
5) Chunks and 6) complex sentences
Chunks – groups of a few words and formulae –and complex sentences were counted.

2Std. Error

Standardized
Coefficients

t

Sig.

Beta

-17.062
2.983

0.964
0.202

0.788

-17.696 **14.741 **-14.176
1.994
0.328
0.026

1.203
0.422
0.082
0.027

0.526
0.277
0.124

-11.787 **4.729 **
4.011 **
0.96

2

Note : R =.620 for Step 1, **p <.001; R =.692 for Step 2, **p <.001

Multiple regression analysis was conducted to
predict the Range measures from several predictor
variables. A value of R2, which is a measure of how
much of the variability in the outcome was
accounted for by the predictors. For the first model
its value was .620, which meant that Guiraud
accounted for 62.0% of the variation in Range
measures. To obtain the other two predictors, themultiple regression analyses were carried out
several times and some variables were excluded toeliminate the variables that showed collinearity.
When the other two predictors, Cmplx S. and Types
were included as well, this value increased to

12
10
8
6
4
2
Chunk

0

Multiple regression

Cmplx S.

Figure 7: The Relationship between Measures(Range) and Number of Chunks andComplex Sentences259

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

69.2%.
The b-values (B) in Table 6 indicate therelationship between Range and each predictor.
As the value was positive, there was a positivecoefficient which subsequently represented apositive relationship. The b-value of Guiraud,
2.983, indicated that as Guiraud increased byone, Range measure increased by 2.983. This
interpretation was true only if the effects of theother two valuables were held constant. The
multiple regression model would then be:

vocabulary would be imperative which includes
phrases and chunks. Teaching how to use complex
sentences would be indispensable as well. For
example, a complex sentence using a conjunction‘when’ is taught to second year of junior highschool students and a sentence with relative clauseto third year, which means it is not unachievable forat least senior high school students to make use ofcomplex sentences in speaking. What teachers needto do in a classroom is to provide opportunities toexpress themselves using English.

Rangei=b0+b1Guiraudi + b2Cmplx S.i +b3Typesi

References
Council of Europe (2001). European language
portfolio. Retrieved March 7, 2008, fromwww.coe.int/portfolio.
Guiraud, P. (1960). Problemes et methods de lastatistique
linguistique.
Dordrecht:
Reidel.
JACET (2003). JACET list of 8000 basic words.
Tokyo: Japan Association of College
English Teachers.
Johnson, M., and Tyler, A. (1998). Re-analyzing
the OPI: How much does it look likenatural conversation? pp. 27-51. In R.
Young & A. W. He (Eds.), Talking andtesting: Discourse approaches to theassessmentoforal
proficiency.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Linacre, J. M. (2008). Facets Rasch
measurement
computerprogram.
Chicago: Winsteps.com.
McNamara, T.F. (1996). Measuring second
language performance. New York:
Longman.
Swain, M. (2001). Examining dialogue: Anotherapproach to content specification and tovalidating inferences drawn from testscores. Language Testing, 18, 275-302.
Young, R. F. (2000). Interactional competence:
Challenges for validity. Paper presented
at the Language Testing Research
Colloquium, Vancouver, Canada, March.
ERIC.
Weigle, S.C. (1998) Using FACETS to model
rater training effects. Language Testing
15, 263–87.

= － 14.176 + (1.994Guiraud)(0.328Cmplx S.) + (0.026Types)+

As the t-test associated with a b-value of
Guiraud was significant and the smaller thevalue of Sig., the greater the contribution ofthat predictor. For this model, Guiraud (t (131)= 4.729, p<.001) and Cmplx S. (t (131) = 4.011,
p<.001), were significant predictors of Range,
but not Types (t (131) = .960, p=.339).

4

Conclusion

The study mainly investigated two phenomena. The
first was to find some features and developmental
phenomena of the participants and the second was
to search for the relationship between the measuresand various variables.
For the first question, speaking ability of theparticipants given by multi-faceted analysis wasconverged to Basic Users (A1, A2) and Independent
Users (B1) and no students were allocated toProficient Users (C1, C2). Among them, junior highschool students tended to be grouped as A1, whowere isolated from the other students. Albeit seniorhigh school students were mostly labeled as A2,
some of them showed higher ability than university
participants who were labeled as B1 as a whole.
Only university students obtained the highest
ratings and the difference between the senior highstudents and university students was 2 logits.
In terms of the second question, one of thesubcategories, Range, was investigated byanalyzing six items: Tokens, Types, TTR, Guiraud,
Chunks, and Cmplx S. All the items except TTR
showed good relationships with the measures for
Range. The items that proved the most significant
correlation coefficient were Types, Guiraud, andCmplx S.; however, multiple regression suggested
that Guiraud and Cmplex S. which should explain
Range well. More detailed investigation is essential
by means of qualitative analysis.
What could be said to bridge the results withpedagogical purposes? To widen the range oflearners’ speaking ability, improving his or her
260

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Towards the Assessment of the Use of Prosodic Cuesin Speech Recognition
Remi Murao1 and Michiko Nakano2

1

Open Education Center, Waseda University, 2 School of Education, Waseda University
murao@aoni.waseda.jp, nakanom@waseda.jp

Native speakers of English, on the other hand, aresensitive to sentence prosody in that they use
prosodic cues to locate linguistic boundaries from aspeech stream when acquiring their first language.
Soderstrom, Seidl, Nelson & Jusczyk (2003) havereported in their study that even six-month oldinfants were sensitive to phrase-level prosodic cues
and could differentiate between linguistic units(“Today, people by the hole seem scary.”) andnon-linguistic units (“In fact, some people # buy thewhole supply of them”).
Although it is widely acknowledged thatprosodic cue plays a role in “sentence segmentation(deciding whether two adjacent section of speech
belong to the same or different linguistic units)”, itis questioned that it plays a role in “structure
bracketing (discerning structural relations among
the linguistic units)” (Gerken, 1996. Page 345).
Whether speakers place prosodic breaks and pitchaccent to designate hierarchical structure are
optional for the speakers. For example, speakers
may or may not offer prosodic cues before thesubordinate clause in sentences like “Ramona left
[before the party started]” (Frazier, Carlson &Clifton, 2006. Page 245). According to Frazier et al.
(2006) there are some aspects of prosody that are
obligatory. For example, speakers use prosody to
disambiguate sentences with syntactic ambiguity
such as “When Roger leaves # the house is dark”.

Abstract
In this study, Japanese learners of English’s ability
to use prosodic cue for sentence segmentation is
examined. Five types of sentence pairs were used to
explore whether the learners could identify thesentence structure by their prosodic differences; 1)late/early closure, 2) SVOC/SVO, 3) phrasal verbs,
4) compounds, and 5) content/function words.

Keywords
Sentence segmentation, Prosodic cues, Speech
Recognition

1

Previous Studies

Previous study has shown that native speakers ofEnglish and advanced level English learners utilize
prosodic cues to recognize the utterances whensegmental information is distorted (Murao, 2006).
However, it is reported that the ability to use
prosodic cues for sentence segmentation is low for
English learners whose first language is a tone
language. The study by Pennington & Ellis (2000)
showed that Cantonese speakers’ memory for
English sentences with prosodic cues for (1) phrase
structure and (2) linguistic boundary were
especially poor.
(1) Phrase structure
1a. The fight is over Fred. [The fight is about
Fred.]
1b. The fight is over, Fred. [I am telling you
Fred that the fight is finished.]

2

Present Study

The present study examines whether Japaneselearners of English are sensitive to prosodic cues
for sentence segmentation. As with the Cantonese
speakers in Pennington & Ellis’s (2000) study, it isassumed that Japanese speakers have a tendency toattend to lexical prosody over sentence prosody due
to their first language background. While
Pennington & Ellis (2000) examined therecognition memory for English sentences based on
prosodic information, the present study uses a
different method to reveal the use of prosodic cuesin order to compare the results.

(2) Linguistic boundary
2a. She’s a lighthouse keeper. [Her job is tolookafter a lighthouse.]
2b. She’s a light housekeeper. [She is ahousekeeper who does light housework.]
This result implies that there is a tendency forspeakers of tone language to store pitch patterns as
lexical representation, but they are not used torecognizing and analyzing sentence prosody.

261

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

who are Japanese were asked to listen to sentencesof which pitch movement was eliminated and was
low-path filtered with cut-off point set to either
400Hz, 325Hz, or 200Hz. The result show thatthree participants could not differentiate between
the two possible sentences (“Mark loves the cat”
and “Mike hates the dog”) when the sentence they
heard lacked prosodic cue and was low-path filteredwith cut-off point at 325Hz. This shows that
low-path filtering will rule out the possibility of
being able to use segmental information to identify
the correct sentence.

2.1
Materials
Five pairs of sentences each in the following fivesentence types were developed as the test items.
The number of syllables is the same in each pair,and the words used are mostly the same withsimilar segmental phonemes. The sentence pairs
differ in prosodic information such as pause andpitch accent. Words in capital letters show where
pitch accent is placed. Twenty-five sentences intotal were recorded by a female British speaker ofEnglish. The speaker was instructed to pronounce
the sentence pairs in a way to differentiate fromeach other.

2.4
Procedures
Participants will hear twenty-five sentences in arandom order. All the test sentences are low-pathfiltered with cut-off point at 325Hz so as to distortthe segmental information. Participants are asked tochoose the correct sentence from the written
sentence pairs. In order to avoid chance-level
performance in selecting from the two alternative
sentences, (a) and (b), participants were given the
choice of (c); “I don’t know”. The sentences can belistened to for no more than three times.
After selecting from three choices, participants
are asked to read aloud the sentence pairs. This will
be recorded for the purpose of speech analysis(3) Late/Early Closure
3a. Since I always DRINK, wine is gone.
3b. Since I always drink WINE, it’s gone.
(4) SVOC/SVO
4a. He pushed the door CLOSED.
4b. He pushed the CLOSED door.
(5) Phrasal Verbs
5a. Put on your SHOES.
5b. Put your SHOES on.
(6) Compounds
6a. He’s at the GREENhouse.
6b. He’s at the green HOUSE.

3

Results and Discussion

The result of a pilot study showed that advanced
level Japanese learners of English performed
exceptionally well on identifying the constructionof sentences including phrasal verbs, implying thathigh frequency collocations such as put-on,
shoes-on, turn-off, light-off, are stored in theirmental lexicon with prosodic representation. Test
scores of Japanese learners will be compared withthat of native speakers, and difficulties among thesentence types will be discussed.

(7) Content/function words
7a. Mary bought HALF sandwich.
7b. Mary have bought sandwich.
2.2
ParticipantsParticipants of the present study are thirty Japanese
university students studying English as a foreign
language. They were asked to report their scores ofEnglish proficiency test such as TOEIC, TOEFL,
and WeTEC. Five native speakers of English also
participated in the study as a control group.

References
Frazier, L., Carlson, K. & Clifton, C. Jr. (2006).
Prosodic phrasing is central to language
comprehension. TRENDS in Cognitive
Sciences, 10(6), 244-249.
Gerken, L. (2009). Prosody's role in language
acquisition and adult parsing. Journal of
Psycholinguistic Research, 25 (2), 345-356.
Pennington, M. C. & Ellis, N. C. (2000). Cantonese
speakers' memory for English sentences withprosodic cues. The Modern Language
Journal, 84(3), 372-389.
Soderstrom, M., Seidl, A., Nelson, D. G. K. & Jusczyk,
P. W. (2003). The prosodic bootstrapping ofphrases: Evidence from prelinguistic infants.
Journal of Memory and Language, 49,
249-267.

2.3
Preliminary Research
The present study aims to examine Japaneselearners of English’s sensitivity to prosodic cues byusing low-path filtered sentences. Test sentences are
low-path filtered so as to leave prosodic
information such as pauses and pitch accents anddistort segmental information. Participants shouldbe able to use prosodic cues to differentiate thesentence structure between pairs. In order to be
fully convinced that participants used prosodic cues
rather than segmental information, preliminary
research was conducted to verify the effectivenessof low-path filtering technique. One native speakerof English and two near-native speakers of English

262

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The effect of two types of feedback on Iranian EFL students'
tense-marker production
Somayeh Kazemi Tari1

1

Department of Language and Literature, Science and Research University
somayehkazemitari@gmail.com

Abstract
Although many researchers have worked on therole of feedback in immersion programs on second
language learners' production, still little is known
about the role of different types of immediate
feedback on the grammatical accuracy of Iranianlearners in an EFL setting. When one reviews theliterature on feedback, s/he encounters such types of
feedback as prompts and recasts and their different
subcategories. When, where and with whom, any ofthese types of feedback might be appropriate? There
are some doubts about the effectiveness of
immediate types of feedback. Therefore, theresearcher wanted to know which types ofimmediate oral feedback could better help Iranian
EFL learners to produce the correct form of the tense
markers of their target language—English. In otherwords, one of the primary objectives of the present
study was to examine the effects of two types of oral
feedback—namely explicit correction and implicit
or-choice feedback — on Iranian EFL learners'
production of different tense markers in English. 30
students participated in the study. Analyses of theresults of the fill-in-the-blank pretest and posttest
showed that explicit correction was more effective
than implicit or-choice feedback in producing
correct grammatical tense markers by Iranian EFL
learners.

Keywords
Feedback; explicit correction; or-choice feedback;tense-marker production

Introduction
1.
ntroduction
The use of feedback in language teaching
is nothing new. Traditional language
teachers immediately corrected theirstudents' errors when they appeared in thestudents' utterances. There are different
views regarding the use of different types of263

feedback. Interlanguage researchers argue
that errors should be tolerated as much as
they are the result of the learner's
communicative strategies. Another view isthat errors should be ignored on the whole.
Still another view is that some types oferrors should be corrected. Ellis (1990)
provides taxonomy of the type of errors thatshould be corrected by the teacher.
According to Ellis (1990, p. 54-55) global
errors, errors that affect the overall
comprehensibilityofanutterance,
stigmatized errors, and errors relating to thelearner's next stage of development should
be corrected.
There are a number of researches thathave elicited teachers' rationales forcorrecting errors. Chaudron's (1986, in
Chaudron, 1998, p. 136) research is among
those. He compared the corrections made byteachers in French immersion classes in
Canada and found that teachers corrected
more "grammatical" (morphological andsyntactic) errors in French classes (average77%) than in other classes (average 37%).
Also, Chaudron (1986, in Ellis, 1990, p. 73)
found that fewer discourse errors werecorrected compared to morphological errors.
Although the terms "feedback" and"correction"areusually
usedinterchangeably, but Long (1977, cited in
Ellis, 1990, p. 71) suggests the term
"feedback" be used for the teacher's
information about the correctness of thelearner's utterances, whileI the term
"correction" be used for the effect of feedback
on learning. Ellis (1990, p. 71) uses error
treatment
andcorrective
feedbacksynonymously and states that the broadest
definition of treatment is "any reaction by
the teacher that clearly transforms,
disapprovingly refers to or demands

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics"recast". Recast is "an implicit type ofcorrective feedback that reformulates or
responds an ill-formed or incomplete
utterance in an unobtrusive way" (Brown,
2007, p. 277). Lyster (1998, in Kaplan, 2002,
p. 177) found that learners could not
decipher whether recasts were signs ofcorrection or approval. Lyster and Ranata(1997, in Kaplan, 2002, p. 177) also foundthat recasts did not have immediate effecton subsequent production. But Mackey andPhilp (1998, cited in Kaplan, 2002, p. 177)
considering delayed effects of feedback
showed that recasts had positive effect onlearners' production.
Comparing the effects of recasts and prompts,
Ammar (2008) found superior effects for prompts
over recasts in the acquisition of possessive
determiners by Francophone learners of English asa second language. She also found that prompts
were particularly effective for lower proficiency
learners, whereas higher proficiency learners
appeared to benefit similarly from both recasts andprompts. Lyster (2004) explains the four types ofprompt used in French immersion classes
mentioned before as follows:
1. Clarification requests are phrases such as“Pardon me” and “I don’t understand” used toindicate that the student’s message has either been
misunderstood or ill formed. For example:
Student: Et le coccinelle . . . “And the (M)ladybug.”
Teacher: Pardon? “Sorry?”
Student: La coccinelle . . . “The (F) ladybug.”
2. Repetitions replicate the student’s error
verbatim, usually with rising intonation and stressto highlight the error. For example:
Student: La chocolat . . . “(F) Chocolate.”
Teacher: La chocolat? “(F) Chocolate?”
Student: Le chocolat. “(M) Chocolate.”
3. Metalinguistic clues provide comments,
information, or questions related to thewell-formedness of the student’s utterance. For
example:Student: Parce qu’elle cherche, euh, son, son
carte.
“Because she’s looking for, um, her, her (M)card.”
Teacher: Pas son carte. “Not her (M) card.”
Student: Euh, sa carte? “Um, her (F) card?”
4. Elicitation entails direct questions such as“How do we say that in French?” or pauses thatallow students to complete the teacher’s utterance.
For example:
Teacher: Il vit où un animal domestique? Où est-ceque ça vit?

improvement".
Correction may not always be effective;
in order for the correction to be effective
some prerequisite must be met. Johnston(1988) states that correction is effectivewhen:
1. The learner desires or needs to eradicate
the mistake.
2. She is able to form an internal
representation of what the correct behavior looks
like.
3. She realizes that her performance isflawed.
4. She has the opportunity to perform in realcondition. (cited in Ellis, 1990, p. 181)
Feedback to learners can be either
explicit through overt correction or implicit
through negotiation work. Negotiation andinteraction are important in L2 learning
because as Mackey and Philp (1998, in
Kaplan, 2002, pp. 172-76) have shown
interaction can provide modified speech,
confirmation check, comprehension check,clarification request, or-choice, topic-focused,elaboration, on the spot learning, delayed
learning, and testing a hypothesis. And
according to Mitchell and Myles (2004, p.
195) language learning is highly 'dependent
on face to face interaction and sharedprocesses, such as joint problem solving anddiscussion'.
There are different types of feedback
compiled by Lightbown and Spada (2006),
Ellis (1994), Ellis (2003), and Doughty andLong (2003). Nassaji provides three types offocus of form feedback: non-negotiatedfeedback, limited negotiation feedback, andextended negotiation feedback (cited in
Fotos and Nassaji, 2007, pp. 123-24). Brown(2007, pp. 277-78) has provided taxonomy ofsix types of feedback that includes recast,clarification
request,metalinguistic
feedback, elicitation, explicit correction, andrepetition. Among these six types of
feedback, four types (i.e. clarification request,
repetition, metalinguistic clues, and elicitation) are
related to prompts. These four types of prompts
have one crucial feature in common: "Theywithhold correct forms (and other signs ofapproval) and instead offer learners an opportunity
to self-repair by generating their own modified
response" (Lyster, 2004, p. 405).
Among different types of feedback one
type that has had too many contradictory
results on the learners' learning behavior is

264Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics“Where does a pet live? Where does it live?”
Student: Dans un maison. “In a (M) house.”
Teacher: Dans . . . ? Attention. “In . . . ? Careful.”Student: Dans une maison. “In a (F) house.” (p.
405)
Brown (2007, p. 278) classifies responses tofeedback into 3 types: (1) uptake, (2) repair, and(3) repetition.

received different types of feedback for 10
sessions.
Each session some sentences that included
one of the simple present, simple past and present
continuous tenses were extracted from one unit of
the Intro book and their structures were practiced
by the students. For examples of these structures
see Table 1 below.

Research Questions
The study aims to test the effect of two types of
feedback (i.e. explicit correction and elicitation),
which are hypothesized to trigger different degrees
of cognitive processing and awareness. The study’s
research questions are thus formulated as follows:
1. Will the use of explicit and implicit feedback inclass improve Iranian EFL students’ ability toaccurately apply English tense markers?
2. Which type of feedback is more effective—
explicit correction or implicit or-choice feedback?

Table 1. Structures with simple present, simple
past and present continuous tenses
Tense
markers
Simplepresent

Research Hypotheses
To find answers to the above mentioned
questions the following null hypotheses were
formulated:
1.
The use of explicit and implicit feedback
in class will not improve Iranian EFL students’ability to accurately apply English tense markers?
2.
Explicit correction feedback is not more
effective than or-choice feedback on Iranian EFL
learners' production of tense markers.

MethodParticipants
The participants in this study were thirty
EFL students (all females) divided into two classesof fifteen. The students were all beginners. They
received feedback on tense markers for 10 sessions.
Each of the two groups received a particular typeof feedback. One group, designated as the explicit
correction group (Group A), received explicit
correction following their errors in tense markers,
whereas the other group designated as the implicit
or-choice group (Group B), received or-choice
feedback following errors in tense markers.

Structures
Wh-questions
andstatements with be
Simplepresent
Wh-questions
andstatements
Yes/NoandWh-questions with do
Questions with how

Simplepast

Wh-questions
andstatements with be
Simple past Wh-questionand statements
Past tense of be

Present
continuous

Yes/NoWh-questions
statements

and
and

Then, the researcher asked the students someoral questions to elicit the tense markers that werepracticed on the same session or the sessions
before. At the end of each session, the students
were asked to make dialogues about their own
experiences using the structures worked out on thesame day and role play it in the class. During thewhole class time students' tense marker errors wereimmediately corrected in both groups. The explicit
correction group (Group A) received Type A
feedback (i.e. explicit error correction) and theimplicit or-choice group (Group B) received TypeB feedback (i.e. or-choice feedback). Examples ofType A and Type B feedbacks for some errors
extracted from teacher-student interaction in classare presented in Table 2.

Procedures
Before instructional period, students
received a fill-in-the-blank pretest (see Appendix)
and after the instruction they received the same test
as posttest (see Appendix). During the ten session
instructional period, students in the two groups265Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

markers are presented in Table 3 with a few
examples for each.

Table 2. Type A and Type B feedback with someexamplesextracted
fromteacher-student
interaction.
Feedback
ExampleType
Type A
1 T: What did you eat(explicit
for breakfast?
correction
S: I eated tea, breadandbutterforbreakfast
T: 'I eated tea', no. I
drank tea & I ate
bread.
2 T: Where does yourfather work?
S: My father workin bank.
T: Uh uh! 'My father
works' not 'my
father work'.
3 T: What are you
doing?
S: I stand up.
T: 'I stand up', no.
'I'm standing'.
1 T: What is Sara
Type B
doing now?
S: She listening you(or-choice
now.
feedback)
T: 'She listening tome' or 'she islistening to me'?
S: She is listening.
2 T: What did you doyesterday?
S: I /ri:d/ my book.
T: Yesterday, 'you
/ri:d/ your book' or'you /red/ yourbook'?
S: I /red/.
3 T: Did you go to
bed late last night?
S: No, I go to bed
early.
T: 'You go to beearly' or 'you went
to bed early'?
S: I went to bed
early.

Table 3. Tense markers along with a few
examplesTense
ExamplesMarkers
SimpleThey play footballpresent
everyday.
She plays the piano.
SimpleI
walkedhome
pastyesterday.
She went to the office.
I read (pronounced /red/) an
English book this morning.
Present
I am writing a story.
continuous
She is smiling.
They are listening to
the teacher.

Treatment Materials
Ten topics were selected from among thestudents' course book material. The material, which
included different topics such as greeting, dailyschedule, clothes, families, and past experiences,provided the communicative context for thepresent study. For the purposes of this study, thetopics for discussing and practicing different
grammatical forms in the class were selected from
Intro, an international communication book written
by Richards (1997). The conversations andgrammar exercises included in the book provided
the context for drawing students’ attention to thethree tense markers which were the focus of thepresent study.

Measures
The students’ ability to use accurate tense
markers was assessed by using a written 20-item
fill-in-the-blank test for which the students were
given 40 minutes to complete. The same test wasused both as pretest and posttest. By comparing thepretest-posttest results with two t-tests theeffectiveness of each type of feedback wasmeasured. Then another t-test was used to compare
the results of the two posttests to see which
feedback was more effective.
Before the introduction of the study, in a pilot
study conducted by the researcher, the 20-item
teacher-made test was administered to a group of
15 students at the same level with the students in
the researcher's classes to measure the reliability oftheteacher-made
test.
By
using
the
Kuder-Richardson
formula,theresearcher

Target Features
To select the 3 target tense markers used inthis study, the researcher analyzed the students’course book and selected the most frequent tense
markers appearing in these materials. These tense266

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

measured the reliability of the test to be about 0.70.
The measured reliability was within an accepTable
range.

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

Results and Discussion
The means and standard deviations of thepretests and posttests of the two groups are shownin Table 4 and Table 5. Also, figure 1 shows themeans of the pretests and posttests for Group A(the explicit correction group) and Group B (theor-choice group).

12.3
10.1
Group A
(explicit
correction)

6.86.4PretestMeans

Posttest
Means

Group B (or‐choicefeedback)

Figure 1. The pretest and posttest
means for group A and group B.

Table 4. Pretest means (M) and standard
deviations (SD) for the two groups
Group
Group
A¹
B²
(n=15)(n=15)
M
SD
M
SD
2.8
6.4
2.9
6.8

The results of the t-tests rejected the first andsecond null hypotheses, thus confirming theeffectiveness of the two types of feedback, andapproving the superiority of the Type A feedback
over Type B feedback on Iranian EFL learners'
production.
The present study thus contributes to thearguments about the benefit of different types ofcorrective feedback by confirming that explicit
correction is more beneficial compared toor-choice feedback to the beginner Iranian EFL
learners in communicatively oriented classrooms.
In terms of pedagogical implications, thesefindings may not be generalizable to other
instructional contexts.

¹ Group A: explicit correction group² Group B: or-choice group

Table 4 shows that the means for the twogroups on the pretest have no significant
difference: t= 0.39, p<0.05. This confirms that thetwo groups were essentially equivalent before theinstruction started. From Figure 1, it is quite
evident that the posttest means are significantly
higher than the pretest means: t=6.92, p<0.05 forGroup A, and t= 4.30, p<0.05 for Group B. Thisshows that both types of feedback (i.e. Group A
feedback and Group B feedback) improved thestudents' accurate use of tense markers in English.
The means of the two groups on posttest,
shown in Table 5 and also evident in Figure 1
shows that the explicit correction groupoutperformed the or-choice group on the posttest:
t=2.12, p<0.05.

1.1

Appendix. Pretests and Posttests.

Compete these conversations using the correct
form f the following verb forms.
See, spend, do/does, am/is/are, go,teach, work, look, love, live, stay
1.

Table 5. Posttest means (M) and standard
deviations (SD) for the two groups
Group
Group
A¹
B²
(n=15)(n=15)
M
SD
M
SD
1.4
10.1
1.8
12.3

: What _______ you do?
B: I'm a student. I study English.
A: What _______ your mother do?
B: She is a teacher. She _______ English at aschool in Iran.
A: Is your father a teacher, too?
B: No, he is a doctor. He _______ in a hospital.
2.

¹ Group A: explicit correction group² Group B: or-choice group: Is your sister looking for a job?

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

B: Yes, she is. She _______ in a restaurant now, but
she _______ for a job in a theater. She _______
acting.
3.

A: _______ you _______ anything special over the
weekend?
B: Yes, I _______. I _______ shopping. I _______
all my money. Now I don't have any money.

4.

A: What _______ you _______ last night?
B: I _______ the new Tom Cruise film. I _______
it!

5.

A
: _______ you in France last summer?
B: Yes, I _______.
A: How long _______ you there?
B: I _______ there for a month.

References
Ammar, A. (2008). Prompts and recasts:
Differential effects on second language
morphosyntax. Language Teaching Research,
12 (2), 183-210.
Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of language
learning and teaching (5th ed.). New York:
Pearson Education.
Chaudron, C. (1998). Second language
classrooms: Research on teaching and learning.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Doughty, C. J., & Long, M. H. (Eds.). (2003). The
handbook of second language acquisition. New
York: Blackwell.
Ellis, R. (1990). Instructed second language
acquisition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language
acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning andteaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fotos, S., & Nassaji, H. (Eds.). (2007).
Form-focused
instruction
andteacher
education: Studies in honor of Rod Ellis.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kaplan, R. B. (Ed.). (2002). The Oxford handbook
of applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Lightbown, P.M., & Spada, N. (2006). How
languages are learned (3nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Lyster, R. (2004). Differential effects of prompts
and recasts in Form-focused instruction. SSLA,26, 399–432.
Mitchell, R., & Myles, F. (2004). Second language
learning theories. London: Arnold.
Richards, J. C. (1997). Intro. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Information Sharing in a Pre-hospital Care Setting– A time related corpus based approach
Keiko Tsuchiya1, Miche Kawashima1, Tetsuo Yukioka1, Shoichi Ota1, Shiro Mishima 1, Jun Oda1,
Chikako Kawahara1, Masaki Onishi2, Ikushi Yoda2

1

Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Tokyo Medical University,
2

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
tsuchiya.keiko@gmail.com

Carter 2006, Crawford 2009, Crawford, Brown &Nolan 1998). Research on a pre-hospital caresetting, however, might be an area remaining
uncovered in medical communication research.
Based on theories discussed in the previous studies
in medical communication, the current researchattempts to analyse phase transitions of the
pre-hospital emergency care in relation toplacements and voices of information sharing
between crews and patient’s family with two
methodologies; conversation analysis (Heritage
1997, Sacks 1992, Schegloff 2007) and corpus
linguistics (Adolphs, Brown, Carter, Crawford &Sahota 2004, Carter & McCarthy 2006, McEnery,
Xiao & Tono 2006, Sinclair 1996).

Abstract
A conversation analysis study in an emergency
medical care setting in Japanese will be reported inthis poster presentation. There are three areas
defined in emergency medical care: pre-hospitalcare, in-hospital clinical care and emergency
medical information system (Shimazaki, Asai,
Aruga, Maekawa, Mashiko & Yukioka 2009). In
this research, medical communication in a
pre-hospital care setting has been examined. In
pre-hospital care, emergency medical crews aim to
conduct appropriate treatment to patients incausalities and transport them to hospital as quickly
as possible. Activities of two emergency medical
teams in a pre-hospital care training have been
video-recorded and interactions between emergency
crews and patient’s family in relation to transitionof the phases have been examined. From the results,
placements and voices which inform future
activities to a patient’s family can be highlighted as
one of the factors related to the quality ofpre-hospital care although there are many
limitations in this preliminary research with small
data.
The training has conducted at Tokyo Medical
University Hospital cooperating with Tokyo Fire
Department. The research is a part of a medical
communication research project founded by theJapan Science and Technology Agency.

1

Theoretical frameworks

Heritage and Maynard (2006) has introduced threelayers of medical communication analysis in theirstudy on primary care.
(1) The overall structure of the primary carevisit.
(2) The sequence structures through which its
particular component activities and tasks are
realized(3) The designs of the individual turns at talkthat make up those sequences(Heritage & Maynard 2006: 13)

Keywords

This current research can be categorised into thesecond layer of these three approaches. Based on
Austin(1962) and Searle(1969)’s theory, the speech
act of each utterance has been annotated foranalysis and how sequences of speech acts orient
realisation of activities in a pre-hospital setting has
been investigated.
In a nurse-patient interaction study, Proctor, Morseand Khonsari (1995) have conducted a research on
language of nurses in a trauma centre with

Conversation analysis, Medical communication,
Pragmatics, Corpus linguistics

Introduction
In medical communication, a number of studies
have been conducted in doctor-patient interactions(Candlin & Candlin 2003, Coulter, Entwistle &Gilbert 1999, Heritage & Maynard 2006, Pappas
1990) and nursing training (Brown, Crawford &269

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

video-recorded data and recognise four pragmaticfunctions of ‘comfort of talk’;(1) Holding on: serves to praise, to let thepatient know they can get through, tosupport, to instruct or distract the patient.
Example) ‘big girl’, ‘you’re doing great’.
(2) Assessing: concerns obtaining information
about patient’s condition.
Example) ‘How are you?’ questions(3) Informing: involves warning the patient or
explaining procedures.
Example) ‘it’s gonna hurt’, ‘we’ll beinserting a catheter’.
(4) Caring: functions as some sort ofreassurance, empathy or caring comment.
Example) ‘relax’, ‘OK sweetie’, ‘it does
hurt, doesn’t it?’
(Proctor, Morse & Khonsari 1996: 1673)

Three aspects of use of language at a transition
from treatments to pullout will be investigated;(1) Placement: When PF are informed,(2) Voice: From whom PF are informed, and(3) Act: In what way PF are informed.
From these three aspects, use of language in the two
emergency medical teams in a pre-hospital caretraining have been analysed and compared.

3

The activities of two medical emergency teams inan experimental pre-hospital care setting have been
video-recorded. Before the training, the general
information about the project has been provided tothe crews without telling them the purpose of theresearch precisely. Conversation analysis on thecollected conversation data has been conductedusing a multimedia annotation interface, Transana,
and a qualitative analysis software, Atlas.ti.
Placement, voice and act of information sharing at atransition from the treatment phase to the pullout
phase have been analysed with time related corpus
approach.

These classifications cannot be directly applied tothis current study on interaction between medicalcrews and patient’s family in a pre-hospital caresetting, hence, considerations on ‘informing’ and‘caring’ can be worth noting in activities in a
pre-hospital care setting. As reported in Brown,
Crawford and Carter (2006),‘habitus’ and‘routines’ in health care communication is also
concerned.

2

Research Methods

3.1
Transcription and data modification
The collected data has initially been transcribed bysecretaries. The transcripts have been modified andtime-stamped by a researcher with a time-based
multimodal
annotation software,Transana.
Transana was developed by Chris Fassnacht at the
University of Wisconsin. A video viewer, sounds
wave bar, annotation field and project control panel
are included as shown below.

Research Focus

In the experimental pre-hospital care training, thesituation was set as the medical teams help aseventy-two years old male patient of CPA(cardiopulmonary arrest) becoming unconscious at
home. The patient (indicated as P, hereafter) is aCPR(cardiopulmonary
resuscitation)
training
manikin and a nurse acted as a daughter-in-law of
the patient (referred as patient’s family, PF,
hereafter). Each team has three members and one ofthem is an emergency medical technician (EMT),
who is licensed to perform emergency treatments,
such as laryngeal mask airway insertion and IV line
placement under direction of doctors. At the sametime, EMT is assumed to control the activities as aleader of the team (indicated as L, hereafter). There
are two other members (described as M1 and M2,
hereafter) in the emergency medical teams. Under
the same conditions, two emergency medical teams,
namely Team1 and Team2, were requested to
conduct pre-hospital care activities in a room wherevideo and audio recordings were on.
Three phases can be recognised in pre-hospital care:1) medical care setting creation, 2) emergency
treatments and 3) pullout. In this research, focus has
been placed on analysing placements and voices ofsharing information between emergency medicalcrews and PF at a transition from the second phase.
‘emergency treatments’ to the third phase, ‘pullout’.

Figure 1: Transana
The time-stamped transcript has been exported intorich text files and imported into Atlas.ti. Atlas.ti is aqualitative analysis software developed by aGerman technology company called ATLAS.ti
GmbH. With Atlas.ti, pieces of utterances have been270

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

clipped as ‘quotations’ and ‘codings’ of speech acts,
such as ‘summon to PF’, ‘inform to PF’ and‘reporting own task’, have been added to eachquotation.

4

Findings

Findings from the research will be reported in thissection in reference to placement, voice and act of
information sharing. From these three aspects,
comparison between Team 1 and Team 2 has beenmade. PF’s assessments to each team will also betaken into consideration.
4.1
Placement of information sharing
The total time length from arrival to pullout of the
pre-hospital activities in these two teams has beensummarised in the table below. The timing when
medical crews entered the room is defined as‘arrival’ and ‘pullout’ is the timing when pullout
action has been observed.
Table 1: Total length of pre-hospital care

Figure 2: Atlas.ti

Team 1Team 2

3.2
Lead time
Lead time is a concept introduced in Tsuchiya(2008)’s study on response tokens in conversationin academic tutorials. Lead time has been
implemented as a scale to measure time distancefrom a floor taking point to use of particularresponse tokens in that study. The concept of leadtime has been applied to this current study. The
datum time has been fixed in the timing where theaction of pullout has been observed.

Arrival

Pullout

Total length(MM:SS)(MM:SS)(MM:SS)

02:00
01:02

20:29
21:46

18:29
20:44

The total time length of team 1is 18:29 and team 2
is 20:44. Team 1 has conducted the course of
pre-hospital activities in less time than team 2 by 2
minutes 15 seconds.
Table 2 shows that the lead time, a time distance
between the first information sharing with PF andpullout action, in team 1 is 13 minutes 45 seconds
while team 2’s lead time is 16 minutes 29 seconds.
Table 2: Lead time of pullout

01:02
ArrivalLead time

1st Info share

Pullout

Lead time

16:29(MM:SS)(MM:SS)(MM:SS)

5:17
Informing
to PF

Team 1
06:44
20:29
13:45
Team 2
05:17
21:46
16:29
Note: ‘1st Info share’ means he timing when information
sharing with PF about pullout has been observed at thefirst time.

21:46
Pullout

Figure 3: A sample of lead time

The result can be interpreted that PF could havemore time to get ready to go to hospital bothmentally and physically in the case of team 2
although team 1 processed the whole activity fasterthan team 2, which can be another aspect to assess
activities in pre-hospital care.
As illustrated in the figure below, three phases,
namely ‘setting’, ’treatment’ and ’pullout’, havebeen recognised as primary components of
pre-hospital care activities. These three phases canbe divided into several subsidiary activities. In thesetting phase, ‘setting and survey’ on a patient will
be conducted. There are four activities in thetreatment phase, such as ‘informed consent (IC,hereafter)’,‘doctor’s
instruction’,‘Airway
Mask’, ’IV line’. In the EMT manual, IC to PF
before proceeding medical treatments andIn the sample of lead time illustrated above, thedatum time of pullout action is 21 minutes 36
seconds and lead time between the pullout action
and the timing of the first information sharing is
16minutes 16 seconds. Time distance between thetiming of informing pullout to PF and the pullout
action have been examined.
3.3
Retrospective viewTo have a retrospective view of the experimental
pre-hospital care activities, comments and a simple
assessment have been given by PF after the
training.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

transporting a patient an emergency medical centre
is instructed. L is also required phone a doctor at the
dispatch centre to have a permission to conduct
medical treatments.
The first information sharing with PF has been
observed during the activity of ‘airway mask’ inteam 1 while team 2 informed PF soon after‘doctor’s instruction’ at the first time.

Extract 1: Transcript of Team 1timeline
voice original transcript in Japanesetranslation in English
act[Team1-Item 1: Inform]
00: 06: 44
M1
ごめんなさい これ: 済んだら車内収 excuse me after this [Airway
summon plus inform PF to go to
容して行きますんで=mask] we will transfer him tohospital after treatment [airway
hospital so=mask]
00: 06: 47
PF
はい.
yes
acknowledgement
00: 06: 48
M1
ご家族の方は火の元と戸締りをして could you lock doors and windows request PF to prepare for leaving to
あと 家族の方でもand turn off cookers for fire
hospitalsafety and erm you can=00: 06: 51
PF
はい.
mhm
acknowledgement
00: 06: 51
M1
あの救急車の中でもPHSとか携帯 use mobile in ambulance car so= it add info - availability of mobile useは使えますから: それは: だいじょう will be okay
ぶですから=[Team1-Item 2: Inform]
00: 12: 02
M1
大変申しわけないです. 今ね ちょっ erm sorry but erm we can't go
とまだ:=
now=
00: 12: 04
PF
はい.
yes
00: 12: 04
M1=あの: この穿刺 輸液が終わってか erm after the IV line we are
ら出たいと思いますので=leaving to hospital so=
00: 12: 07
PF
はい はい.
yeah okay

explain current process [IV line] toPFacknowledgement
inform PF to go to hospital after thetreatment
confirming[Team1-Item 3: Imply]
00: 16: 13
M1
ご家族の方 すみません.
excuse me, Ma'am
summon00: 16: 18
M1
ちょっとお借りした台なんですけど= erm this table=
apology for wetting a table
00: 16: 19
PF
はい.
yes
acknowledgement
00: 16: 20
M1=濡れちゃったんですけど=
this table has got wet but=
apology for a wet table
00: 16: 21
PF
はい.
yeah
acknowledgement
00: 16: 21
M1=そのままちょっと行っちゃいますの =we gonna leave as it is so= sorry explain PF that they leave the table
で ごめんなさいね.すみません.
for that
as it is plus imply they will go tohospital soon
00: 16: 22
PF
ああ いいです.いいです. はい はい. oh it's okay yeah yeah
accepting[Team1-Item 4: Imply]
00: 20: 20
M2
ご家族の方 申しわけございません. excuse me, Ma'am
00: 20: 21
PF
はい はい.
yes
00: 20: 22
M2
ちょっと荷物を１つ持っていただいて could you help us to take
よろしいですか？
this[infusion bag] with you?
00: 20: 23
PFなん なんか なんかしますか？なん wh= what= what can I do? What?
かしますか？どこ<G?>
Where?
00: 20: 26
M2
これを=
this bag=00: 20: 26
PF
はい.
yeah
00: 20: 27
M2=これを一緒に持っていってください. take this bag with you please.
00: 20: 28

PF[Team1-pullout]
00: 20: 29
L

はい.

okay

はい 移動.

okay let's go

summonanswer the summon
request PF to take infusion bag withherclarify the request
request PF to take infusion bag again
acceptingrequest PF to take infusion bag plus
imply they are leaving
acceptingrequest M2 to move stretcher plus
request M1 and PF to come along

Note: L = leader of the emergency medical team, PF=patient’s family, M1= member one in the medical team,
M2 = member two in the medical team, <G?> =inaudible sounds, ‘=’ = unfinished sentence, ‘:’ =prolongation of the immediately prior soundFigure 4: Placements of information sharing
In terms of the frequency of information sharing
between crews and PF, team 1 has informed PF to
go to hospital four times in total. The second
information sharing in Team 1 occurs in the processof the ‘IV line’ insertion. The third item is allocatedafter the ‘IV line’ insertion and the last item has
been placed soon before the action of pullout.
Team 2 has informed PF more frequently than team
1 and the total number of information sharing
between crews and PF is six times. In addition tothat, in the case of team 2, PF has replied back to
the crews and informed that she is ready to go tohospital at Item 2. The other four items of
information sharing in Team 2, have been placed at
the boundaries of the activities, such as after the‘Airway mask’, the beginning and the ending of ‘IVline’ and soon before the ‘pullout’ action.

Extract 2: Transcript of Team 2timeline
voice original transcript in Japanesetranslation in English
act[Team2-Item 1: Inform and request]
00: 05: 17
L
お: 病院は救命センターというところ erm I asked an emergency medical inform PF that L has requestedにお願いをしました.
centre to take a patient=emergency medical centre to accept
a patient
00: 05: 21
PF
はい.
okay
acknowledgement
00: 05: 22
L
で 私のほうで今 チュ- チューブとか now I am going to do some
explain about treatments to beを準備してね.
treatments such as airway tube= conducted
00: 05: 24
PF
はい.
yeah
acknowledgement
00: 05: 25
L
え: 病院に少しでも早く行けるように and trying to transport to hospital give account for the treatment
します.
as fast as possible
00: 05: 28
PF
はい お願いします.
yes please
request and accept L to conduct thetreatments
00: 05: 30
Lえ え: ちょｰ ちょっと病院に行く準備 so could you prepare for leaving to request PF to prepare for leaving toをしてください.
hospital pleasehospital[Team2-Item 2: PF's reply]
00: 06: 29
PF
一応準備できましたので <G?> はい.
00: 06: 31
L
はい わかりました.
[Team2-Item 3: Inform]
00: 10: 43
L
家族の方 今ね チューブを固定してますからね:
00: 10: 45
PF
はい.
00: 10: 47
L
病院のほうは119番センターのほうで連絡をしてくれてますので
00: 10: 49
PF
はい はい.
00: 10: 50
L
私の処置が 終わり次第
00: 10: 52
PF
はい.
00: 10: 52
Lすぐね
00: 10: 52
PF
はい.
00: 10: 53
L
病院のほうへ行きますからね:
00: 10: 54
PF
はい.

erm I'm ready <G?> yeahright okay

now I am fixing this tube yeahokay
and the dispatch centre is trying
to find a hospital to goyeah yeah
after the treatment
mhm
immediately
mhm
we are going to hospital okay
okay

inform L that PF is ready to go tohospital
confirming

explain current process [fixing airway
tube] to PF
acknowledgement
add info about hospitalacknowledgement
inform plan after the treatment
acknowledgement
inform plan after the treatment
acknowledgement
inform plan after the treatment
confirming[Team2-Item 4: Inform]
00: 11: 15
L
じゃあね 今度 点滴しますからね.
now I am going to insert an IV line inform next process [IV line] to PF
00: 11: 17
PF
はい.
okay
confirming
00: 11: 19
L
病院に行ってすぐお薬が使えるよう it's needed for giving a drug after account for the treatmentに ちょっと必要な処置なのでね
we get a hospital=
00: 11: 22
PF
はい.
mhm
confirming
00: 11: 23
L
え: 一回一人で実施して もし私の力 erm I will try it now then if theinform next process and plan to go
では無理なようでしたらすぐ中断し condition doesn't change weto hospital after treatmentて病院へ行きますからね:
gonna go to hospital immediately
00: 11: 30
PF
はい.
okay
confirming

4.2
Voice and act of information sharing
With transcripts described in extract 1 and extract 2
shown below, voice and act of information sharing
for pullout in a pre-hospital care setting have been
analysed in detail. The first column of thetranscripts shows the timeline. Voice of theutterance appears in the second column. In the thirdcolumn, original transcription in Japanese isdescribed and translation in English is shown in thefifth column. The last column describes the act ofeach utterance.

[Team2-Item 5: Inform]
00: 17: 00
L
今点滴終わりましたからね.

now IV line has fixed so

00: 17: 01
00: 17: 03

LPF

間もなく病院へ行くように.
あ はい よろしくお願いします.

we gonna go to hospital soon
oh yes please

00: 17: 03

L

あの: 救急隊の担架に行きますよ:

00: 17: 05

PF

はい.

so we gonna move him to thestretcherokay[Team2-Item 6: Inform]
00: 21: 40
L
じゃ 家族の方 行きますよ.

okay ma'am we gonna go

00: 21: 41

はい <G?> はい.

yeah <G?> okay

はい 移動.

okay let's go

PF[Team2-Pullout]
00: 21: 46
Lreporting completion of treatment [IVline] to PF
inform to go to hospital soon
acknowledgement and request to
take patient to hospital
add info - move P to stretcher
confirming

summon plus inform to go to hospitalplus request PF to comeaccept the request

request M1 to move stretcher plus
request M2 and PF to come along

Note: L = leader of the emergency medical team, PF=patient’s family, M1= member one in the medical team,
M2 = member two in the medical team, ‘=’ = unfinishedsentence, ‘:’ = prolongation of the immediately prior
sound

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In team 1, the addressers to inform PF vary. In item
1, 2 and 3 of team1, M1 has spoken to PF, and initem 4, M2 has requested PF to help them. At the
pullout action, L has directed the crews and PF tomove the stretcher in order to head for an
emergency medical centre. Several speech act
expressions have been recognised in information
sharing in Team 1. In the first two items, PF has
been informed directly. M1 has explained to PF thatthey are going to take P to the ambulance care after
the treatment and requests PF to prepare for leaving
to hospital with P. In the third and forth items inteam 1, however, acts of ‘apology’ or ‘request’ havebeen observed. In the item 3, M1 apologies PF thatthey have got the table wet during the IV line
insertion treatment but they are going to leave tohospital without cleaning. In the item 4, M2 hasrequested to take the infusion bag with her. Theseutterances imply that they are going to leave soon,
whereas, PF needs to presume the actual timing ofpullout from the utterances and activities that thecrews are engaged in.
In contrast, in the case of team 2, PF has been
informed by L all the time. The timing of pullout
and how far they are from the point have been
explained to PF from time to time.

quality of pre-hospital care.
Not only a patient in a causality but also thepatient’s family are facing an unusual situation in a
pre-hospital care setting, which they might not
expect when the day comes and they do not know
how to deal with the unfamiliar ‘reality’. For
emergency medical crews, on the other hand, this‘unusual situation’ is the field they work in daily
life and there seems to be many ‘habitual’
behaviours, ‘routines’ in activities and terms andstyles of communication shared only among the
emergency medical professionals. Emergency crews,
patients and their family, however, need tocontribute to realise the activities in a pre-hospitalcare setting together although they have different
perspectives on the reality they have faced. Use oflanguage can play an important role in order to fill
the gap between these two sides: medical
professionals and ordinal people in emergency care.
In a recent lecture on medical communication, Paul
Crawford (2009) advises medical professionals withthe phrase ‘make them [patient] visible’ andsuggests that just eye contact and greetings to apatient can change the situation and improve
patients’ satisfaction to the treatments. In their study
on doctor-patient communication in primary careconsultations, Heritage and Stivers (1999) reportsthat use of ‘online commentary’, which is doctors’
descriptions about patients’ conditions duringphysical examinations, helps patients and patients’family beside to ‘forecast’ and ‘reassure’ thediagnostic
evaluations
comingafter
theexaminations especially in the case of ‘well visit’.
Although there are many limitations in this small
case study and further studies need to be conducted,
three aspects in use of language highlighted in thisresearch, namely timing, addresser and act of
information sharing, can be one of the factors to
improve the quality of pre-hospital care.

4.3
Comments and assessments from PF
After the experimental pre-hospital care activities,
comments and a simple rating have been given toeach team by PF. Three ranks, ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ areused for rating and A is the highest and C is thelowest mark. Team 1 is rated as ‘C’ and Team 2 is‘A’. Frequent use of technical terms in their
explanation and ambiguity of roles in medicalcrews in Team 1 have been pointed out referring thefact that PF has been instructed by different crews
in PF’s comments.

5

Conclusion and implications

Acknowledgement
We thank the Tokyo Fire Department for theircontribution to the research.

In this research, conversation analysis in a
pre-hospital setting has been reported in reference
to a transition from the treatment phase to thepullout phase. Sequences of acts for sharing
information between medical crews and PF towards
the pullout action have been described in reference
to time placement and addressers. Both Team 1 andTeam 2 have informed about the timing for going tohospital to PF several times in the course ofactivities, however, differences in placement, voice
and act of information sharing have been observed.
Team 1 has conducted the whole process faster thanTeam 2, however, PF has rated Team 2 higher thanTeam 1. From the findings and a retrospective view
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Tsuchiya, K. (2008). Toward a cultural-sensitive
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Sharing decisions with patients: is theinformation good enough? British Medical
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[Accessed: 20 July 2009].
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Communicating Care: The Language ofNursing. Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes.
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Qualitative Research: Theory, Method andPractice. London: Sage publications.
222-265.
Heritage, J. & Maynard, D., W (2006).
CommunicationinMedicalCare:
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betweenprimarycarephysicians and patients. Cambridge: CUP.
Heritage, J. & Stivers, T. (1999). Online
commentary in acute medical visits: amethod of shaping patient expectations.
Social Science & Medicine 49: 1501-1517.
McEnery, T., Xiao, R. & Tono, Y. (2006).
Corpus-Based Langauge Studies: an
Advanced Resource Book. London:
Routledge.
Pappas, G. (1990). Some implications for the studyof the doctor-patient interaction. Social
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Proctor, A., Morse, J., M. & Khonsari, E. S. (1996).
Sounds of Comfort in the Trauma Center:
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Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on Conversation,
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Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the
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Shimazaki, S., Asai, Y., Aruga, T., Maekawa, T.,
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Sinclair,J.
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274

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

A Study of English Language Textbooks in Japan:
With a focus on consistency
Koji Uenishi
Faculty of Foreign Studies, Setsunan University
uenishi@ilc.setsunan.ac.jp

Abstract

Informally, English has already been introduced, inIn this paper primary and junior and senior highprinciple, once a week at some primary schools.

school textbooks in Japan were analyzed andSome or many teachers are very concerned about

discussed. The authorized textbook Eigo Noto

English teaching at primary school for various(English Workbook) by the Ministry of Education,

reasons: 1) curriculum,

Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology should be

textbooks, and 4) connections with junior highdiscussed for future English language teaching at

school.

2) teaching staff,

3)

primary school in Japan. This discussion will

Regarding connections with junior high school,

contribute to a future formal textbook which will bebased upon the practices of Narita primary school,

offered to all primary schools and be utilized there.

Niizato (2009) points out the following:

Therefore, Eigo Note introduced for primary“Unfortunately, even at the base school ofschools and popular textbooks used at junior and‘foreign language activity’ at primarysenior high schools were analyzed in terms ofschool they cannot afford to take into

Englishwh-interrogative

consideration the English education atquestions. Based upon the data results obtained, thejunior high school in terms of time orconsistency of the learning content from primary

spiritual burden. Primary school teachersschool to junior and senior high school was

are very busy thinking over teaching their

discussed. As a result, it was identified, on the

own English lessons. Therefore, they willwhole, that the textbooks could not be said to be

not be aware how what they teach isconsistent or connected in terms of the English

connected with the teaching contents at

expressions including wh-questions that students

junior high school. … On the other hand, I

learn at school.

wonder if teachers at junior high school

expressions

withknow about what primary school teachers

Keywords

teach—the goals of teaching English andEnglish textbooks, wh-questions, primary school

the activities for achieving the goals.
Probably the teachers hardly know about

1

Introduction

them.” [translated by the author]

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science

According to Okuno (2009), it was alreadyand Technology (MEXT) announced last year thatindicated that there was a wide range of problems

Gaikokugo Katsudo (foreign language activity)

on introducing English education at primarywould be introduced as a lesson for the fifth andschools during the Meiji Era in Japan. Some ofsixth grades at all primary schools in Japan in 2011.

these are the relationship between English and275Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

native tongue, needed teaching staff, and thehighschooltextbooks

integration with junior high school textbooks.

wh-interrogative

However, similar problems remain to be solved atphrases including them?

inquestions

terms

and

of

Englishpresent.

3

With regard to textbooks, the MEXT proposed

Research Methods

that teachers utilize the so-called Eigo Note

Each textbook was first digitized and then analyzed(English Notebook) textbooks at primary schools.

in

Unfortunately, the use of these textbooks during

expressions. The Eigo Note textbooks used in

English lessons is left to individual primary schools.

‘foreign language activity’ at Japanese primary

Therefore, “… some Boards of Education haveschools were analyzed, aiming at investigating

opted not to have schools use the textbooks, while

Englishschools in other areas plan to use them selectively.

wh-interrogative questions, that were taught to

Therefore, it will likely be difficult to iron out

pupils. Below are the interrogative questions anddifferences in teaching approaches among schools

Englishnationwide.”

analyzed in this research.

(Torikai,2009).

The

MEXT’sannouncement will result in a confusion about how

terms

of

phrases

wh-interrogativeandphrases

expressions,interrogative-phrases

and

and

including-expressions

Eigo Note 1

to teach future junior high school students.

What do you want? / What do you …? /In this paper, the Eigo Note textbooks produced

What would you like? /by the MEXT and primary school textbooks fromHow many …?

Eigo Note 2

Thailand were focused on and analyzed. Among the

When (is your birthday)? / Where (is theteaching contents at schools, the data results

station)? / What time do you (get up)?

obtained from Japanese textbooks were comparedwith those from Thai textbooks. Regarding theBelow are the textbooks analyzed in this paper.

research paper on the contents of English teaching(1)Eigo Note textbooks at primary schools inJapan (5th Grade and 6th Grade)at primary school, Nishina, Fujiwara, & Matsuoka(2009) discussed English expressions taught at(2)New Horizon at junior high schools inprimary schools, especially prepositions and key

Japan (Book 1 through Book 3)

phrases including wh-interrogative questions. As a(3)Prominence at senior high schools in

result, they found that chunks or key phrases

Japan (Book 4 and Book 5)

including interrogative questions are vital for4learners to enhance communication skills.

Results and Discussion

4.1 English Expressions Including Interrogatives

2

Research Objectives

4.1.1 Expressions Including ‘What’In this paper, with a focus on phrases including

Based upon the aforementioned research question,

wh-interrogative questions used in English teaching

the textbooks from primary to senior high schoolat primary schools in Japan, the formal textbooks

were analyzed and discussed. In that case, theoffered by the MEXT were analyzed and discussed.

analyses and implications about the data results

Accordingly, below is the research objective.

were performed on every English phrase including
each wh- interrogative question.

How well are materials integrated between
Japanese primary school and junior / senior

276

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

4.1.1.1 ‘What do you want?’

once or twice in all textbooks, from Book 1 through

The English expression “What do you want?”

Book 3, after the fifth-grade Eigo Note textbook.

appears three times in Lesson 3 in the fifth-grade

Given the situation of the appearance of the phrase

Eigo Note textbook. However, the same expression“What do you …?” it can be said that after anever appears in the junior and senior high school

fashion the phrase is learnt rather continuously,

textbooks. In Unit 4 of Book 3 “What do you wantthough the frequency of its appearance is very

to do on the weekend?” is used as the expression

infrequent. Even so, students will be able toincluding “to verb.”

memorize the phrase if it is taught using extra

When it comes to the sentence pattern “What domaterials from time to time. In this kind of case, it

you …?”, the pattern is used twice in Book 1 independs on the teacher whether the students canJapan. This phrase should be used more constantly

learn the sentence pattern as a viable expression or

in order for learners to memorize it longer as anot.

viable expression. Besides, this pattern appears
Table 1

‘What do you …?’ in Japanese Textbooks

What-Interrogative

EN 1

EN 2

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5What do you want?

3

0

0

0

0

0

0

What do you want to…?

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

What do you …?

3

0

2

1

2

2

2

4.1.1.2

Book 5.

‘What would you like?’

The English expression “What would you like?”

Regarding the pattern “What would you likeincluding the word ‘would’ is discussed here. The

to…?” including ‘to infinitive’, the sentence “Whatword ‘would’ is often used in expressing oneself inwould you like to drink?” appears only once ina euphemistic and polite way. The expression isBook 3. It seems that the frequency of thefrequently seen in shopping and meal scenes on aexpression is not so low in daily life indaily basis.

English-speaking

countries.

Therefore,

itis

It appears three times in the last lesson, Lesson

undeniable that there is a problem about the

9 of the fifth-grade Eigo Note textbook. However, it

situation where the expression is hardly or neveris never used in junior high textbooks, Book 1

taught in this way. In addition, since it neverthrough Book 3 (Table 5). In this respect it can beappears in the senior high school textbook,said that the problem of the integration of learning

Prominence, we need to discuss it, taking intomaterials between primary school and junior highconsideration the connections between primaryschool is identified. Furthermore, ‘would’ neverschool and junior and senior high schools.

appears in senior high school textbooks, Book 4 andTable 5‘What would you like …? ’ in Japanese Textbooks

Useful Expressions

EN 1

EN 2

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5What would you like?

3

0

0

0

0

0

0

277

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

What …?
4.1.1.3

9

2

10

18

5

12

10

who use the official textbooks never learn this‘What time do you…?’

The English expression “What time do you…?” isphrase when asking questions about ‘time’ in daily

used in daily life, and appears twice in Lesson 6 inlife. As long as teachers don’t offer questions of

the sixth-grade Eigo Note textbook. However, it“What time do you …?” type in a supplementary

appears in neither junior nor senior high school

way, the students never learn the sentence pattern intextbooks (Table 7).

junior and senior high schools. When you think
about learning the pattern, I think it is vital to teachThe pattern “What time do you …?” is anotherit even at the beginning of junior high school.

pattern that fails to never appear in junior andsenior high school textbooks. As a result, students
Table 7

‘What time …?’ in Japanese Textbooks

What-Interrogative

EN 1

EN 2

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5What time do you …?

0

2

0

0

0

0

0

What time …?

0

2

2

0

0

0

0

What time is it (…)?

0

0

2

0

0

0

0

4.1.2

textbook, the pattern is used only once or twice inExpressions Including ‘When’isBooks 1, 3, and 4. This means that the direct

discussed in this section. Although “When is yourinterrogative sentence using ‘when’ never appears

birthday?” appears twice in Lesson 3 of thein Book 2 and Book 5. Also, it appears around thesixth-grade Eigo Note textbook, it is neverend of the book in Unit 10 of Book 1 for the first

re-introduced in junior or senior high school

time in junior high school. Then it is used again in

textbooks. Besides, in the pattern of “When …?”

Unit 11 of Book 1. However, in Unit 3 of Book 3

after it is treated twice in the sixth-grade Eigo Notethe expression “when …?” appears after that.

Interrogative

Table 9questions

including‘when’‘When …?’ in Japanese Textbooks

When-Interrogative

EN 1

EN 2

B1

B2

B3

B4

B5

When is your birthday?

0

2

0

0

0

0

0

When …?

0

2

2

0

1

2

0

It is assumed that junior high school students in

The sentence pattern “Where is …?” such as

Japan need to have more chances to read and use“Where is the station?” appears once in Lesson 5 ofinterrogative questions including ‘when’. In thethe sixth-grade Eigo Note textbook. After that, thesame manner as the expressions including ‘what’, itpattern appears three times in Book 1. Unexpectedly,

seems that the expressions using ‘when’ need to be

the sentence “Where’s my ticket?” appears in Unit 8

treated in class by teachers.

of Book 1 for the first time. In Book 2 theinterrogative ‘where’ is treated once in Unit 1 using

4.1.3

the sentence “Where were you?” However, after

Expressions Including ‘Where’
278Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

that the interrogative question never appears inindirect interrogative sentences and relative adverb

Book 3 through Book 5. This implies that as grades‘where’ areproceed from junior to senior high school, learninginterrogative ‘where’.

studiedratherthan

thedirectcontents are more difficult and more abstract, andTable 11‘Where …?’ in Japanese Textbooks

Where-Interrogative

EN 1

EN 2

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5

Where is / Where's …?

0

1

3

0

0

0

0

Where …?

0

1

3

1

0

0

0

4.1.4

‘how many’ is “How many CDs do you have?” In

Expressions Including ‘How’

The interrogative phrase “How many…?” appears

this respect it seems difficult to judge whether or

twice in Lesson 3 of the fifth-grade Eigo Note

not it is enough to learn the pattern like this.

textbook and twice in Book 1 in junior high school.

However, considering the retention of this pattern, it

The first appearance of this pattern in junior highis assumed that it will be better to learn it again inschool is in Unit 5 of Book 1; the expression usingBook 2, as well.

Table 13

‘How …?’ in Japanese Textbooks

How-Interrogative

EN 1

EN 2

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5How many …?

2

0

2

0

0

2

0

How are you?

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

How …?

3

0

7

9

2

6

3

5

Conclusion

formal textbooks used by all primary schools

Prior to the introduction of ‘foreign language

should be published in Japan, as well. In that case,activity’ at primary school in 2011, the Eigo Notelearning contents need to be discussed more by

textbooks and junior and senior high school

taking into account logical language development

textbooks were compared and analyzed mainly

from primary school to junior and senior highfrom the perspective of the expressions including

school. Moreover, junior high school daily-life,

interrogatives. Since the Eigo Note textbooks werehigh-frequency phrases and expressions, including

published only recently, theses textbooks should

vocabulary should be adopted. This will makehave been produced thinking more about thelearning contents closer to real situations and lead

English expressions (vocabulary) in junior andto more natural, interactive English learning. As asenior high school textbooks. However, thisresult, the students’ interest and enthusiasm about

research identified that in fact the Eigo Note

English learning should be enhanced. In that case,

expressions failed to appear in a consistent or

Nishida’s (2009) research focusing on prepositions

continuous way.

and interrogatives in workbooks for primary school
provides a foundation for materials development.

In the future, as the authorized textbooks areproduced and English teaching has progressed inHenceforth, reflecting on the above researchother EFL countries such as Thailand and China,

results, textbooks need to be analyzed and279

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

discussed. In order to produce better primary school

Asian EFL materials. For that purpose, analyses andtextbooks, further research should be done, such as,

discussion of primary school textbooks from othercomparing Japanese English textbooks with other

EFL countries should be promoted from now on.

6
6.1

References and appendices
References

English teaching at primary school withEnglish teaching at junior high school－

Okuno, H. (2009). Shougakkou gakushuu shidou

Regarding consistent English language

youryou ni okeru gaikokugo katsudou nohihanteki

kousatsu－

teaching between primary and junior highshougakkou

schools at Narita City] English Language

eigokyouiku no rekishi to genjou wo
fumaete － [Critical

discussion

Magazine, September, 17-19.

about

Nishina, Y., Fujiwara, Y., & Matsuoka, Y. (2009).

‘foreign language activity’ in The Course

Shougakkou no tameno juuyou fureizu

of Study at Primary School－Based on

oyobi

history and situations of English language
education at primary school]

zenchishi

Studies in

wh-gimonshi

chuushutsu:
no

baai.

expressions for English teaching at primary

Kanashige, N., & Naoyama, Y. (2008). Shougakkou

school: with a focus on prepositions andshin gakushuu shidouyouryou no tenkai

wh-interrogative

gaikokugo katsudou hen [Development of

KANSAINew Course of Study at primary school:

expressions].

JOURNAL

No.11

JACET
14－32.

Torikai, K. (2009). Seeds of English learning:

foreign langue activity] Meiji Tosho.

Primary classes aiming for children to

Matsukawa, R. & Oshita, K. (2007). Shougakkou

enjoy learning. The Daily Yomiuri, May 10,

eigo to chuugakkou eigo wo musubu:

p.10.

eigokyouiku ni okeru shouchuu renkei.

The Daily Yomiuri. (2009). Half of middle school[Connecting primary school English withteachers unaware of grade-school English.

junior high school English: Cooperation

May 10, p.10.

between primary and junior high schools in

Suzuki, Y. (n.d.).「tai ni okeru shougakkou eigo

Kouryousha

kyouiku no genjou to kadai 」 [Present

Publishing Company.

situation and problems at primary school in

Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2009.

Thailand.]

Eigo Noto 1 [English Workbook 1]. Tokyo:

Retrieved

May

19,

2009,

from www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/chuk

Kyoiku Shuppan.

yo/chukyo3/015/siryo/05120501/s004_4.p______. 2009. Eigo Noto 2 [English Workbook 2].
Tokyo:no[Extraction of key phrases and fixed

English Language Teaching, 32, 53－62.

English language teaching].

teikeihyougen

dfKyoiku Shuppan.

Niizato, M. (2008). Chuugakkou no renkei wo
dousurunoka－naritashi no shouchuu ikkan
no torikumikara [How should we connect280

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Acquisition of New Phonemes in Learner Speech:
A Study of Korean English
Eun sil Bang, Oh Seon Kweon, and Jong-mi Kim

Department of English Language and Literature, Kangwon National Univrsity
bespretty@hanmail.net, rnjsdhtjs89@naver.com, *kimjm@kangwon.ac.kr

strongly identified with a single native category(Fledge, 1995). Fledge (1995) predicts that aphonetic difference that distinguishes contrasting
foreign sound but does not also distinguish
contrasting native sounds will be poorly detected
and reproduced. The study has been proposed toaccount for the changes that occur in both theperception and production of the first and second
language of an L2 learner.
This observation, however, is not specificenough in the similarity metric, and the degree ofdifficulty to predict the acquisition of non-native
contrasts. The similarity metric has been set in
Strange et al. (1998) using the traditional features of“tongue-height” and “backness.” They report that
American English vowels were most often
assimilated to their “phonetically-similar” Japanesecounterparts as defined by these distinctive features.
Likewise, studies on consonants in L2 aquisition
also used such tranditional distinctive features suchas voicing, lateralness, and fricative/stop (Best,
McRoverts, & Goodell, 2001). Then the question
remains on what features determine the acquisition
order of L2 phones whose phonetic differencesdistinguish contrasting foreign sound but do notalso distinguish contrasting native sounds?
To answer these questions, we investigate theassimilation process of some English phones by
Korean learners whose phonetic features aredefined by continuency ([f]/[p]), lateralness ([l]/[r]),and vowel height ([Q /). We also investigate
the vowel reduction feature ([ ) and theorthographic composition (mapping of one sound to
two letters). We then compare the learners’ L2
speech data with their L1 loanwords as well as theL1 target speech. Specifically, we collect the speech
data of the English loanwords that are produced inlearner speech and analyzed the process ofacquisition of new sounds.
The answer to the question of segmental
acquisition process may depend on thedevelopmental aspects of learner speech, because
studies have shown that learner speechprogressively assimilate to the value of the target

Abstract
The acquisition order of new phonemes in adults’language learning were investigated using
utterances previously shown to be problematic inloanword adaptation. A large scale of English
speech data was collected from 124 students ofEnglish as a foreign language (EFL) at five ranks ofproficiency. To contrast, two different groups ofnative speech data were collected from 12 native
speakers of American English and 11 native
speakers of Korean. The learner speech data wascompared with the L1 Korean pronunciation of
loanwords in Korean context and L1 English
pronunciation of phones in loanwords. We
examined the acoustic features that are relevant to
the phonemes in question.
Learners acquired faster a new L2 phone that
was allophonic in L1 for free variation than forcomplementary distribution. A new L2 vowel was
faster acquired when phonetically dissimilar interms of tongue height than reduced energy withschwa quality. Orthographic representation played arole in that a complex mapping of letter to soundcaused difficulty in learning. The error rate drops
drastically after instruction to indicate that an
explicit instruction is an effective method toenhance the phonological acquisition in language
learning.

Keywords
English loanwords into Korean, Korean learnerspeech of English, Acquisition order of sounds,
Learner speech, Loanword phonology

1 Introduction
Is there a principled order of acquisition of newphones in learner speech of a second language?
Long-standing observation in literature is that new
L2 phones are most often assimilated to their‘phonetically similar’ L1 counterparts (Best, 1995;
Flege, 1995; and, Strange, Akahane, Kubo, Trent,
Nishi, & Jenkins, 1998), of which some non-native
contrasts are difficult to discriminate when they are281

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

speech. We investigate the acquisition order byusing both a cross-sectional and longitudinal
methods. The longitudinal method is to test
cognitive and affective factors in adult language
learning -- such as the role of attention and theimportance of motivation in learning, as Schmidt(1995) claims, “In order to acquire phonology, onemust attend to phonology” (Schmidt, 1995a, 17).

2.1 Speech materials
Three types of speech materials and the recording
lists were used: 1) recorded L1 Korean speechmaterials of English loanwords to Korean in Korean
context, 2) recorded L1 and L2 English speechmaterials of English loanwords to Korean inEnglish context, 3) listening test materials in
English for Korean learners to serve as co-variancereference to the development in speech production.
The listening test materials were the listening
component of Test Of English for International
Communication (TOEIC). Two TOEIC listening
tests were used as a standardized test to recognize
the improvement of listening comprehension before
and after instruction.
For recorded speech materials, the native andlearner participants read words in isolation, andthose embedded in English or Korean contexts.
Table 1 is the recording list, in which the segmentswith different sound quality in Korean and English
to contrast are underlined. The Korean context isromanized according to the Official Romanization
System of Korean.

2 Method
In order to accomplish our objective, we
administered the phonetic experiment thatcomprises four sub-experiments on native andlearner speech in cross-sectional and longitudinalstudies. The four sub-experiments are on: 1) Koreannative speech of English loanwords in Korean
context, 2) English native speech of the English
loanwords in English context, 3) Korean learnerspeech of the English loanwords in English context
by a cross-sectional study, 4) Korean learner speechof the English loanwords in English context by alongitudinal study. Each sub-experiment useddifferent sets of speech materials, participants, andthe data acquisition steps.

Table 1: Recording list for missing target phonemes in L2 English words, spoken by L1 Korean speakers(a)Words in isolation

1. add [ ]2. additional [ ]3. light [r]4. plate [r]5. define [p]6. atmosphere [p](b)Words in English context(c)Words in Korean context

1. I added one more figure to my paper.
[ ]2. I need an additional remark. [ ]3. Where do you live in Korea? [r]4. Where are they playing tennis? [r]5. We are going to define the principles
of physics.[p]6. I can’t find the place. [p]The underlined phonemes of English words in Table
1 do not have phonemic status in Korean phoneme
inventory. For instance, the English phoneme [Qis absent in Korean vowel inventory, whose front(Lee,
unrounded vowels comprise [i], [e], and1999). The expected assimilation forms to their“phonetically-similar” Korean counterparts aretranscribed by IPA symbols in square brackets.
The recording lists in columns (a) and (c) wereused to obtain L1 Korean speech materials ofEnglish loanwords in Korean context, while thelists in columns (a) and (b) were to obtain L1 andL2 English speech materials of English words in
English context.

1. Oneul peulei eottaesseyo?
(How was the play today)?
2. Je bijaneun imi ikseupaieo
dwaesseoyo.
(My visa has already expired.)
3. Eoje “roseuteu” bwanni?
(Did you see the “lost” yesterday?)
4. peoseuteu keulaessue anjatseo.
(I sat in the first class.)

2.2 Participants
Research participants consisted of 11 Korean native
speakers who read English loanwords in Korean
context, 12 native speakers of American English
and 124 Korean learners of English who read theEnglish loanwords to Korean in English context.
All native speakers spoke the General
American English, while learners the Standard
South Korean as their native language. The learner's
English proficiency level varied with respect to thescale of five ranks in accordance to TOEIC score.
We then putatively used the scaling of scoreintervals in TOEIC Can-Do Guide (2000) as

282

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

co-variance
units
for
our
analysis. 1 This follows thedevelopmental effects that themore proficient the speaker is, themore target-like the perception of
the target sound is for the listener.
2.3 Data acquisition procedure
The data acquisition procedure
variedforallfour
sub-experiments. For the firstsub-experiment,
whereweaquired Korean native speech ofEnglish loanwords, we used thefollowing three stages of eliciting
the reading speech. At the firststage, the Korean native speakers
were given the English word list Figure 1: Illustration of an incorrectly produced phone [p] for thein English alphabet, and asked to target phone [f] in L2 English word physics, spoken by a male Koreantranscribe the words into Korean learner of English. The word was embedded in a sentence, “We arealphabet. The transcription was going to define the principles of physics”. The L2 phone demonstrates
done for the words in isolation. several acoustic cues of [p]: 1) silence (stop gap), 2) release burst
At the next stage, the speakers indicated by a strong vertical spike, and 3) a long VOT of 50 ms as
were given the Korean sentence short frication noise (scattered marks after the release) before vowel
list where the English loanwords formants begin.
are embedded hidden in empty
and repeat practice of the recording stimuli, 2)
blanks. The speakers are then asked to fill in the
pronunciation instruction in class for 7 weeks thatblanks by copying down their own previously
included many different aspects of pronunciationtranscribed English loanwords in Korean alphabet.
including, but not focused on, avoiding the Korean
At the last stage, the speakers were asked to readl-alternation and applying the English de-aspiration
the completed Korean scripts for recording therules, and 3) post-listening and production tests onwords in isolation and the words embedded in
the same data after 7 weeks, and again on thesentences..
different data after next 7 weeks.
For the second sub-experiment, where weaquired English native speech of the English
2.4 Analysis
loanwords in English context, the native speakers of
We measured the acoustic features that are relevant
American English underwent only one stage of theto the contrasting phonetic features for the segments
recording of the production stimuli.
as outlined in Table 1. We illustrate an erroneous
For the third sub-experiment, where we
production of learner speech in Figure 1.
acquired Korean learner speech of the English
Figure 1 shows a spectrogram of an erroneous
loanwords in English context by a cross-sectional
productionof English by a Korean learner at level 3
study, the learners took listening and production(mid-intermediate proficiency) before instruction.
tests after a brief listen and repeat practice of the
The English phone [f] in the word "physics" in thisrecording stimuli, on a very first week of any classlearner speech is assimilated to the “phonetically
instruction to avoid experimental intervention.
similar” counterpart [p] in Korean phoneme
For the fourth sub-experiment, where weinventory. The stop quality of the given phone isacquired Korean learner speech of the English
detected by several acoustic cues: 1) silence (stoploanwords in English context by a longitudinalgap), 2) release burst indicated by a strong vertical
study, the procedure consisted of three stages: 1)
spike, and 3) a long VOT of 50 ms as short frication
pre-listening and production tests after a brief listen
noise (scattered marks after the release).
For analysis, we compared the learner speech
1withthe native speech. For less clear cases ofThis edition of the Can-do Guide fits to our learner
acoustic
features, we used the additional means ofspeech data, as we used the previous version of TOEIC
the perceptual judgment by researchers and native
listening test using the General American English. The
next edition was published on 2009 to reflect the recent
speakers of English. We counted only the expectedmodification in TOEIC to contain different English
accents around the world.
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A total of 2085word data were acquired from therecorded corpus of native and learner speech inword-level and sentence level production by 124
Korean learners of English and 11 Korean and 12
English native speakers.
The developmental results for the acquisition
order of new L2 phones are shown for word levelproduction in Figure 2 and sentence levelproduction in Figure 3.
For the speech data of words in isolation, theacquisition order of new L2 phones are shown inthe cross-sectional study (2a) and in thelongitudinal study (2b): [f] in defined, [l] in plate,[Q] in add, [l] in light, [ ] in additional, and [p] in
atmosphere.
Learners acquired faster a new L2 phone that
was allophonic in L1 for free variation than forcomplementary
distribution,
since
the
discrimination of [f] from a single native category[f/p] was earlier learned before the discriminationof an onset [l] from a single native category of aliquid phoneme [l/r] which is phonotacticallyconstrained of an onset [r] and coda [l]. A new L2
vowel was faster acquired when phoneticallydissimilar in terms of tongue height than reduced
energy with schwa quality, since the discrimination

Figure 2: Results of the acquisition order for
non-native phones in word-level production
from a cross-sectional study (a) and alongitudinal study (b).

Figure 3: Results of the acquisition order for
non-native phones in sentence-level production
from a cross-sectional study (a) and alongitudinal study (b).

errors that are shown in the loanwords for thedifferent L2 phones in question.

3 Results284

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

learned than "ph" in physics. Both of thedevelopmental results in cross-sectional study (3a)and in longitudinal study (3b) support that the error
rate decreases as the learner proficiency increases.
To
seewhetherthedevelopmental
improvement takes effect in a new data, we tested
the learners after 7 weeks gap, and the result isshown in Figure 4. The post-test results show thedecrease of error rates regardless when the test iswith the same data and the different data. The
post-test was taken after 7 weeks of interval; withthe same data after the first 7 weeks, and with the
new data after the next 7 weeks of instruction. The
results are similar both for the words in isolationand the words embedded in sentences.

of the L2 phone [Q] with a single native category[ Q ] is faster acquired before the discriminationof the [ ] with a single native category [].
Orthographic representation played a role in that acomplex mapping of letter to sound caused
difficulty in learning, since “f” in define is fasterlearned than "ph" in atmosphere. Both of thedevelopmental results in Figures (2a) and (2b)support that the error rate decreases as the learnerproficiency increases.
Similar results are obtained for the speech dataof words in sentence context. Figure 3(a) is theresult for the cross-sectional study, and theacquisition order of new L2 phones are: [f] in find,[l] in live, [l] in playing, [Q] in add, [ ]in additional, and [f] in physics.
Learners acquired faster a new L2 phone that
was allophonic in L1 for free variation than forcomplementary
distribution,
since
the
discrimination of [f] from a single native category[f/p] was earlier learned before the discriminationof an onset [l] from a single native category of aliquid phoneme [l/r] which is phonotacticallyconstrained of an onset [r] and coda [l]. A new L2
vowel was faster acquired when phoneticallydissimilar in terms of tongue height than reduced
energy with schwa quality, since the discriminationof the L2 phone [Q] with a single native category[ Q ] is faster acquired before the discriminationof the [ ] with a single native category [].
Orthographic representation played a role in that acomplex mapping of letter to sound caused
difficulty in learning, since “f” in find is faster4 Discussion

The results confirm some old findings while theypresent new findings in this study. Confirmation to
old findings comprises the following: 1) As Fledge(1995) predicts, a phonetic difference that
distinguishes contrasting foreign sound but does notalso distinguish contrasting native sounds arepoorly detected and reproduced, as in our data oflearner speech. 2) Among these data with phonetic
similarity, the traditonal features did distinguishtheir developmental order, as shown in Strange et al.
(1998) and Best et al. (2001). 3) The longitudinal
method supports that cognitive and affective factors
in adult language learning involve the role ofattention to the given new speech sounds, as
Schmidt (1995) claims.
New findings in this study are the following.
First. acquisition order of new L2 English phones
by Korean learners are found inthat 1) a new L2 phone that wasallophonic in L1 for freevariation
earlierthanforcomplementary distribution, 2) a
new L2 vowel phoneticallydissimilar in terms of tongue
height earlier than reduced
energy with schwa quality; 3)
Orthographically
one-to-one
simple mapping of letter to soundearlier learned than complex
mapping.
Secondly,thecross-sectional study shows thesignificant
developmental
transition of the acquisition of
new L2 phones. Thirdly, learnerspeech is far more distant fromloanwords, and much closer toFigure 4: The post-test results show the decrease of incorrect target phonology. In other words,
production of non-native phones, regardless whether the test is on learner speech is far more faithful
the same data, on the different data, for the words spoken in to target phonology thanisolation, or for the words spoken in sentences.
loanword phonology. Fourthly,285

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another difference between learner speech andloanword phonology is that learner speech develops
toward target phonology, while loanword
phonology is rather constant. Fifthly, needless tomention is an additional fact that loanwords
conform to native phonotactics, whereas learnerspeech does not.
Currently, the discussions in this study arebased on the average values of a large number ofdata. We plan to do a more sophisticated analysis
with statistical significance.

Honolulu. HI: Univ. of Hawai’i. Second
Language Teaching and Curriculum Center.
Strange, W., Akahane, R., Kubo, R., Trent, S.,
Nishi, K., & Jenkins, J. (1998). Perceptual
assimilation of American English Vowels
by Japanese listeners. Journal of Phonetics,
26, 311-344.

Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the Korea
Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean
Government (MOEHRD) (KRF-2006-321-A00933).

References
Best, C. T. (1995). A direct realist view ofcross-language speech perception. Speech
Perception and Linguistic Experience:Issues in Cross-¸anguage Research, ed. by
W. Strange, 171-203. Timonium, MD: York
Press.
Best, C. T., McRoberts, G. W., & Goodell, E.
(2001). American listeners' perception of
non-native consonant contrasts varying inperceptural
assimilation
toEnglishphonology. Journal of the AcousticalSociety of America, 109, 775-794.
ETS. (2000). TOEIC Can-Do Guide: Linking
TOEIC Scores to Activities Performed
Using English. (2000). Princeton, NJ:
Author.
[TOEIC_Can_Do.pdf,
www.ets.org]
Flege, J. E. (1995). Second language speechlearning: Theory, Findings, and problems.
SpeechPerception
andLinguistic
Experience: Issues in Cross-Language
Research, ed. by W. Strange, 233-277.
Timonium, MD: York Press.
Lee, H-B. (1999). Korean. Handbook of theInternational Phonetic Association, 120-123.
London: The Association.
Official Loanword Transcription Regulations.
(1995). [The current edition in official use].
Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Republicof Korea. [www.korean.go.kr].
Official Romanization system. (2000). [The current
edition in official use]. Ministry of Culture
and Tourism, Republic of Korea.
[www.korean.go.kr].
Schmidt, R. (1995). Consciousness and foreign
language learning: A tutorial on the role ofattention and awareness in foreign language
learning. Attention and awareness in foreign
language learning ed. by R. Schmidt, 1-63.
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College Teacher Training for Tertiary Students Towards Becoming
Effective English Teachers
Byung-Bin Im

Kongju National University

rainbow@kongju.ac.kr

group.
Continuing education, independent observation,
cultural training, mutual trust and reflection are
valuable aids and tools for dedicated ESL teachers
to achieve their best. Following the conclusion ofthat section, this writer has also provided a detailed
summary of the subsequent resulting implications,conclusions and theories as they relate to the needfor certain elements to be implemented as part of
the university teacher training specifically for
Korean English teachers (KETs) who are
Non-native Speaking language teachers (hereinafterreferred to as NNS) within the field of English
Education.

Abstract
This study relates to the field of teaching andsecond language acquisition (hereinafter SLA) withrespect to college teacher training for students ofEnglish Education at a tertiary level. As such, thepurpose of this study is to establish a number ofrecommendations (4 in total) of key areas deemedby the author as necessary to improve theeffectiveness of a college teacher training course,
and expand upon them in detail. This article
focuses upon recommendations towards thedevelopment of effective teacher training in relation
to the following: (1) the need for Orientation
training in SLA, ESP and target culture, and (2)teacher awareness of their attitudes. Additional
concepts include (3) building trust between the
supervisor and trainee teachers, and (4) further
related ongoing education for teacher-trainers
emphasized during in-service training to assist suchprospective teachers in developing their model
classes and professional development whilst also
the promotion of lifelong education for teachers ingeneral. Such recommendations have been
expanded upon in detail throughout this article andbased on supported research conducted in respect of
a number of teacher education studies.

1
1.1

Theoretical framwork

Orientation training in SLA, ESP, andTraget culture
Zinkgraf (2003) noted in her study of prospective
teacher trainees (university level education) that thelearners' critical analysis was too subjective and thatthey need to maintain an open and flexible mind
that is crucial for a teacher and researcher. The
critical awareness and assessment of language wasimportant to the learner and assisted their deeper
understanding of the target culture and hidden
ideologies. Thus a deeper understanding enables
lessons to be culturally content based(Celce-Murcia, 2001). Kumaravadivelu (1993)
criticized the education of language teachers,
specifically those engaged in communicative
language teaching (CLT), as being responsible for
failing to provide adequate tools when sucheducators are unable to create genuinely
communicativeclassrooms(Kumaravadivelu,
1993). Warschauer (2000) noted that teachers in
Korea can create opportunities for communication
based on values, cultural norms and needs oflearners rather than focus on the imperialistic
dictates of the Native English speaking countries.
Educators should take into account the social,economic, cultural and linguistic consequences ofthe spread of English.

Keywords
second language acquisition, teacher training,teacher awareness, lifelong education

Introduction
SLA is a complex learning environment requiring
teachers to be attentive and reflective in order tobest serve learners. Attitudes and awareness ofteachers are integral factors towards their successful
adoption of various teaching strategies and students'(recipients) own learning styles. Awareness and, inmany cases where it is called for, changes in own
attitudes and beliefs, enable teachers to better adapt
to the students' various learning styles and lead to
adopting appropriate and non-biased beliefs andattitudes applicable towards a particular cultural,gender-specific, class-based and socio-economic
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teachers to reflect upon their teaching, supervisory
practices that value learning to teach as a continual
process is needed.

1.2

Teacherawarenessandreflection-Attitudes and beliefs
There is a further crucial awareness factor to beconsidered in which educators are able to identify
and critically assess the impact of their own
attitudes and beliefs within the classroom. Altan(1997) proposes that teachers’ beliefs are a valuable
complement to traditional approaches to the studyof teaching. Such values and beliefs are the basis
for much of the teachers’ decision-making andclassroom action and as a result constitute theculture of teaching.
As such, unanswered questions remain in termsof the following:

1.4

In-service training of prospective
teachers in model classes, classroom
management: Continuing education
Standards to which pre-service KETs receive
training and ultimately work towards in relation totheir organization of material, activity focus, andlanguage goals are essential. Such standardized
teaching standards as adopted throughout South
Korea for all subjects in general may not always bedirectly applicable for SLA teaching thoughobviously still required. Due to the complexity of
SLA, it is a matter of determining the best and mostpractical standards that can be adhered to andhaving knowledge and practice of such standards
implemented into the university training programs.
It has become accepted that language teachers
should conduct research on their classrooms andbeliefs about teaching. However, less emphasis
has been placed upon the educators themselves of
those teachers. A brief survey conducted by theauthor of 20 linguists revealed that none of themhad conducted research upon their teaching, testingand students' learning. The reason for this reveals
that linguists have traditionally applied analysis andreflection rather than research upon their students'
learning of KAL. A further reason that the author
suggests, is that due to the high level ofqualification needed (usually doctorate level) for
KAL educators, their own professional education
has not prepared or encouraged them to engage insuch research. Sert (2006) prescribes to the theory
that increased awareness of autonomous learningand its benefits will enhance the teachers' own
capacity for self-governing and contribute towards
higher achievement and motivation.

(i) Can study refrain teachers from reachinginterpretations and biased decision-making?
(ii) How does an interactive internet site replaceinterpersonal guidance and counseling?
(iii) Can we rely on teachers to make those changes
in awareness themselves without any follow-up
evidence to reaffirm their commitment tomaking use of their education?
Reflection is emphasized as a tool for aiding
teachers develop context-specific, personal theoriesof L2 teaching (McDonough, 2006). As thecomplexity in the classroom changes, teachers must
be prepared to adjust both their teaching styles andstrategies in order to respond effectively. Risks will
yield positive results which this writer would seek
to offer as advice to prospective teachers (Brown,2000). Negative results are construed as positive
given the learning experience they provide.
1.3

Conceptofbuilding
trust:
supervisor/trainee and teacher/student
Trust is that one aspect of teaching that cannot be
automatically granted or assumed. Rather, it isachieved through a number of ways. Chamberlin(2000) observed the trustworthiness of supervisors
towards teaching candidates and suggested thatsupervisors who use non-verbal behaviors ofaffiliation will be perceived as more trustworthy
than supervisors who use non-verbal behaviors of
dominance. As supervision is a fundamental partof pre-service and in-service professional
development for teachers of ESL, attention has
been given to creating meaningful learning
experiences for teachers that encourage reflection.
Reflection should be encouraged (reflective
supervision) and non-verbal displays of affiliation
were more effective towards building trust thandominance cues. Listening, office arrangement
and amount of space likewise had an effect upon
the level of trust. It is suggested that for new

2

IssuesThere has been an ongoing issue of whether they
are the most appropriate to teach a foreign language
in comparison to the native speaker. Whilst thenative speaker's linguistic competence represents anadvantage, language proficiency alone does notcompensate for other advantages that a NNS
teacher is able to utilize. Nemtchinoya (2005)
notes the NNS teacher has certain linguistic andpedagogical resources that include: conscious
knowledge of grammar, second language learning
experience, good learner role model, rapport andempathy with the target audience. The attitudes andawareness of a teacher are integral factors to theirsuccessful implementation of various teachingstrategies. Continuing education, independent288

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spectrum of issues.
In respect of teacher trainees in Korea there
should be an increase of critical language awarenessinto the curriculum. Spoken fluency is not always
the main target. There is an increasing role for theteaching of critical and analytical skills by ELTs to
be addressed within the courses for teacher trainees.
The greatest advantage a learner possesses is theirability to learn autonomously and that autonomy isoften passed through the teacher. Teaching thestudents how to learn and become autonomous
learners is more often going to be successfully
achieved if the teachers themselves have thatcapacity for self learning. Teachers are by nature,individuals, and that individuality reflects
negatively and positively upon the learners.
Teachers themselves can't be expected to always
self-regulate their own actions and awareness andtake on responsibility. Assistance is required fromthe students and parents as to what is successful intheir own learning and when is the teaching mostbeneficial. Student evaluation and parent groups
will serve to highlight problems encountered in theteaching field. L2 teachers need to individuallyassessed for their understanding of the practices of
L2 teaching and their level of knowledge of thestudents and their respective cultures (or at least
respect for foreign cultures).
Rigorous
enforcement of teaching values and autonomous
capability needs to be addressed at the L2 level.
SLA is an expanding field met by varying
degrees of success and failure.
Specific L2
teacher education in awareness training could
provide an understanding of the difficulties facedby L2 learners, techniques for self-reflection andanalysis of bias, awareness of learning styles, andsubsequent importance of the linkage between self
beliefs and motivation, and that of the learner.
From a socio-cultural perspective, cognitive
development in teachers progresses from anexternal,socially-mediatedactivity
tointernalization (Johnson, & Golombek, 2003).
Education in tools such as reflective journals aid
teacher trainees in understanding problems in theclassroom and subsequent relationships withstudents.

observation and reflection are valuable aids andtools for effective teachers.
There has to be general agreement as tothe importance of teachers’ awareness andbeliefs and a need to raise awareness in order
to assist teachers in becoming aware of own
beliefs and attitudes as they reflect in theirteaching styles and understanding of theclassrooms and students. There are many
courses available for further education forteachers though few have been designed toraise awareness sufficiently whereby they
are encouraged to self-assess themselves on alevel that might impose upon their own ofbeliefs and attitudes. It may be enough toraise awareness of the impact that their held
beliefs might affect teaching and their
response to learners particularly in the L2
field of varying cultures and student needs.
There are varied opinions as to how that
education might take place. Though, it isclearly stated, how, when and where it might
be applicable.
Obviously, there are anumber of schools of thought on the subject
due to the continuing complexity of SLA.
How do we achieve this education?
I would recommend the following 4 key
areas to improve teacher training:(i) Provision of orientation studies thatreflect cultural awareness(ii) Courses which provide a framework tosystematically observe, evaluate andreflect upon L2 teaching whilst
encouraging
criticalanalysisofawareness and self-inquiry.
(iii) Teacher educators to establish a trusting
relationship with teacher trainees.
(iv) Adoptions of standards that are
determined to be the most practicalstandards that can be adhered to
specifically related to the complex
subject of SLA.

3

Implications for second language
teaching

4

There is a need to determine what the teachers' as
educators suggest would be appropriate forms oflearning. Questionnaires and regulated interviews
are required on a large scale to address irregularities
in the L2 education system. Teachers need to havemore voice as to the curriculum's format for which
they are the ultimate distributors.
Allowing
teachers to address their own concerns as a wholeencourages reflection and open debate over a whole

Conclusion

As teachers and professionals, L2 educators mustcome to the realization that attitudes and awarenessthat complement a person's personality are integral
factors towards the successful implementation ofvarious teaching strategies and capability forappreciating the students' learning styles, culture
and individuality. Factors including reflection,
supervisory trust, and ongoing research by KAL
educators were discussed at length. 4 Key
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recommendations by this author were put forward
and these issues highlighted the need for further
training in respect of awareness and reflective
practices, professional research and an undertaking
to build the aspect of trust between the trainees andeducation supervisors. As a result of the discussion
above, this writer has further recommended thatawareness training be implemented during
university or college and continue during theteachers' careers including random classroom
observation, reflective journals, and selfassessment. Finally, in order to gain a greater
understanding of their students, L2 teachers inparticular should be required to undergo cultural
studies and possess L2 experience.
References
Altan, M.Z. (1997). The culture of the English
language teacher in an EFL context.
(Report No. FL024-533). Orlando, FL:
Paper presented at the Annual meeting ofteachers of English to speakers of otherlanguages. (ERIC Document Reproduction
Service No. ED438706).
Brown, H.D. (2000). Principles of language
learning and teaching. (4th ed). White
Plains, New York: Pearson Education,
Longman.
Celce-Murcia, M. (Ed). (2001). Teaching English asa second or foreign language. (2nd ed).
United States of America: Heinle & Heinle.
Chamberlin, C.R. (2000). TESL degree candidates'
perceptions of trust in supervisors. TESOL
Quarterly, 34(4), 653-672.
Johnson, K.E., & Golombek, P.R. (2003). Seeing
Teacher Learning. TESOL Quarterly, 37(4),729-737.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (1993). Maximizing learningpotential in the communicative classroom.
ELT Journal, 47(1), 12-21.
McDonough, K. (2006). Action research and theprofessional development of graduateteaching assistants. The Modern Language
Journal, 90(1), 33-47.
Nemtchinoya, E. (2005). Host teachers' evaluationsof nonnative-English-speaking teacher
trainees - A perspective from the classroom.
TESOL Quarterly. 39(2), 235-261.
Sert, N. (2006). EFL student teachers' learning
autonomy. ASIAN EFL Journal, 8(2),Article 8.
Warschauer, M. (2000). The changing global
economy and the future of English teaching.
TESOL Quarterly, 34(3), 511-535.

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Effect of Using English Storybooks for Improving Korean English
Learners’ Reading and Writing Skills and Their Learning Attitudinal
Factors
Mun-koo Kang

Department of English Education Kongju National University
kangmunkoo@hanmail.net

introduce and recycle language (Brewster, Ellis, &Girard, 2002; Slatterly & Willis 2001). Moreover,stories help children develop a sense of the target
language (Wright, 1995). Rha (2002) states, throughintroducing literature into the classrooms, children
can learn about the fundamental nature of language
in terms of the importance of imagination and keep
children's natural curiosity and love of learning.
In order to increase the learners' language skillsof the target language, learners need more exposure
to it. Storybooks are common language learning
instruments that provide and stimulate a very large
amount of that language. As Krashen (1985) notes,
reading stories to children with limited skills andknowledge of the target language on a frequentbasis can be beneficial because they help students
acquire language, figure out the grammar, and makepredictions. Literature is a powerful form ofcommunication and is considered as one of themost efficient tools teachers can use to help
students of all ages learn a new language.
The Korean 7th National English Curriculum is
in line with the emphasis of CLT in that the target
language needs to be taught in the learning
environment where L2 learners are able to immersethemselves and to be exposed to the target culture.
Storybooks are recommended to be employed to in
every 4th class of each chapter of the primary
English textbooks in the 7th National English
Curriculum. However, the contents and language
seem not to be natural, authentic, and sufficient.
The 3rd and 4th graders might have fun with simple
dialogue provided in their course books, but as they
become the 5th and 6th graders, they often getbored and lose motivation. Hill (2001) points out
how surprising it is that modern ELT course books
and syllabi do not make more use of stories which
are a fundamental and enjoyable aspect of the target
language.
The purpose of this study is to investigate theeffect of using English storybooks for improving
Korean 5th-grade English learners' reading and

Abstract
This paper explores the effect of using children's
storybooks through a variety of activities for
improving Korean primary school EFL students'
reading and writing skills and their learning interest,
confidence, and motivation. It focuses on why andhow children’s storybooks serve as an essential
context for increasing students’ reading and writing
skills and their learning attitudinal factors. One
hundred and twenty Korean 5th grade English
students were randomly chosen and participated inthis study. Data was gathered through pre- and posttests in terms of reading and writing skills and preand post- questionnaires with regard to their interest,
confidence, and motivation. The analysis revealed
that: (1) the students who received the lessons
through children’s English storybooks performed
better on reading and writing skill post-tests thanthose who learned only through the English course
book; and (2) the students in the experimental group
showed more significant increase in their interest,
confidence, and motivation than those in the control
group. The results of this study conform to theeducational values of using English storybooks for
Korean primary school EFL students. The
pedagogical implications for EFL educators andteachers are described.

Keywords
English storybook use/reading and writing skills/
learning attitudinal factors

1

Introduction

The introduction of children's storybooks into thechildren's language learning settings has been
supported by a number of researchers and teachers,
making an effort to produce wholistic literacy
instructional approaches (Gilles, 1991; Huck, 1989;
Hunt, 1991; Peterson & Edes, 1990; Rha, 2002;
Smith, 1998). Stories in the EFL primary schoolclassroom are enjoyable. Stories can expose
children to other cultures, and they can be used to291

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

1) The English language proficiency tests
regardingreading,andwritingskillsadministered as the pre- and post-tests to
explore if the difference in teaching methods
influences the improvement of students'
reading and writing ability. Each test consistedof 10 to 13 questions, selected from English
proficiency test provided by KICE (Korea
Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation) andscored 2 points for each correct item.

writing skills and their English learning attitudinal
factors including motivation, confidence, andinterest. The research hypotheses are as follows:
1. Korean 5th-grade English learners whose teacher
uses English storybooks through a variety ofactivities will exhibit higher improvement on theirEnglish reading and writing skills than those whose
teacher does not use English storybooks.
2. Korean 5th-grade English learners whose teacher
uses English storybooks through a variety ofactivities will exhibit higher improvement on theirEnglish learning attitudinal factors includinginterest, confidence, and motivation than those
whose teacher does not use English storybooks.

22) The two kinds of questionnaires weredeveloped. The first one was developed to findout what English learning experiences theparticipants have had regarding how long they
have studied English and for what purposes
they are studying English. It was administered
for the first week of the research session. This
questionnaire was only administered once
beforethetreatment.
The
secondquestionnaires, pre- and post-, were developed
to investigate if the difference in teaching
methods influences the participants' interest,
confidence, and motivation toward English
learning.

MethodThis present study used an experimental design inorder to investigate if the difference in teaching
methods has a positive effect on the development of
Korean 5th grade English learners' reading andwriting skills and their interests, confidence, andmotivation. This chapter presents the methodology
used in the present study. The information on theparticipants, instruments and research design andprocedures is provided.
2.1

2.3
ProceduresThis research was conducted for about 7 months
from the first week of May, 2006 to the second
week of December, 2006, excluding 4 weeks fromthe last week of July till the third week of August,during which the school was on the summer
vacation.
The teacher for the experimental classes was anexperimenter and the other for the control classes
was a volunteer teacher who has majored in English
education at Kongju National University and has
been teaching English part-time at several colleges
for many years. The experimenter met the volunteer
teacher before and after the classes to havemini-workshops about classes.
The Korean English curriculum requires 2 hours
of English lesson each week for the fifth gradestudents. Therefore, during the research session,
every week the experimental group was given one
hour of their regular English lesson based on the
English course book and one hour of theexperimental English lesson based on the research
design, that is a story-based syllabus. The control
group was given the two hours of their regularlesson, based on their course book each week.
The researcher utilized English storybooks for two
different purposes: one for in-class reading, theother for the out- class listening and reading activity
and student's self-selected reading. Storybooks weredisplayed in the classroom book corner.
The list of the in-class reading storybooks were

Participants

The participants were 120 students who
attended one of the primary schools located in
Gong-ju, Chungnam. Among six classes at the
fifth grade level, four classes were chosen toparticipate, depending on the teacher's
willingness to participate in the research study.
Initially, there were 130 students attending at
the four classes of the 5th grade, but the
researcher needed to discard the data of 10
students since 5 students were absent on one of
the testing days and 5 students did not respondto the test questions with usable answers as
data.
These four classes were randomly divided
into two groups, experimental and control. The
two classes with 30 students each were
employed in the experimental group, the othertwo with 30 students each in the control one.
Beforethetreatment,
theresearcher
administered the first questionnaire regarding
the students' English learning experienceduring the first week of the 7 month's researchstudy session.

2.2

Instruments

The following instruments to gather data wereused in this study292Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Meg and Mog, The Snowman, Pat the Cat, The Very
Hungry Caterpillar, and The Turnip. The researcher
chose those books since the stories included theappropriate level of language, that is vocabulary or
structures, any language features such as interesting
rhyme, onomatopoeia, intonation, visual support,
and repetition. The storybooks also came with thecassette recording.

3

the control group was higher than the one in theexperimental group. ANOVA revealed that there
was significant difference in mean scores between
two groups (F=6.48, p=.012). This means that
before the treatment the two groups were not at thesame level in terms of reading proficiency.
Therefore, for the analysis of the students’ reading
post-test, it is necessary to
use ANCOVA
which is used to analyze the mean differences of
the reading post-test by keeping the meandifferences of two groups’ reading pre-test undercontrol.

RESULTS

3.1

The Results of the Questionnaire on theStudents’ Previous English Learning
Experience
Based on the students' responses from the firstquestionnaire before the treatment, about the halfof the students answered that they have been
studying English for about 1 year, about 20
percents of the students for about 2 years, about 10
percents of the students for 3 years, and another 10
percents of the students for 4 years. With regard to
the students' primary purpose of studying English,
about 40 percents of the students answered that it's
because English is an international language.
About 20 percents of the students answered, they
study English in order to communicate with native
speakers of English. From the first questionnaire it
was revealed, even though the majority of theparticipants have experienced English study for
only one year, they have recognized theimportance of knowing English and being able tocommunicate in English these days.

Table 2: ANOVA Results
Proficiency Pre-test

the

Group
Control

N
60

M
19.12

SD
6.00

Experimental

60

16.22

6.48

Pre-test

3.2.2

Reading
F

P

6.48

.012

The Results of Reading Post-test

After the treatment, in order to find out if there
is any difference between the experimental andcontrol groups in terms of their reading skill,
the two groups were administered reading
post-test and the ANCOVA results of the twogroups’ reading post-test are presented in Table
3. The mean of the experimental group was
20.33, and the mean of the control group was
19.73. ANCOVA revealed that there wassignificant difference in mean scores between
two groups (F=33.56 p=.000). Therefore, after
the treatment the experimental groups' reading
proficiency were improved higher than thecontrol ones and this means that the treatment
has a positive effect on the improvement of thestudents' reading proficiency.

3.2

The Relationship between the Teaching
Method and the Students' Reading andWriting Skills
The first hypothesis of this study was to determine
whether students' reading and writing skills would
be improved depending on the teaching methods ornot. In order to collect the data, the language
proficiency pre- and post-tests were administeredand the mean differences of each test between two
groups were compared based on ANOVA (Analysis
of Variance) and ANCOVA (Analysis of
Covariance).
3.2.1

of

Table 3: ANCOVA Results of the Reading
Proficiency Post-test
Group
Control

N
60

M
19.73

SD
5.64

Experimental

60

20.33

4.65

Post-test

3.2.3

F

P

33.56

0.00

The Result of Writing Pre- and Post-tests

As seen in Table 4, the mean of theexperimental group of the writing pre-test was
20.30 and the mean of the control group was
19.87. ANOVA revealed that there was no
significant difference in mean scores between
two groups (F=.24, p=.624). Therefore, before
the treatment the two groups were at the samelevel in terms of writing proficiency.
After the treatment, the mean of theexperimental group was 22.73 and the mean of

The Results of Reading Pre-test

Before the treatment, in order to find out if theexperimental and control groups were the same interms of their reading skill, the two groups wereadministered reading pre-test. ANOVA results ofthe students’ reading pre-test are shown in Table 2.
The mean of the experimental group was 16.22,
and the mean of the control group was 19.12,
which means the students' reading proficiency in293Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

the control group was 20.80. ANOVA revealed
that there was significant difference in meanscores between two groups (F=17.03 p=.000).
Therefore,
after
the
treatment
theexperimental groups' writing proficiency were
improved higher than the control ones and thismeans that the treatment has a positive effecton the improvement of the students' writing
proficiency.

treatment has a positive effect on the
improvement of the students' interest in
English learning.
3.3.2

As seen in Table 5, the mean of theexperimental group was 3.13 and the mean of
the control group was 3.19. ANOVA revealed
that there was no significant difference inmean scores between two groups (F=.11,
p=.743). Therefore, before the treatment thetwo groups were at the same level in terms of
their confidence in English learning.
After the treatment, the mean of theexperimental group was 3.62 and the mean of
the control group was 3.24. ANOVA revealed
that there was significant difference in meanscores between two groups (F=21.61 p=.000).
Therefore,
after
the
treatment
theexperimental groups' confidence in English
learning was improved higher than the control
one and this means that the treatment has apositive effect on the improvement of thestudents' confidence in English learning.

Table 4: ANOVA Results of Writing proficiency
Pre- and Post-tests
ControlCatego Test
ries
N
M
SD

N

M

SD

Pre- 60 19.87 5.49

60

20.80

4.42

Post
60 20.80 4.42
-

60

22.73

3.29 17.03 .000

Writing

3.3

Experimental
F

P

.24

.624

Footnotes The Relationship between the
Teaching Method and the Students'
Attitudinal Factors

The second hypothesis of this study wasdeveloped to determine whether students'
attitudinal factors including interest, andconfidence in English learning, and also
motivation to learn English would be improved
depending on the teaching methods or not. In
order to collect the data, the pre- andpost-questionnaires were administered and themean differences of each questionnaire
between two groups were compared using
ANOVA

3.3.1

The Result of Students' Confidence inEnglish Learning

3.3.3

The Result of Students' Motivation to Learn
EnglishAs seen in Table 5, the mean of the experimentalgroup was 3.73 and the mean of the control groupwas 3.69. ANOVA revealed that there was no
significant difference in mean scores between two
groups (F=.07, p=.799). Therefore, before thetreatment the two groups were at the same level interms of their motivation to learn English.

The Results of Students' Interest in
Learning English

Table 5: ANOVA Results of the Students’Attitudinal Factors

As seen in Table 5, the mean of theexperimental group before the treatment was
3.74 and the mean of the control group was
3.76. ANOVA revealed that there was no
significant difference in mean scores between
two groups (F=.01, p=.911). Therefore, before
the treatment the two groups were at thesame level in terms of their interest in
English learning.
However, the mean of the experimentalgroup was 4.32, and the mean of the control
group was 3.78. ANOVA revealed that there
was significant difference in mean scores
between two groups (F=45.13 p=.000).
Therefore,
after
the
treatment
theexperimental groups' interest in English
learning was improved higher than thecontrol one and this means that theCategories

PrePostPreConfidence
PostPreMotivation
PostInterest

Control

Experimental

M

SD

N

60 3.76
60 3.78
60 3.1960 3.24
60 3.69
60 3.71

.82
.87
.96
.98
.74
.83

60 3.74 .81 .01 .911
60 4.32 .55 45.13 .000
60 3.13 1.03 .11 .743
60 3.62 .78 21.61 .000
60 3.73 .87 .07 .799
60 4.19 .58 24.03 .000

Questionnaire N

M

SD

F

P

After the treatment, the mean of the experimentalgroup was 4.19 and the mean of the control groupwas 3.71. ANOVA revealed that there wassignificant difference in mean scores between two
groups (F=24.03, p=.000). Therefore, after thetreatment the experimental groups' motivation tolearn English was improved higher than the control
one and this means that the treatment has a positive294

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

effect on the improvement of the students'
motivation to learn English.

4

minutes of the school day for individual reading.
Fourth, as mentioned previously, children wererecommended to read books or listen to the stories
using the cassette recording whenever they want at
school or to check them out to use at home. There
were the book corner record cards to be recorded
by students and the personal reading logs to be
kept by the individual student. The researcher
asked the homeroom teacher to recommend
students to use the book corner as frequently as
possible and to use it voluntarily. Although theresearcher checked them once a week and gave
two students who used the book corner the mostsome kind of prize each week, the number of thestudents who used frequently was not satisfactoryfor what the researcher expected. Throughout the
research period, about 7 to 8 students in the eachexperimental group, and about 2-4 students in theeach control group used the book corner regularly.
The researcher tried to figure out and came up to
an underlying reason that the students wererecommended to use the book corner freely andthe book corner was managed by the homeroom
teacher. In order for the book corner to beefficiently utilized, it would be better for the
students to have the teacher's guidance throughwhich the whole class set aside about 20 minutesof the school day for individual reading with
self-selected books from the book corner.
Several positive findings from the previous
studies mentioned so far have been encouraging
teachers to employ English storybooks forteaching English. The results of this study also
conform to the educational values of using English
storybooks for Korean primary school EFL
learners. Yet, further research should explore morepractical teaching models of story-based
instruction for teachers, depending on learner's
proficiency levels and their characteristics.
.

CONCLUSIONAND SUGGESTION
So far, this study aimed to examine the effect ofusing English children's storybooks on the
improvement of Korean primary school EFL
learners' reading and writing skills and theirinterest and confidence in English learning, andtheir motivation to learn English and yielded thefollowing major findings:
First, there was a significant difference in the
degree of participants' reading and writing skill
improvement between the experimental group andthe control one. The students who received thelessons through English children's storybooks
performed better on their reading and writing skill
posttests than those who learned through only the
English course book.
Second, there was a significant difference in the
degree of the increase in students' interest,
confidence, and motivation between the twogroups. The results of the students who received
the experimental treatment showed moresignificant increase in their interest, confidence,and motivation than those who got the control one.
Third, for this study, the researcher were able toprovide only about 30 books for each class every
month, since providing more books was too costly
for the researcher. There was not a single book
written in English available not only in theclassrooms but in the school where this study was
conducted. As Brewster et al. (1991) claim, having
a book corner or a classroom library wherestudents can read books of their own choice and attheir own pace promotes a positive attitude
towards reading and create enthusiasm amongchildren for books. The problem many teachers or
schools face is how to acquire a sufficient quantityof reading materials. Stocking a classroom librarycorner of the room or a school library with books
purchased with money from school budgets or
district grants is not an easy task. Nevertheless, itis necessary for teachers and educators to search
for any available funds. Start stocking only 10-20
books each classroom and share books amongclassrooms can be a beginning step to invite
storybooks to our classroom. Once readingmaterials are obtained, students choose what toread from the collection and set aside about 20

5

REFERENCES

Brewster, J., Ellis, G., & Girard, D. (2002). The
Primary
EnglishTeacher's
Guide (New Edition). Harlow: Penguin
Books, Longman Pearson Education
Limited.
Brumfit, C. j., & Carter, R. A. (1987). Literatureand language teaching. New York: Oxford
University Press.
295

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching languages to young
learners.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press.
Cho, K. S. & Krashen, S. K. (1994). Acquisition of
vocabulary from the Sweet Valley Kids
series: Adult ESL acquisition. Journal of
Reading, 37(8), 662-667.
Cho, K. S. & Krashen, S. K. (1995). Becoming a
dragon: progress in English as a second
language through narrow free voluntary
reading. California Reader, 29(1), 9-10.
Cho, K. S., & Seo, S. Y. (2001). The effects ofreadingaloud
tochildrenoninterest and vocabulary acquisition in EFL
classes. Primary English Education, 7(2),222-242.
Danielson, K. E., & Labonty, J. (1994).
Integrating reading and writing throughchildren’s literature. Boston: Allyn &Bacon.
Ellis, G., & Brester, J. (1991). Storytelling
Handbook for Primary Teachers. New
York: Penguin Press.
Elly. W. B. & Mangubhai, F. (1983). The impactof reading on second language learning.
Reading Research Quarterly, 19, 53-67.
Elly, W. B. (1991) Acquiring Literacy in a Second
Language:Theeffectofbook-based programs. Language Learning,
41(3), 375-411.
Elly. W. B. (1997). Raising literacy levels in third
world countries: A method that works.
Unpublished paper.
Gilles. C. J. (1991). Negotiating the meanings: theuses of talk in literature study296

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The Development of English Passive Constructions by Korean Learners
Hyesook Park

Dept of English Language of Literature, College of Humanities, Kunsan National University
sapark@kunsan.ac.kr

their intended English structure is believed to be thepassive (Yip & Matthews, 1995, pp.17, 22 cited in
Simargool, 2008). On the other hand, (1c) and (1d)are ungrammatical sentences where learners
inappropriately generalize the English passive rules
to intransitive verbs. These overpassivization errors
are prevalent even among advanced L2 learners ofEnglish and are observed across learners ofdifferent native languages.
With this background, this study attempted to
examine IL passive constructions from Koreanlearners of different levels of English to see how
Korean learners acquire English passives and what
the main factor affecting the acquisition of English
passive constructions is.

Abstract
This study investigates how Korean speakers
develop their interlanguage of English passive
constructions with a reference to learners' grammar
proficiency levels. College students of different
levels of English participated in this study. They
were asked to complete a sentence-completion task.
Their production was classified into accuratepassives, malformed passives, pseudo-passives, andovergeneralization of passive constructions. And
then they are further analyzed depending on thesubjects' levels of grammar proficiency by threemain factors: L1 transfer, the English voice system,
and universal semantic factors. Based on theanalyses of the subjects’ responses, theinterlanguage passive construction system of
Korean learners of English is shown and some
implications are suggested for effective teaching ofEnglish.

2 Background of the research
2.1 L1 transfer
Some researchers claimed that the IL passives result
from L1 transfer, or reflection of the typology ofthe learner's L1. For example, the above
pseudo-passives are claimed to reflect learners L1
background: pragmatic word order sentence
structure (Han, 2000; Schachter & Rutherford,1979). Schachter & Rutherford (1979) claimed that
the IL pseudo-passive is a carryover of native
language function-form characteristics, a type of
discourse-syntactic transfer, by analyzing written
English samples produced by Chinese and Japaneselearners of English.
The Korean language has a similar pragmaticword order as well. Basically, the Korean language
has a SOV word order different from English basic
word order, SVO. Furthermore, Korean has
properties of a practical word order language: thelack of articles, dummy subjects, and thesubject-creating constructions (e,g., passive andraising constructions). In addition, the constituentsin the sentences can be relatively freely moved
unlike English or Chinese, as shown in (2) .

Keywords
English passive constructions, L1 transfer,
universal semantic factor, English middle voice

1 Introduction
One of the interlanguage constructions SLA
reseachers have examined with interest is the IL
passives produced by L2 learners of English. Hereare some characteristic examples of IL passive
constructions
producedbydifferent
L1
backgrounds.
(1) a. *New cars must keep inside.
b.*These ways almost classify two types.
(Chinese. Yip & Mathews, 1995, pp.17, 22)c. *First, the change of life-style will behappened. (Korean, Min Kyung Ju, 1997)
d. *My mother was died when I was just a baby.
(Thai, Zobl, 1989)
The above (1a) and (1b) are ungrammaticalsentences with theme subjects followed bytransitive verbs in active forms. They are typicallytermed IL(interlanguage) pseudo-passives because

(2)

297

Younghee-ga Chulsu-lul saranghan-ta.
(Younghee Chulsu loves.)
Chulsu-lul Younghee-ga saranghan-ta.

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics(Chulsu Younghee loves.)
Younghee loves Chulsu.

2.2 The English voice system
Generally, the English voices can be simply
classified into the active voice and the passive voice.
In the active voice, the subject of a clause is usually
the agent, or doer, of some action. On the other
hand, in the passive voice, the subject of a clause is
the receiver, or undergoer of the action. However,there is a middle voice between active and passive
voices. The middle voice allows the subject ofsentence to be nonagentive, as in the passive voice,but the morphology of the verb to be in the active
voice.
Ergative, or change-of-state, verbs like "bake,break, change, close, open, boil, melt " can appear
in all three voices and take either agents orundergoers of the action as subjects, as shown in(5).

The meaning of the sentences is determined not by
the order of the constituents, but by the caseendings of the constituents.
Now let us look at the characteristics of the
Korean passive construction. First, English
differentiates passives from unaccusatives bymarking passives morphologically. However, there
isn’t any distinction between the constructions for
Korean as in (3).
(3)

EnglishThe window was broken by the boy. (passive)
The window broke. (unaccusative)
KoreanChangmun-I
gu
sonyun-ayuhaesuccay-ci-uss-ta. (passive)(The window was broken by the boy.).
Cahngmun-I ccay-ci-uss-ta. .(unaccusative)(The window broke.)(5)

On the other hand, some other verbs like "happen,
appear, disappear, arrive" take the focus of theprocess as subjects and do not have the passivizedcounterparts, as shown in (6).

Second, the Korean passive constructions are
generated by lexical and derived passive
morphemes “-i, -hi, -li, -gi, -u, -gu, -ci, or –chu”
as in (4) (No & Chung, 2006, p.25).
(4)

I'm baking cookies.
The cookies are baking.
The cookies are being baked by her husband.

(6)

Lexical passives in Koreansaracita
disappear
ttelecita
fall

The diamond disappeared.
*The man disappeared the diamond.
*The diamond was disappeared.

Likewise, English has a special middle voice anddifferent categories of ergative verbs. It can bepredicted based on the English inherent featuresthat Korean learners may produce more passive
constructions to ergative verbs with transitive
alternations than ergative verbs without transitive
counterparts.

Derived passives in Korean
ccay-ta break Æ ccay-ci-ta be broken
baccwu-ta change Æ baccwu-i-ta bechangedtat-ta close -> tat-hi-ta be closed
No & Jung (2006) suggested that learners’ L1
influenced their judgment of grammaticality on
unaccusatives, showing Korean learners
tended to judge ungrammatical passives
containing “break, close, change” which havethe derived passive morphemes in Korean asgrammatical.
It can be predicted on the basis of thecharacteristics of the Korean language that KoreanlearnersofEnglishmayproduceIL
pseudo-passives at the early stage of developmentof English passive constructions and prefer tooverpassivize unaccusative verbs such as "break,change, close" which have derived passive
morphemes in Korean.

2.3 Universal semantic factors
Still others argue that the learnability problem of
the English passive constructions may be attributed
to universal factors of the subjects in sentences.
Research findings report that L2 learners fromdifferent
backgrounds
appeartoeitheroverpassivize unaccusatives or reject grammatical
unaccusative constructions.
Kellerman (1979) reported that Dutch learnersof English tended to reject grammatical sentenceswith some English unaccusatives (with transitive
counterparts) as in (7a), while they preferred either
causative constructions or agentless passives as in(7b) and (7c).
(7)
298a. The cup broke.

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

female teachers and eight male teachers. They
studied different majors such as communication,
education, business, science, foreign languages,
TESL and linguistics. Most of the teachers havetaught English more than 7 years while one teacher
has taught it since the spring semester, 2009 andtwo teachers have taught it around for 2 years.

b. Someone broke the cup.
c. The cup was broken.
This shows that L2 learners resist having nonagentsas subjects for unaccusatives even when their L1
allows it.
Min Kyung Ju (2000) introduced a universal
semantic factor to account for the overpassivization
phenomenon of learners' passive constructions.
According to her, learners are more likely to makeoverpassivization errors in externally caused events
than internally caused events. Although no agent is
posited semantically in sentences, from real-world
knowledge in some contexts learners assume that
there must be an entity that is responsible for an
event. The entity that causes the event to occur is apragmatically conceptualizable agent of thepredicate. So, in the context where learners arelikely to assume that there must be an implicit agent,learners may tend to apply passivization to theunaccusative verbs. Generally human beings have atendency to naturally accept that any change of state
occurs with external causation, but not to accept
that any change of state occurs without any externalcausation. As a result, learners may use thepassive when the sentence has an inanimate
subject and an implicit agent, which results inoverpassivization to unaccusative sentences.
Therefore, learners will be more likely to
produce passivized constructions when thesubject is inanimate or there is an implicit
agent in using the verbs like ‘break, change,close, boil, freeze, burn, disappear, fall, happen,
appear’.

3.3 Task and procedures
The participants were given a sentence-completiontask and a test of their grammar knowledge. The
sentence-completion task was comprised of 24 pairsof nouns and verbs which was adapted from
Simargool (2008) (Appendix 1), and the grammar
test included 15 items which was intended to servefor judging learners’ grammar proficiency levels.
The sentence-completion task included 24
verbs: 10 transitive verbs (read, write, paint, push,
steal, sing, hit, win, catch, cancel), 10 unaccusative
verbs (break, change, close; boil, freeze, burn;
disappear, fall; happen, appear), and 4 unergative
verbs (jump, die, swim, run). The ten unaccusative
verbs included subclasses of unaccusative verbs:
with/ without transitive counterparts andwith/without the Korean passive morphemes (-ci, -i,-hi, -li, -gi) in Korean translations of the verbs. The
distribution of the verbs in the task is as follows.
Table 1
Verb types
Transitive
Ergative I
Ergative II
Ergative III
Ergative IV
Unergative

3. Research Design
3.1 Research questions
1)

What kinds of IL passive constructions do
Korean learners of English produce?
2) What are the main factors that cause Koreanlearners to produce IL English passive
constructions?
3) Are they dependant on their levels of English?

Distribution of the Verbs
Verbs used
read, write, paint, win, push,
steal, sing, hit, catch, cancel
break, change, closeboil, freeze, burn
disappear, fall
happen, appear
jump, run, swim, die

Ergative I – unaccusative verbs with transitive
counterparts and Korean translation passive
morphemes
Ergative II – unaccusative verbs with transitive
counterparts and without Korean translation passive
morphemes
Ergative III – unaccusative verbs without transitive
counterparts and with Korean translation passive
morphemes
Ergative IV – unaccusative verbs without transitive
counterparts and Korean translation passive
morphemes

3.2 Subjects
Sixty two Korean college students participated inthis study. Their majors included English, math,social science, natural science and engineering, andtheir age ranged from 19 to 23. Most students beganlearning English in elementary school, so theiraverage length of learning English was around 9
years.
For the baseline of the analysis, a control group
was composed of 10 native teachers of English: two

4. Results and discussions
The 62 participants were divided into 2 groups
depending on their scores of the grammar test: the299Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

actives (19.4%) and 37 others (12.2%), while thoseof the higher group exhibited 153 well-formed
passives (49.5%), 10 malformed passives (3.2%),
18 pseudo-passives (5.8%), 87 actives (28.2%), and41 others (13.3%). Compared to Simargool’s study(2008) in which there were only 3 pseudo-passives
among 380 instance, the present lower groupformed many more pseudo-passives, 48 among 304
instances. This may be the evidence that thelearners’ L1 has an influence on their earlier stageof acquisition of passive constructions.
The chi-square test was performed to see if thedifferent groups made a difference in sentencecompletion responses to transitive verbs, and it
indicated that there was significant difference
between the two groups ( x2=39.044, df=4,
p=.000).

lower group and the higher group. All the analysesof the results will be given according to the twodifferent groups. In addition, the responses of thenative control group will be given as well.
4.1 Results of transitive verbs
The participants’ responses were classified into 5
categories: well-formed passives, malformed
passives, possible pseudo-passives, actives, andothers. Table 2 shows the results of 10 transitive
verbs by the different groups.
Table 2

Responses to transitive verbs

Construction
Well-formed passive
Malformed passive
Pseudo-passive
ActiveOthers
Total

Instances (%)
Lo-G
Hi-G
113(37.2) 153 (49.5)
47 (15.5)10(3.2)48 (15.8) 18(5.8)
59 (19.4)
87 (28.2)
37 (12.2) 41(13.3)
304
310

4.2. Results of ergative verbs
The ergative verbs with transitive counterparts andthe Korean passive morphemes (break, close,change) were first analyzed according to
unaccusative constructions, passive constructions,malformed unaccusative constructions, malformed
passive constructions and others.
The unaccusatuve constructions are ones with atheme subject and active verbs like the dish broke,
while the passive ones are sentences with a theme
subject and be+-en as in the dish was broken. The
malformed
unaccusative
constructionsareunaccusatives with incorrect forms of past tense as
in the dish breaked, while malformed passives are
passive sentences with incorrect forms of past
participle as in the dish was broke. Others include
all the remnant, for example, actives with agent
subject and imperatives as in I broke a dish andBreak the dish.

The well-formed passives are native-likepassives as in the newspaper was read, while themalformed passives include the ones withsubject-verb agreement errors and errors in past
participle markers, as in *the tiger was catch, and*the tiger was catched. Pseudo-passives are theones with theme subjects and active verbs, as in*the cart pushed, whereas active sentences arethose with agent subjects and active verbs, as in heis pushing the cart. Other constructions include
ones that don’t belong to the above categories as in
don’t push the cart.
The students of the lower group showed 113
well-formed passives (37.2%), 47 malformed
passives (15.5%), 48 pseudo-passives (15.8%), 59
Table 3.

Constructions

Responses to ergative verbs I and II

Lo-G

Ergative I
Instances (%)
Hi-G
Con-G

Ergative II
Instances (%)
Hi-G

Lo-G

Con-G

Unaccusative

13 (14.1)

21(22.8)

17(56.6)

20(22.5)

46(49.5)27(67.5)

Passive52 (56.5)

46 (50.0)9(30.0)45(50.6)

27(29.0)9(22.5)

Malformed unaccusative

6 (6.5)0 (0.0)0(0.0)

4(4.5)

1(1.1)

0 (0.0)

Malformed passive

8 (8.7)4 (4.3)0(0.0)

14(15.7)6(6.5)

0(0.0)

Others13 (14.1)

21(22.8)

4 (13.3)

6(6.7)

13(14.0)

4(10)

Total

92

92

30

89

93

40

300

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

As shown in Table 3, both the lower group and thehigher group formed passive constructions morethan unaccusative constructions when using theverbs “break, close, change”, although the use of
unaccusative constructions increased from 14.1 %to 22.8 %. The native group did form 9 passive
constructions out of 30 instances. Among thethree verbs, both the learners and natives produced
the most passive constructions with the verb
“break”, while they made the least passive
constructions with the verb “change”. The
chi-square test indicated that there was a significant
difference between the two learners groups(X2=11.465, df=4, p= .022).
Let us look at the other subclass of ergative II
verbs which have transitive counterparts, but don’t
have the Korean derived passive morphemes suchas “boil, freeze, burn”.
The lower group formed more passive
constructions than unaccusative constructions(50.6% - 22.5%), while the higher group usedunaccusative constructions 49.5% of the time andpassive constructions 29.0%, showing that learners
develop their interlanguage towards the native
speakers’ system of English. Korean learners used
more passive constructions in the verbs “boil,
freeze, burn” than accusative constructions, inparticular, for the lower group, although these verbs
don’t have the Korean passive morphemes.
The chi-square test indicated that the twogroups differently responded to the ergative verbs II(X2=32.299, df=4, p=.000).
Table 4
Constructions

Unaccusative
Passive
Malformed unaccusative
Malformed passive
OthersTotal

For the lower group, they similarly responded toergative verbs I and ergative verbs II, showing they
preferred to use passive constructions to
unaccusative constructions regardless of the
subclasses of the ergative verbs. However, thelearners of the higher group formed moreunaccusative
constructions
thanpassiveconstructions to the ergative verbs II.
Let us consider the ergative verbs which don’t
have transitive counterparts. First, let us look at
ergative III verbs with Korean passive morphemes
such as “happen, appear”. The lower group usedunaccusative constructions 47.5% and passive
constructions 42.6% to the verbs “happen, appear”,
while the higher group used unaccusative
constructions 83.9% to the verbs. The subjects of
the lower group used much more passive than thoseof the higher group. This is a remarkably interesting
result as we consider they don’t have transitive
counterparts and Korean passive morphemes.
Now let us consider the ergative IV verbs(‘disappear, fall’) which don’t have transitive
counterparts, but have the Korean translationpassive morphemes to see if there is any influenceof L1 transfer. As shown in Table 4, both thelower group and the higher group used moreunaccusative
constructions
thanpassiveconstructions even though the verbs have the

Responses to ergative verbs III and IV

Ergative III
Instances (%)
Lo-G
Hi-G
Con-G
29(47.5) 52(83.9) 20(100)26(42.6) 8(12.9)
01(1.6)
0(0.0)
02(3.3)
2(3.2)
03(4.9)
0(0.0)
061
62

Korean translation passive morphemes. In
particular the percentage of passive constructions
for “disappear, fall” was even lower than those for“happen, appear.”

Ergative IV
Instances (%)
Lo-G
Hi-G
Con-G
27(45.8) 49(79.0) 20(100)
12(20.3) 7(11.3) 0 (0.0)
13(22.0) 2(3.2)
0(0.0)
5(8.5)
2(3.2)
0(0.0)
2(3.4)
2(3.2) 0(0.0)
59
62
20

others. Sentences like the boy jumped were given
to the actives, while the passives were sentences
like the boy was jumped. Malformed actives weresentences with tense and agreement errors, as in
the boy jump into swimming pool, whilemalformed passives were ones with past
participles errors or ‘subject- be’ agreement errors,
as in the dog was die and the boy were jumped.

5.3 Results of unergative verbs
The subjects’ responses to the unergative verbs
were divided into 5 categories: actives, passives,
malformed actives, malformed passives, andTable 6301

Responses to unergative verbs

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Constructions

constructions between the two different groups.
This can be explained that through extensive
exposure to English, they are restructuring theirinterlanguage system of English passives.
Some implications to SLA can be drawn basedon the findings:
1) Positive evidence may be not sufficient andeffective for L2 learners of English.
2) With positive evidence, proper negative
evidence should be given to help L2
learners
acquireEnglishpassiveconstructions and avoid the overproduction
to ergative and unergative verbs.

Instances (%)
Lo-G

Hi-G

Con-G

Active73(58.9) 105(84.7) 37 (92.5)

Passive19(15.3)7(5.6)

0 (0.0)

Malformed active

14(11.3)

3 (2.4)0 (0.0)

Malformed passive7(5.6%)

0 (0.0)0 (0.0)

Others11(8.9)9 (7.3)3 (7.5)

Total

124

124

40

It was shown that the subjects of the lower level
chose 29% and 25.8% passives for the verbs “die,run” respectively, and even the more advanced
subjectsl formed 16.1 % passives to the verb “die”,
as in my dog was died because of virus.
The chi-square test showed that there was adifference in the responses to the unergative verbs
between the two groups (X2=25.609, df=4,
p=.000).

References
Balcom, Patricia. (1997). Why is this happened?
Passive morphology and unaccusativity.
Second Language Research, 13(1), 1-9.
Ju, Min Kyong. (2000). Overpassivization errors
by second language learners. Studies inSecond Language Acquisition, 22, 85-111.
Han, Z. (2000). Persistence of the implicit
influence of NL: The case of thepseudo-passive. Applied Linguistics, 21(1),78-105.
Kellerman, E. (1979). Transfer and nontransfer:
Where we are now. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition, 2, 37-57.
No, GyeongHee & Chung, Taegoo. (2006).
Multiple effects and the learnability ofEnglish unaccusatives. English Teaching,61(1), 19-39.
Schachter, J. & Rutherford, W. J. (1979).
Discourse function and language transfer.
Working Papers in Bilingualism, 19, 1-12.
Simargool, Nirada. (2008). Interlanguage passive
construction. Journal of PAAL, 12(1),97-119.
Yip, V. & Matthews, S. (1995). I-interlanguageandtypology:
The
case
of
topic-prominence. In L.Eubank, L.
Selinker, & M. Sharwood Smith (Eds.),
The current state of interlanguage:
Festschrift (pp.17-30). Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Yip, V. (1995). Interlanguage and learnability
from Chinese to English. Philadelphia:
John Benjamins.
Zobl, H. (1989). Canonical structures andergativity. In S. M. Gass & J. Schacheter(Eds.), Linguistic perspectives on second
language acquisition (pp. 203-221). New
York: Cambridge University Press.

6. Conclusions and implications
The followings are the finding from analyses of
the results:
1) Korean learners of English produced
malformed passives, pseudo-passives, andpassivies to ergative verbs and unergative verbs.
In particular, the learners of lower level showedmalformed passives, pseudo-passives, andoverpassivization remarkably more than did thoseof higher level. In particular, they formed
sentences like pseudo-passives and tended tochoose passive voice to change of state verbs.
2) The analyses of the results revealed that as
the learners had a lower level of English, theyused more pseudo-passives, showing the subjects’
L1 have an influence on their earlier stage ofacquisition of the English passive constructions.
The subjects preferred to use passives to ergative
verbs which have transitive counterparts and may
imply an external agent, and even to theunergative verb of ‘die’ in particular, in an
adversative context. This shows universal
semantic factors play an important role in theacquisition of English passive constructions.
However, the existence of Korean passive
morphemes does not seem to have as muchinfluence as No & Jung (2006) suggested.
3) Nevertheless, the learners of higher level
formed fewer passive constructions to ergative
verbs than did those of lower level. The
chi-square tests indicated that there weresignificant differences in the formation of passive302

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The Association between EFL Learners’ Reading Motivation and
Their L2 Reading Behavior
Eun-Mi Yang

Kkottongnae Hyundo University of Social Welfare
emyang@kkot.ac.kr

Abstract

students at a university in Korea. Their majors are
nursing science (N=40) and social welfare (N=80)
and approximately 80% of the students are female.
Most of them had received formal English education
at least for eleven years when the research was begun.
They were divided into four classes on a voluntary
course registration basis. The participants took a
2-hour English class per week for 16 weeks. They
studied reading, speaking, listening, and writing in
the class, and the contents of the reading were mostly
related to social issues. The students’ English
proficiency levels ranged from low-intermediate tohigh intermediate based on their Suneung (SAT)scores (Their English scores ranged between level 3
and 6 out of 9 levels, and their average level was
about 4.).

This paper examined how the Korean EFL students’reading motivation is related to their L2 reading
behavior. The construct of the students’ L2 reading
motivation was investigated with the data obtained
through the questionnaire. A principal components
analysis was conducted to extract the major factors
and determine the interrelationship among items in
the questionnaire. The Interrelatedness between the
results of the pleasure reading (reading amount andtime) and motivation factors was calculated bycorrelation coefficients.

Keywords
extensive reading, pleasure reading, L2 reading
motivation

1

Introduction
2.2
2.2.1

Even though motivation to read has been a very
popular research topic in the field of language
education (Gardner, 1985, 1988; Kim, 2004; Noels,
Pelletier, Clement, & Vallerand, 2000), motivation toread in an L2 and its relationship with reading
achievement has not been explored that much. Some
researchers reported that intrinsic motivation was thestronger index of the amount of reading than
extrinsic motivation. However, most of the studies
have been conducted only to see the relationshipbetween L1 and L2 reading motivation withextensive reading. There still seems to be room tostudy the relationship among L2 reading motivation,
reading amount, and reading achievement in the EFL
context of Korea. So the purpose of this study is toelucidate the relationship between the kinds of L2
reading motivation of the students and their L2
reading behavior, such as actual amount of reading.

2

Method2.1

Subjects

Procedures
Setting up
Assignment

thePleasure

Reading

The pleasure reading assignment was designed andimplemented considering its learning potential to thestudents who basically intensively read only the readingmaterial provided in the textbook for the English course.
The students were required to read English story books
for assignment. On the first day of the semester they
were advised to choose books among the graded
readers which interest them. It was emphasized thatthey would read books for having pleasure as well as
learning English. I gave them some tips to choose
books which are appropriate for their English readinglevel and told them it is important to choose a bookwhich is not difficult for pleasure reading.
For the sake of having pleasure it must be desirable
not to relate the assignment for the course grade, butformative evaluation of the reading assignment wasalso needed since it was given as a course assignment.
So they were asked to read at least two hours a week, to

The subjects in this study are 120 second year303

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

2.2.4

write a reading log whenever they read, and to submit
the reading record sheet at the end of each month. They
promised to be honest when they proceed the reading
log, and the basic score was given to everybody
whoever read at least two hours a week. The items they
had to record about their reading on the reading record
sheet were: the book title, publisher, reading level of thebook, date, reading time, reading level they perceived,and page numbers they read. They also summed up andrecorded the total reading time and total page numberson their reading record sheet at the end of each month.
The researcher recorded the students’ data on an SPSS
data sheet for analysis.

2.2.2

The questionnaire scores and the results of the reading
amount (total number of pages) and the reading time ofthe subjects were analyzed using SPSS 12.0. First,
Cronbach’s coefficient alpha was calculated to estimate
the internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire
for measuring students’ motivation in L2 reading. The
reliability estimate was .623 and considered acceptable
for this study. Second, a principal components analysis
was conducted to extract the major factors anddetermine the interrelationship among items in thequestionnaire. The result of KMO and Barlett test
indicated the correlation among items were significant
as .720 (p= .000). Correlation coefficients were
calculated to find out the interrelatedness between the
results of the pleasure reading (reading amount andtime) and motivation factors. The relationship between
the results of the pleasure reading and motivation
toward reading in L1 was measured through regression
analysis.

Construction of the Questionnaire

A forty-item 4-point Likert-scale questionnaire
was constructed based on studies in the field of L1and L2 reading motivation (Mori, 2002; Takase,2007; Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997) in order to find out
the motivational components toward L2 reading of
the Korean university students. The questionnaire
consisted of 40 items. Among them, thirty items are
related to motivation and attitude toward English(L2) reading and they replicated the questionnaire
items Mori (2002) developed. Mori’s subjects,
Japanese university students, were in an EFL
situation similar to mine, so her questionnaire items
were adopted for my study. Four out of 40 items are
regarding motivation toward Korean (L1) reading,and 6 questions are about general English study.
The questionnaire written in Korean was
administered to the subjects at the beginning of thesemester in each class. The students answered each
item on a 1 to 4 scale, with answer choices fromstrongly disagree to strongly agree.
2.2.3

Data Analyses

References
Crawford Camiciottoli, B. (2001). Extensive readingin English: Habits and attitudes of a group of
Italian university EFL students. Journal of
Research in Reading, 24(2), 135-153.
Day, R. R., & Bamford, J. (1998). Extensive reading inthe second language classroom. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Im, B. (2007). An approach to improve college
students’ EFL reading comprehension throughrapid reading and pleasure reading techniques.
English Language & Literature Teaching, 13(1),181-210.
Jeon, Jongmin. (2008). Extensive reading in a formal
English reading class. English Teaching, 63(4),49-84.
Mori, S. (2002). Redefining motivation to read in aforeign language, Reading in a Foreign
Language, 14(2). Retrieved January 15, 2009
from the World Wide Web:http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/r 리/october2002/mori/m
ori.html.
Takase, A. (2007). Japanese high school students’motivation for extensive L2 reading. Reading in
a Foreign Language, 19(1). Retrieved
December 10, 2008 from the World Wide Web:http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/april2007/takase/takase.htmlConstruction of the Questionnaire

Reading speed was tested twice at the beginning andat the end of the semester. Two pages of a book wascopied and distributed to each student and the students
read the passage for two minutes. They marked on the
spot of the passage when they finished reading for 2
minutes at the beginning of the semester. The same
copy was distributed to each student again at the end of
the semester, and they repeated the 2-minute-reading
and marked the spot when they finished. The numbersof the words were recorded and compared to examine
the existence of any change of their reading speed.

304Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

A Discussion of Understandable English
Kyunghee Choi

English Language Teaching, Department of International Tourism,
Division of Literal and Social Arts, Hanyang Women’s College
khchoi@hywoman.ac.kr
exaggeration to say that some major Korean
universities are indeed becoming global universities.
The Korean students in those universities who havenever lived abroad have to communicate in English
with their professors and classmates. PracticallyEnglish is used as an official language in somemajor universities in Korea.

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to discuss the result ofa judgment test of 24 inadequate English sentences,conducted toward 24 college students and 3 college
English teachers coming from a so-called native
English speaking country. Among the 24 students ofa course offered in English in a Korean university
in Seoul, 17 are Korean nationals. However, 8 ofthem lived abroad for the period of 10 months andup to 14 years. 7 of them are from the countries
including USA, UK, Canada, and Malaysia. The 3
English teachers came from New Zealand. A
questionnaire has 24 sentences, each of which has amore or less grammatical problem. It asks theparticipants to indicate whether they think eachquestion is correct, incorrect, or fine to understandeven if it is problematic. The study analyses
whether and how each question is understood andjudged differently by the participants depending on
different linguistic backgrounds, depending on theirjobs – students or teachers, depending on
experience of living abroad even though they arefrom the same Korean linguistic background, anddepending on different native English speaking
nationalities. In addition, the study aims to discuss
some characteristics of Korea English found in theanswers of the Korean participants.

1

Many researchers (Choi, 2007a, 2007b; Hughes &Trudgill, 1979; Jenkins, 2003; Trudgill & Hannah,1994) argue that Standard English is only a social
variety of language. Even among the so-called
standard varieties of English, there are standard andnon-standard varieties and it is hard to claim that
there is one and only Standard English. Jenkins(2003) even argues that the distinction between anative speaker and a non-native speaker is blurredsince there are many English speakers coming fromthe outer circle countries including Singapore who
claim themselves to be native speakers.
Local varieties of English influenced by local
languages and cultures have been studied by many
researchers around the world (Alsagoff & Lick,
1998; Bao, 2003; Bao & Wee, 1999; Bautista, 2004;
Benson, 2000; Bolton, 2000; Bolton & Bautista,
2004; Bolton & Butler, 2004; Gupta, 1991; 1994;
Hung, 2000; Kachru, 1992; Kirkpatrick & Zhichang,2002; McArthur, 2003, 2004; Peng & Ann, 2004;
Tayao, 2004; Wee, 2003, 2004; Yang, 2005; Zhang,2002). Introduced some 130 years ago, English has
become an important part of the Korean society.
Now, it is time to consider whether it has developed
its own type of English – Korea English.
Instead of insisting on the correct English andStandard English which our students may never beable to attain but rather makes them feel frustrated
by being far from the standard, it is more practicaland efficient to give more opportunities to use thelanguage without fear of making mistakes (Choi,
2007b; Honna & Takeshita, 2000). Instead ofinsisting on the right English for our students, weneed to teach understandable English.
Some of the characteristics of Asia Englishes

Keywords
Native speaker, non-native speaker,
Englishes, Asia Englishes, Korea English

Theoretical BackgroundWorld

Introduction
English is becoming an ever more powerfullanguage in the Korean society. Even though
English is not yet an official language and still used
as a foreign language in the nation, the situation isdifferent in major universities in Seoul. Many
courses are offered in English in those universities
in which a lot of foreign students come to study
either on their own expenses or as exchange
students. In addition, the number of Korean
students who have lived abroad and return to study
in their own country is increasing. It is no305

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

China English. For example, “Sometimes ___ justplay basketball, and sometimes ___ go to the
Beijing library.” (5) “In Korea have four season”(Lee, 2007). It is another example of a null-subject
sentence. The sentence should be “In Korea, there
are four seasons,” or “Korea has four seasons,” or“There are four seasons in Korea.” (6) “I thankedfor” (Lee, 2007). This is an example of an object
deletion. Xu Xi (2000) also indicates thatnull-object sentences are quite often observed in theutterances spoken by Chinese people.
The sentences (7), (8), and (9) are examples ofwrong usage of articles. (7) “They had big dinner”(Lee, 2007). In this sentence, the indefinite article‘a’ is omitted. It should be inserted. (8) “Although it
is a hard work, I enjoy it” (Lee, 2007). The
unnecessary article ‘a’ should be deleted. (9) “Theplace is near the Gangnam Station.” In this sentence,an unnecessary definite article is used.
(10) “I graduated gyeonggi high school” (Lee,2007; Park, Lee, & Ju, 2003). In this sentence, thepreposition, ‘from’ is omitted. (11) “I want to study
about many fields” (Lee, 2007; Park, Lee, & Ju,
2003). In this sentence the preposition ‘about’should be omitted. (12) “I’m leaving after twohours.” This is an example of wrong usage of
preposition. Instead of ‘after,’ ‘in’ has to be used.
(13) “Her skin color was changed.” (14) “I was
confusing.” (15) “I disappointed.” For AsianEnglish speakers including Koreans, passive andactive voices are also quite confusing. Sometimes
they use passive sentences where active voices areneed as in the sentence (13), and vice versa as in thesentence (14). Sometimes they omit ‘be’ as
illustrated in the sentence (15).
(16) “I cut my hair.” Since you do not usually
cut your hair by yourself, you have to go to a barbershop and have your hair cut. Therefore the sentence
should be “I had my hair cut” or “I had a haircut.”(17) “I had a horrible toothache. I pulled my tooth.”
Again, you cannot pull your tooth by yourself. You
have to go to a dentist and have your tooth pulled.
(18) “I dry-cleaned my jacket.” People usually havetheir jackets dry-cleaned in a dry-cleaner. Thesetypes of sentences are particularly difficult for
Korean people. However, some native speakers
sometimes are confused as the result of this study
shows.
(19) “He seems to be pleased when he saw me.”(20) “But as time goes by I was accustomed to it.”(21) “So in the second semester, I attended everyclass and sometimes go to the lab and listen to tapes
many times.” All these sentences are examples ofwrong usage of tense. There is no agreement
between verb tenses. The improper uses of tenses
are quite often observed in Korea English.
(22) “She gave me many helpful advices about

especially in the grammatical structures can beconsidered incorrect and problematic by theso-called native English speakers. But are theseunique features of local Englishes or faulty
features? This study does not attempt to conclude
whether they are unique characteristics of local
varieties or wrong features. Instead the study isdesigned to analyze how students and teachers, andnon-native speakers and native speakers evaluate
and perceive some faulty sentences. Do theparticipants in the study think the sentences areincorrect or correct or fine to understand eventhough they are problematic? By analyzing theresult of the study, it intends to suggest how far
English teachers can be lenient with their students
when they produce inadequate sentences whilelearning speaking English for every day
communicative purposes.

2

Research Methods

1.1
Participants
As Appendix 2 shows, among the 27 participants,
14 are female and 13 are male. 24 of them are
students and 3 of them are English teachers all
coming from New Zealand. 17 Korean nationals
participated in the survey. Among them, 9 havenever lived abroad but only travelled for a shortperiod of time. And 8 of them have lived abroadfrom 10 months to up to 14 years. Most of them
lived in such English speaking countries as USA,
UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, etc.
There are 7 foreign students – 2 Malaysian students,
2 UK students, 2 Korean-American students, and 1
Korean-Canadian student.
1.2
Questionnaire
The questionnaire (see Appendix 1) includes 24
inadequate sentences. Some sentences are quoted
from the data of the cross cultural distance learning(CCDL) between Korea University and Waseda
University (Lee, 2007; Park, 2005). Many of themcan be seen and heard easily in East Asia Englishes(Choi, 2007a).
(1) “Today was very difficult but exciting” (Lee,2007; Park, 2005). Where a dummy subject should
be used, a special subject ‘Today’ is used. This kindof sentence is often used both in Korea English andChina English (Yun & Jia, 2003). (2)“Thanksgiving always is celebrated in November”(Park, 2005). It is an example of a wrong word
order. (3) “No wonder you can’t sleep when you
have coffee too much.” Instead of ‘too much,’ ‘somuch’ has to be used.
(4) “know how to go” (Lee, 2007). This is an
example of a subject deletion. In China English,
similar examples can be seen. Xu Xi (2000)
illustrates that null-subject utterance is a feature of306

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

living abroad” (Lee, 2007). (23) “Please pass me
two pencils.” (24) “Please send me more
informations about your company” (Lee, 2007).
Non-countable nouns are incorrectly pluralized in
Korea English. On the other hand, when a countnoun should be pluralized, it is not properly
pluralized.
The participants are asked to indicate whether
they think each sentence is incorrect (hard tounderstand), or fine (not quite correct but
understandable) or correct. And additionally at theend of each question, the participants are requested
to indicate whether they would use the sentence byticking (yes) or (no).

Number
Incorrect
Fine
Correct
No
Yes

Group

NNS
1, 2, 3linguistic

8
14
159
19
172
20

7.3%
82.8%
9.9%
89.6%
10.4%

Table 2: Different linguistic backgrounds
Lang.
Group
Number
Incorrect
Fine
Correct
No
Yes

Korean
1, 2
17
119
29.2%
225
55.1%
64
15.7%
253
62.5%
155
37.5%

Malay
3
2
11
22.9%
26
54.2%
11
22.9%
30
62.5%
18
37.5%

English4, 5, 6, 7
8
14
7.3%
159
82.8%
19
9.9%
172
89.6%
20
10.4%

Even though all the sentences are problematic, the 3native speaker teachers marked 6 answers
incorrectly by marking them correct. However, they
did better than the student group.
Table 3: Students (NNS & NS) vs. Teachers (NS)Group
Number
Incorrect
Fine
Correct
No
Yes

1.4
Analysis and Discussion
There are 24 questions in the questionnaireanswered by the 27 participants. If a group of 19
responded to the questionnaire, there are 456
answers to count. In Table 1, there are 19
participants in the non-native group. The percentageof the answers marked incorrect is 28.5% since
there are 130 answers out of the total 456 answers.
The following percentages in the tables arecalculated this way.
As Table 1 shows, in terms of the ability ofrecognizing the correct sentences, the native
speaker group does far better than the non-native
group. However, even though the NS group
understands that some sentences are incorrect, theytend to categorize them as fine structures while the
NNS group tends to mark them incorrect. It isinteresting to note that even though NS groupconsiders the inadequate sentences fine tounderstand, they marked that they would not speakthese ways.
Different

28.5%
55.0%
16.5%
62.1%
37.9%

There are no significant differences between thetwo non-native groups, the Korean group and the
Malay group.

1.3
Research Questions
The four major research questions are:(1) Is each question understood and judged
differently by the participants depending
on different linguistic backgrounds?
(2) Is each question understood and judged
differently depending on their jobs –students or teachers,(3) Is each question understood and judged
differently depending on experience ofliving abroad even though they are fromthe same Korean linguistic background?
(4) Is each question understood and judged
differently depending on different native
English speaking nationalities?

Table 1:
(NNS-NS)

19
130
251
75
283
173

Students
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
24
138
24.0%
350
60.8%
88
15.2%
388
67.4%
188
32.6%

Teachers
7
3
6
8.3%
60
83.4%
6
8.3%
17
93.1%
5
6.9%

In the comparison between the native speaker
student group and the native speaker teacher group,
there seems to be no significant difference.
However, when asked whether they would use thesentences, more teachers answered that they would
not use them than students.
Table 4: Students (NS) vs. Teachers (NS)Group
Number
Incorrect
Fine
Correct
No
Yes

Students
4. 5. 6
5
8
6.7%
99
82.5%
13
10.8%
105
87.5%
15
12.5%

Teachers
7
3
6
8.3%
60
83.4%
6
8.3%
17
93.1%
5
6.9%

The Korean students who have lived abroad did
better in recognizing incorrect and correct sentences
than the Korean students who have never lived
abroad and only traveled for a short period of time.
Also those who have lived abroad tend to use theinadequate sentences slightly less than those whohave never lived abroad.

backgrounds

NS4, 5, 6, 7

307

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

native speakers’ point of view, the inadequate
sentences included in the questionnaire are not too
critically problematic to understand. If they canunderstand, why can’t the non-native speakers. The
knowledge that whether such a sentence is right orwrong is helpful in many ways in understanding
and using English. However, if one is excessively
obsessed with the correctness, he/she may losechances to practice the language.
One of the shortcomings of this study is a small
number of participants. There are only 2 Malay
students who answered the questionnaire. Thus, it ishard to compare the two non-native groups. The
two Asian student groups seem to show no
significant differences. There are many common
features in Asian Englishes suggested by someresearchers recently (Choi, 2007a; Kirkpatrick,
2007; Lee, 2007)
Again a small number of native speaker participants
is problematic. However, 9.9% of the total answers
that the NS groups responded were wrong answers.
Even the 3 native speaker teachers marked 8.3%
answers incorrectly by marking them correct. It isinteresting to note that they are also confused withsuch passive sentences as (16) and (18). The 6
participants coming from the commonwealthcountries marked the sentence (1) “Today was very
difficult but exciting” correct while the 2 American
participants regarded them fine but they would notuse it. This difference may be influenced by British
English.
Those Koreans who have experiences of living
abroad did a slightly better in marking correct andincorrect sentences. Regardless of the fact thatwhich group they belong to, Koreans seem to havedifficulties with using articles, prepositions, passive
voice and tenses. These common errors may reflect
the influence of their first language, Korean. Since
there are only 17 Koreans participated in the study,
it is hard to conclude that these common errors are
unique features of Korea English. However, they
may be useful data in the investigation ofcharacteristics of Korea English.

Table 5: Koreans (never abroad) vs. Koreans(abroad)Neverabroad
1
9
50
127
39
126
90

Group
Number
Incorrect
Fine
Correct
No
Yes

lived

23.2%
58.7%
18.1%
58.3%
41.7%

Lived abroad formore than 6 mths
2
8
69
35.9%
98
51.1%
25
13.0%
127
66.1%
65
33.9%

There seems to be no significant differences
between different English speaking countries. The
two students from the USA, however, did slightly
better than the three NZ teachers in indicating
incorrect and correct sentences.
Table 6: Different English speaking countries
Group
Number
Incorrect
Fine
Correct
No
Yes

Canada

UK

USA

NZ

4
1

5
2

6
2

7
3

1
18
5
18
6

4.2%
75.0%
20.8%
75.0%
25.0%

2
39
7
40
8

4.2%
81.3%
14.5%
83.3%
16.7%

5
42
21
47
1

10.4%
87.5%
2.1%
97.9%
2.1%

6
60
6
67
5

8.3%
83.4%
8.3%
93.1%
6.9%

Both Korean groups who have lived abroad andwho have never lived abroad seem to have a few
problems in using articles, prepositions, and passive
and active voices. They are also confused withtenses and pluralization of non-countable nouns.
The sentences like (17) and (18) seem to be difficult
for Koreans. For the question (18), 7 out of 17 said
that they would say the sentence “I dry-cleaned myjacket” while only 3 out of the 17 Koreanparticipants incorrectly marked it correct.
The native speakers those who came from thecommonwealth countries considered the sentence(1) “Today was very difficult but exciting” correct.
All the 6 participants marked them as correctsentences even though only 2 of them said that theywould use the sentence. On the other hand, the two
American participants answered that it is fine but
they would not use it.
For the 3 New Zealand teachers, the sentences(16) and (18) are confusing. 2 of them think thesentence (16) “I cut my hair” is a correct sentence
but they would use it while 1 of them thinks thesentence (18) “I dry-cleaned my jacket” is correct
but 2 of them said they would use it.

34

References and appendices

4.1

References

Alsagoff, L., & Lick, H. C. (1998). The relative
clause in colloquial Singapore English. World
Englishes, 17, 127-138.
Bao, Z. (2003). Social stigma and grammaticalautonomy in nonnative varieties of English.
Language in Society, 32, 23-46.
Bao, Z., & Wee, L. (1999). The passive in Singapore
English. World Englishes, 18, 1-11.
Bautista, M. L. S. (2004). The verb in Philippine

Conclusion

In recognizing the sentences correct or incorrect,
the native participants did far better. However, they
seem to be more lenient in the incorrect sentenceseven though they would not use them. From the308Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Miscommunication (pp. 241-315). Seoul:
Korea Univ. Press.
McArthur, T. (2003). English as an Asian language.
English Today, 19, 19-22.
McArthur, T. (2004). Singapore, grammar, and theteaching of ‘internationally acceptable
English.’ English Today, 20, 13-19.
Park, K. (2005). Korean English as a glocalized
English. Paper presented at the Waseda
University Digital Campus Consortium.
Park, K., Lee, H., & Ju, Y. (2003). Syntactictransfer by Korean learners of English.
Paper presented at the Waseda University
Digital Campus Consortium.
Park. K., & Nakano, M. (Eds.). (2007). Asia
Englishes and Miscommunication. Seoul:
Korea Univ. Press.
Peng, L., & Ann, J. (2004). Obstruent voicing anddevoicing in the English of Cantonese
speakers from Hong Kong. World Englishes,
23, 535-564.
Trudgill, P., & Hannah, J. (1994). International
English. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.
Press.
Wee, L. (2003). The birth of a particle: know in
Colloquial
Singapore
English.
World
Englishes, 22, 5-13.
Wee, L. (2004). Reduplication and discourse
particles. In L. Lim (Ed.), Singapore English(pp. 105-126). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

English: A preliminary analysis of modal
would. World English, 23, 113-128.
Benson, P. (2000). Hong Kong words: Variation andcontext. World Englishes, 19, 373-380.
Bolton, K. (2000). The sociolinguistics of Hong
Kong and the space of Hong Kong English.
World Englishes, 19, 265-285.
Bolton, K., & Bautista, M. L. S. (2004). Philippine
English: tensions and transitions. World
Englishes, 23, 1-5.
Bolton, K., & Butler, S. (2004). Dictionaries and thestratification of vocabulary: Towards a new
lexicography for Philippine English. World
Englishes, 23, 91-112.
Choi, K. (2007a). East Asia Englishes. In K. Park &M. Nakano (Eds.), Asia Englishes andMiscommunication (pp. 115-137). Seoul:
Korea Univ. Press.
Choi, K. (2007b). A study on students’ attitude
towards World Englishes and non-native
English teachers. English Teaching, 62(4),47-68.
Gupta, A. (1991). Acquisition of diglossia in
Singapore English. In A. Kwan-Terry (Ed.),
Child language development in Singapore andMalaysia (pp. 119-160). Singapore: Singapore
Univ. Press.
Gupta, A. (1994). The step-tongue: Children’s English
in Singapore. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Honna, N., & Takeshita, Y. (2000). English
language teaching for international
understanding in Japan. English Australia
Journal, 18(1), 60-78.
Hughes, A., & Trudgill, P. (1979). English accentsand dialects. London: Arnold.
Hung, T. T. N. (2000). Towards a phonology of Hong
Kong English. World Englishes, 19, 337-356.
Jenkins, J. (2003). World Englishes: A resourcebook for students. London: Routledge.
Kahane, H. (1992). American English: from acolonial substandard to a prestige language. In
B. B. Kachru (Ed.), The other tongue. English
across cultures. Urbana, Il: Univ. of Illinois
Press.
Kirkpatrick, A. (2007). World Englishes:
Implicationsforinternational
communication and English language
teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.
Press.
Kirkpatrick, A., & Zhichang, X. (2002). Chinese
pragmatic norms and ‘China English.’ World
Englishes, 21, 269-279.
Lee, K. (2007). Korea English. In K. Park & M.
Nakano (Eds.), Asia Englishes and

Xu, X. (2000). Writing the literature of non-denial.
World Englishes, 19(3), 415-428.
Yang, J. (2005). Lexical innovations in China
English. World Englishes, 24, 425-436.
Yun, W., & Jia, F. (2003). Using English in China.
English Today, 19(4), 42-47.
Zhang, H. (2002). Bilingual creativity in ChineseEnglish: Ha Jin’s In the Pond. World Englishes,
21, 305-315.
4.2
Appendix 1
Questionnaire:
Are these sentences understandable?
(1) Your first language: __________________(2) Duration of your stay in Korea: ________(3) Duration of your stay in foreign countries
and where? ____________& ___________(4) Male ()
Female ()(5) What do you think of your English speak
ing ability?
① very poor
② fine (understandable, no difficulties incommunicating)309

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

15. I disappointed.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
16. I cut my hair.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
17. I had a horrible toothache. I pulled my tooth.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
18. I dry-cleaned my jacket.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
19. He seems to be pleased when he saw me.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
20. But as time goes by I was accustomed to it.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
21. So in the second semester, I attended every classand sometimes go to the lab and listen to tapes
many times.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
22. She gave me many helpful advices about living
abroad.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
23. Please pass me two pencil.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
24. Please send me more informations about yourcompany.
①②③* ( yes )( no )③ very good
④ excellent⑤ a native speaker(6) Department: ________________________
What do you think of the following sentences?
Please circle the number that you think is the mostappropriate and underline any problematic word orphrases if there are any.
① incorrect (hard to understand)② fine (not quite correct but understandable)③ correct* I would speak this way.
( yes )( no )
1. Today was very difficult but exciting.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
2. Thanksgiving always is celebrated in November.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
3. No wonder you can’t sleep when you have coffee
too much.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
4. know how to go.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
5. In Korea have four season.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
6. I thanked for.
①②③
* ( yes )( no )
7. They had big dinner.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
8. Although it is a hard work, I enjoy it.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
9. The place is near the Gangnam Station.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
10. I graduated gyeonggi high school.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
11. I want to study about many fields.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
12. I’m leaving after two hours.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
13. Her skin color was changed.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
14. I was confusing.
①②③* ( yes )( no )
4.3

Appendix 2

Sex
F 14
M 13

Job
Student
Teacher24
3Nationality
Korea
17
Malaysia
2
UK
2
USA
2
Canada1

New
Zealand3

Language
Korea
17
Malay
2
English7
Korean/1English310

English Proficiency
Very poor
4
Fine
10
Very good3
Excellent
2

Duration in Korea
Less than 1 year 4
1-5 yrs7
6-10 yrs
211-15 yrs
2

NativeSpeaker

16-20 yrs

821-25 yrs

326-30 yrs

18

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Development of Negation in Child Language and Learning
Principles
Ho HanAjou University
hhan@ajou.ac.kr

Abstract

problem of language acquisition’ (Roeper &Williams, 1987) which questions how children
acquire such complex linguistic system with scarce
input of relatively poor quality.
There are several issues relevant to innateness of
linguistic knowledge, some of which have been
paid a lot of attention in the field. For instance,
there has been much controversy over what
learning principles are involved in the operation oflearning mechanism. This study explores if Subset
Principle, a learning principle, holds for thedevelopment of a particular type of negative
constructions in child Korean and child English.
The relevant data were originally presented in Choi
& Zubin’s (1985) longitudinal study and they were
further discussed by Jang & Kwon (2008), whoargue that Subset Principle does not work andmarkedness offers a better account for the case.
Presenting a detailed account of the data, I will
support that Subset Principle is not operative for thecase, but reject Jang & Kwon’s line of reasoning. In
addition, I will discuss which better explains thecases, Continuity or Maturation Hypothesis andsupport the latter, against Jang & Kwon’s argument.

Exploring the development of negation with respect
to the answer to negative interrogative questions, I
draw attention here to the explanatory adequacy oflearning principles in child language acquisition,and present why Subset Principle does not hold forrelevant acquisition data. Choi and Zubin (1985)
report that both Korean children and English
speaking children take three developmental stages
in the acquisition of negation, regarding the answer
to affirmative or negative interrogative questions.
Both groups of children step through the same firstand second stage of production of full propositional
negation but diverge at the third stage, at which
Korean children adhere to full propositional
negation while English speaking children start toproduce core propositional negation. Offering
theoretical accounts of the developmental stages,
Jang and Kwon (2008) deny Subset Principle andsupport Markedness Hypothesis as well as the
Growth Theory in Chomsky’s (1987) sense. In thisarticle, I will point out potential problems of Jangand Kwon’s arguments through reinterpretation of
Choi and Zubin’s findings, and argue that theSubset Principle does not hold in this case for adifferent reason.

1

Subset Principle

Children with innate linguistic knowledge that is
specified with Universal Grammar (UG) can
overcome the ‘logical problem of language
acquisition’ while processing triggering input.
Children take a limited set of hypotheses about thetarget language and thus they entertain only alimited number of possibilities. This procedure
follows the Subset Principle (SP) that children startwith the most restrictive grammar and later change
it when they encounter positive evidence in the
input that the target grammar is different from theirprevious, hypothetical grammar. If children startwith grammar larger than the target grammar, they
could not get to the target grammar because there isno negative evidence. (Berwick, 1985; Wexler &Manzini, 1987; Becker, 2005). This is illustrated
below in Figure 1.

Keywords
Negation, subset principle, markedness

Introduction
When we consider children’s amazing ability oflearning their mother tongue, we are puzzled as towhat principles work so successfully in spite ofpoverty of input, immature perceptual and/or
cognitive capacity, and poor communication
strategies. This puzzling ability led generative
linguists to one of the key tenets in their theories oflanguage that children have innate linguisticknowledge, along with several broad assumptions 1
This tenet is more or less based on the ‘logical
1

See Fodor and Sakas (2005: 514-515) for an extensive
list of those assumptions.
311

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

continues to be criticized in terms of the cost ofobeying the SP in incremental learning (Fodor &Sakas, 2005), the existence of intermediate
grammar (Angluin, 1980), and several cases ofparameters with intersection relation rather thansubset-superset relation between two languages(MacLaughlin, 1995). Now we turn to acquisitionof negation to see if the SP is operative or not forthe case.

L(j)
L(i)

.
Figure 1: Subset Relation
First of all, it is obvious that children get to thevalue j directly in case the input that belongs to L(j)is given. However, encountering the input of L(i)and L(j), children select i since it yields the fewer
possibilities than j, and then they can stay with it or
select j if they are given the input belonging to L(j).
But if j is selected, then i can not be selected
because there is no negative evidence that allow
children access to the more restricted set.
The effect of the SP is well demonstrated by
Wexler & Manzini (1987) on setting a parameter ofbinding relation which is conditioned by the natureof binding domain. It is the governing categoryparameter that children have to deal with to processbinding relation in their target language. The
parametric values of the governing category are as
follows:

2

Negation in Child Korean

Korean has two types of syntactic negation, as
shown in (2) 3 :(2) a. Sue-ka
Ed-lul mana-ss-e
Sue-Nom Ed-Acc meet-Past-Decl‘Sue met Ed.’b. Sue-ka
Ed-lul an mana-ss-e
Sue-Nom Ed-Acc not meet-Past-Decl‘Sue didn’t meet Ed.’c. Sue-ka
Ed-lul mana-ci an ha-ess-e
Sue-Nom Ed-Acc meet-Nmz not do-Past-Decl‘Sue didn’t meet Ed.’(2a) is an affirmative sentence and (2a) and (2b) are
its negative counterparts. (2a) is a short-form,
preverbal negation (SFN), and (2b) a long-form,
postverbal negation (LFN). SFN is yielded throughinsertion of an ‘not’ before the verb while LFN isformed through ha ‘do’-support, attachment of thenominalizer ci to the verb stem, and insertion of an‘not’ just before the ha- complex, which is often
involved with contraction of an and ha to yield
anh-.
Child Korean data show that children start toproduce SFN around the age of 1;7 and LFN aroundthe age of 3;5, although children at the SFN-only
production stage can comprehend LFN (Cho &Hong, 1988; Hagstrom, 2002). The late productionof LFN is attributed to its structural complexity(Han & Park, 1995) and relatively low frequency inmotherese (Choi & Zubin, 1985) 4 .
A similar developmental order is also observed inchild English as seen in (3) (Lason-Freeman &Long, 1991):(1) The governing category parameter (Wexler &Manzini, 1987:53)
γ is a governing category for α iff γ is the minimal
category which contains α anda. has a subject; orb. has an Infl; orc. has a Tense; ord. has an indicative Tense; or
e. has root Tense

Languages vary through (a) to (e). For instance,
English is subject to (a) while Korean takes (e),which implies Korean is the language with more
possibilities in governing categories than English.
In other words, there is a subset-superset
relationship between Korean and English in thisregard. Both groups of children start with thesmallest subset with the value (a). Children learning
English stick to (a) because they are not given any
input of other values, while Korean children go
further toward (e) owing to positive input of all thepossible values. 2
The SP has been the most powerful learning
principle in first language acquisition, although it(3)

3

Stage 1:
Stage 2:
Stage 3:
Stage 4:

no+NP+VP
NP+no+VP
NP+not+VP
NP+AUX+not+VP

I will use the following abbreviations: Nom=
Nominative, Acc=Accusative, Decl=Declarative, Nmz=
Nominalizer
4 In addition, semantic differences between SFN and
LFN might be influential factors to the developmental
order between them. See Han & Jang (2003) for thispoint.

2

For other examples of the operation of the SP, seeHyams (1986) for the null subject parameter andBiberauer & Roberts (2007) for an SP account ofdiachronic change.
312Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 1: Possible Question-Answer Pairs
We see similarity in structure between LFN in child
Korean and the structure at Stage 4 in child English,
and late development of the both. Since frequency
does not matter in the case of child English,
processing difficulty due to structural complexity
seems to decide the relevant developmental order inboth child Korean and child English.
Standard syntactic negation in adult English
includes the negator not and one in adult Korean thenegator an. English takes the form similar to LFN
in Korean whereas Korean allows two forms, SFN
and LFN. The negation observed in Stage 2 and 3 inchild English and SFN in child Korean is ‘simple’
negation, and one observed in Stage 4 in child
English and LFN in child Korean is ‘complex’
negation, in a sense that the latter is involved with
do-support. Now two possible subset relations(SRs) could be posited in accordance with the SP:(4)

Questionform
a. Is this acup?
b. Isn’t thisa cup?

Situation depicted(It is a cup.)(It isn’t a cup.)
True Affirmative
False Affirmative
(TA)
(FA)
False Negative
True Negative
(FN)
(TN)

The terms ‘True’ and ‘False’ refer to(non)correspondence between the literal form of thequestion and the situation depicted. The terms‘Affirmative’ and ‘Negative’ describe absence andpresence of the negative marker in the question,
respectively.
Variation relevant to these patterns is observed
between Korean and English, as follows (Choi &Zubin, 1985, p. 136):
Table 2: Answering Systems in Korean and English
KoreanSR 1 : Simple ⊃ Complex
SR 2 : Complex ⊃ Simple

English.
We posit SR1 when we account for language
variation with respect to the form of structural
negation and take the SP that children start withgrammar with the fewest possibility. However, SR1
contradicts to the acquisition data in that children
do not start with the complex negation in bothlanguages. In contrast, SR2 conforms with thedevelopmental order from ‘simple’ to ‘complex’
but contradicts subset relation regarding language
variation. Above all, SR2 should explain why
English speaking children start with the option thathas never been given to them as input. Notice that
selection of the correct SR converges on the basic
question how children ‘know’ which are the subset
and the superset value. I will get back to the issue
later.
Either of SR1 and SR2 cannot be posited for theaccount of the development of structural negation inchild language. There is another type of negation
which appears as an answer to an interrogative
question. We will see if the SP holds for this type ofnegation in the next section.

Question Forma. i-ke kep-i-ya?
b. i-ke kep-i an-iya?
a. Is this a cup?
b. Isn’t this a cup?

(it is)
ɨng
ani
yes
yes

(it isn’t)
ani
ɨng
no
no

The difference resides in the answer to a negative
question. In English the occurrence of yes or no inthis case relies on the situation depicted, and thus
the speaker is concerned with the question’s core
proposition (‘This being a cup’). On the other hand,in Korean it depends on whether or not the speaker
agrees on the full proposition carried by the surface
form of the question (‘This is a cup.’ or ‘This is not acup.’)
Choi & Zubin (1985) reported a developmental
pattern of this system in child Korean and in child
English, presenting the data from their longitudinal
study. This is shown in Table 3 (Choi & Zubin,
1985, p. 137).
Table 3: Developmental patterns
Child
EnglishChild
Korean4 Development of Yes-No Question-Answer
Patterns
Considering yes-no questions and answers to them,
there are four types of the yes-no questionand-answer pattern that are subject to the form of
the question and the situation referred to, as shownin Table 1 (Choi & Zubin, 1985, p. 136).

Stage 1
Stage 2No attention
Full
to neg.
proposition
markerneg.
No attention
Full
to neg.
proposition
markerneg.

Stage 3Core
proposition
neg.
Full
propositionneg

Accrording to Choi & Zubin (1985), at Stage 1,
since children do not pay attention to functional
elements including the negative marker but content
words, they take the negative questions asaffirmative questions. At Stage 2, noticing thenegative marker, both groups of children produce
full proposition negation. At Stage 3 the two groups
diverge and English-speaking children start to313

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

produce core proposition negation.
illustrated in the following table:

This

is

EnglishNo

Koreanani ‘no’Yesɨng ‘yes’

answers in (5), the part that expresses (dis)agreement is optional. There must be a [+/(dis)agreement] feature working in the Yes/Noquestion-answer pattern. Korean allows either of +or – value of the relevant parameter, while English
is specified as a [-(dis)agreement] language.
Regarding this sort of language variation we canposit a subset relation as in (7).

Noani ‘no’(7)

Yesɨng ‘yes’Noani ‘no’Noɨng ‘yes’

Table 4: Examples of the Patterns at Each Stage
Stage
1

Stage
2

Stage
3

(Reference: a bird)
Isn’t this a cat?
i-ke koyangi ani-ya?
Isn’t this a bird?
i-ke say ani-ya?
Is this a cat?
i-ke koyangi-ya
Isn’t this a cat?
i-ke koyangi ani-ya
Is this a cat?
i-ke koyangi-ya
Isn’t this a cat?
i-ke koyangi ani-ya

The SP predicts that children start with the subset,
the [-(dis)agreement] option. But this prediction is
not borne out according to the relevant
developmental order: Children start with thesuperset item, the [+(dis)agreement] option.
We might conclude that the SP is not operativein the development of negation including thestructural negation and the Yes/No question-answer
pattern. Then, how can we explain thedevelopmental pattern discussed above? This iswhat we turn to.

Kwon & Jang (2008) account for the pattern
illustrated in Table 3 and 4, and argue that since
Korean is [+full proposition/-core proposition] andEnglish [-full proposition/+core proposition] inanswering patterns, no subset relation can beestablished between the two languages. They
contend that the SP cannot explain the relevant
developmental pattern.
I agree with Kwon & Jang (2008) that the SP
does not operate in this case. But my argument isbased on a different line of reasoning. First of all,take a look at the following examples:

5 Markedness and Growth Theory
As mentioned in Section 1, one key question about
the SP is how children know which are the subset
and superset value at the onset. Manzini & Wexler(1987) suggest that children have an inherent
system of default values for parameters that
correspond to the subset value. The default value
seems to be the one that arises from crosslinguistic
variation in their argument, considering the subset
relation in the binding parameter. As we have seen
above, however, this is not the case for thedevelopmental pattern of child negation.
An alternative explanation is that children startwith an unmarked option. What is the nature of anunmarked element or feature, in general? A broadclaim is that a structural property is taken to beunmarked, if it has relatively wide distribution
across languages, appears at the initial state of thediachronic change, or occurs at the initial state oflanguage acquisition. Then, we might be able tocontend that children start with the SFN-likenegation construction and the [+(dis)agreement]
question-answer pattern because they are
unmarked. 5
Kwon and Jang (2008) support the Growth
Theory that language faculty grows through thedevelopmental stage of language acquisition.
Taking the developmental order of the Yes/No(5) Question: (Referring to a bird)
i-ke koyangi ani-ya?
This-thing cat
not-be‘Isn’t this a cat?’Answer: (i) ɨng
Yes‘Yes/Right’(ii) ɨng. koyangi an-iya
yescat
not-be‘Yes/Right. It’s not a cat.’(iii) koyangi an-iya
cat
not-be‘It’s not a cat.’

There are three alternatives for the answer to thenegative question in Korean. Furthermore, in caseof (ii), ɨng ‘Yes’ and say-ya ‘(It) is a bird’ do notconstitute one sentence, unlike in English, as shownin (6):(6) Question:
Answer:

Korean = { +(dis)agreement, -(dis)agreement}
English = {-(dis)agreement}∴ Korean ⊃ English

Isn’t this a cat?
(i) No.
(ii) No, it’s not.
(iii) It’s not a cat.

The (5)-(ii) in Korean actually conveys two
separate propositional contents, ‘I agree with you.
(That’s right)’ and ‘It is a bird’, and in other types of5

To prove this point, we may need to investigate theircrosslinguistic distribution and diachronic change, which
I will leave for the future research.

314

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acquisition of negation discussed above? There aresome possible explanations to this question. First, amarkedness hierarchy might override SP. As
mentioned before, it is highly potential that
unmarked elements constitute subset. But thatmight be not always the case, considering marked
subset elements. Second, notice that SP in language
acquisition is successfully applied to most of thecases which pertain to development of syntactic
properties. Negation is also involved with syntactic
mechanism under generative grammar, but it ismore strongly associated with semantic/pragmatic
properties. I conjecture that there might be a
distinction between syntactic and pragmaticlearning principles in terms of applicability of SP. I
leave these possible explanations for future
research.

question-answer pattern, they argue that at Stage 1
the [+/- full proposition, +/-core proposition]
parameter is unset since children’s linguistic faculty
is not mature, and later it is set as the faculty grows.
But their argument do not explain why English
speaking children erroneously set the parameter on[+(dis)agreement] first with no triggering input.
Have English speaking children not yet had
matured linguistic faculty until stage 2? If not, why
do they choose that option? Is it because the optionis ‘simple’ and/or ‘easy’?
I argue that what matures is children’s processing
capacity, not their linguistic faculty on a par withHan (1997). According to Fodor & Crain (1987),
there is a positive correlation between simplicity
and generality: the simpler, the more general. Ifchildren begin with unmarked options, they take
simpler and more general options. At Stage 1,
children could not ‘recognize’ the negative marker
and at Stage 2, they set on a simpler unmarked
option since it is easier to process. Later at Stage 3
when children’s processing faculty grows and thus
childrencanprocess
triggering
input,English-speaking children take the adult form with[-(dis)agreement].
The same line of reasoning applies to thedevelopment of structural negation. SFN-likeconstructions are syntactically easier to process
than LFN-like constructions, and thus Koreanchildren start with easier and simpler ones or
English speaking children cannot produce the target
form with do-supported involved.

References
Angluin, D. (1980). Inductive Inference of Formal
Languages from Positive Data. Information
and Control 45, 117–135.
Biberauer, T. & Roberts, I. (2007). The return of
the Subset Principle. Ms. University ofCambridge.
Becker, M. (2005). Raising, control and the Subset
Principle. In J. Alderete, C.-H. Han, & A.
Kochetov (Eds.), Proceedings of the 24th
West Coast Conference on Formal
Linguistics (pp. 52-60). Somerville, MA:
Cascadilla Proceedings
Project. www.lingref.com, document #1206.
Berwick, C. R. (1985). The Acquisition of Syntactic
Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Cho, Y.-M. Y. and Hong, K.-S. (1988). Evidence
for the VP constituent from child Korean.
Papers and Reports in Child Language
Development 27, 31-38.
Choi, S. & Zubin, D. (1985). Acquisition ofnegation: How do children learn to answer
yes-no questions in Korean and in English.
In Kuno, S., Whitman, J., Lee, I.-H., & Kang,
Y.-S. Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics
I (pp. 135-144). Cambridge, MA:
Departmentof
Linguistics,
Harvard
University.
Goldberg, A. (2005). Constructions at Work: The
Nature of Generalization in Language.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fodor, J. D. & Crain, S. (1987). Simplicity andgenerality in rules of language acquisition. In
B. MacWhinney (Ed.), Mechanisms in
Language Acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Fodor, J. D. & Sakas, W. G. (2005). The Subset
Principle in syntax: costs of compliance.
Journal of Linguistics 41, 513-569.

6 Conclusion
There has been a consensus in previous research ofchild language acquisition that learning principles
operate together with innate linguistic knowledge
on triggering input (Wexler & Culicover, 1980).
Learning principles, which are logical andcomputational in their nature, presumably apply
crosslinguistically, predicated on its universal
cognitive properties. In this study, SP, one of thelearning principles, was attested in terms of its
applicability, regarding the developmental patternof certain types of negation in child language. I
have drawn attention to problems about theoperation of SP, as I argued that the children do notstart with the subset but rather with unmarked
option for the case.
On exploring learning principles, we hope thatthey can work overall in the course of language
acquisition to attain a sort of generalization. We
expect that the more generalizable and thus
powerful a principle is, the nearer it gets to
explanatory adequacy. SP is a powerful learning
principle, which holds for many cases in language
acquisition, but why is it not operative in the315

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Hagstrom, P. (2002) Implications of child errors forthe syntax of negation in Korean. Journal of
East Asian Linguistics 11, 211-242.
Han, H. (1997). Development of Functional
Categories in Child Korean. Doctoral
dissertation, University of South Carolina.
Han, H. and Park, M.-K. (1995). The syntax ofnegation and its development in childlanguage. In J. Fuller et al. (Eds.), ESCOL '94(pp. 152-162). Ithaca, NJ: CLC Publications,
Cornell University.
Han, H. & Jang, Y. (2003). An analysis of negationin child Korean: An alternative to the UCC
account. Korean Journal of Applied
Linguistics, 19(1), 41-58
Jang, Y. & Kwon, Y.-K. (2008). Acquisition ofnegation in Korean and English. Korean
Journal of Linguistics 32(4) 735-749.
Larson-Freeman, D. & Long, M. H. (1991) An
Introduction to Second Language Acquisition.
New York: Longman.
Legate, J. and Yang, C. (2002). Empirical
Re-Assessmentof
Stimulus
Poverty
Arguments. The Linguistic Review 19,
151-162.
MacLaughlin, D. (1995). Language acquisition and
the Subset Principle. Linguistic Review 12(2),143 – 191.
Manzini, R. & K. Wexler (1987). Parameters,
Binding Theory, and Learnability. Linguistic
Inquiry 18, 413 – 444.
Thompson, S. P. & Newport, E. L. (2007).
Statistical learning of syntax: the role oftransitional probability, Language Learningand Development 3, 1–42.
Roeper, T. & Williams, E. (1987). Parameter
Setting. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a Language: A
Usage-Based Approach to Language
Acquisition.
Boston,MA:
Harvard
University Press.
Wexler, K. & Culicover, P. W. (1980). Formal
Principlesof
Language
Acquisition.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wexler, K. & Manzini, R. (1987). Parameters andlearnability in binding theory. In T. Roeper &E. Williams (Eds.), Parameter Setting (pp.
41-76). Dordrecht: D. Reidel.

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Insertion Preferred to Deletion in Learner Speech: A Study of
Korean English
Gyu-jeong Han and Jong-mi Kim

Department of English Language and Literature, Kangwon National Univrsity
lemon0603@naver.com, kimjm@kangwon.ac.kr

1995). We thus make a working hypothesis that
insertion is preferred to deletion in learner speech.

Abstract
Do language learners prefer insertion or deletion
when forced to produce the target speech that is
not permissible in native phonology? To answer
this question, we analyze the speech data from
3,256 word data of L1 English, L2 English, and
L1 English loanwords, which were elicited from124 Korean adult learners of American English
and 22 native speakers of Korean and English. We
measured the acoustic features that are relevant toinsertion and deletion in English. We focus onwhether non-native English evidence effects ofnative Korean more in the deletion of a consonant
as in [s p] for the English loanword ‘concept’,
or in the insertion of a vowel as in‘concept’[ s p ]? The results indicate that thelearner speech manifests significantly more
insertion errors than deletion errors, in bothword-level and sentence-level production. The
error rate drops drastically after instruction to theextent that the difference between the insertionand deletion becomes less obvious. The results
support that an explicit instruction is effective tophonological acquisition of the learner speech.

(1) HYPOTHESIS 1: Insertion is preferred todeletion in learner speech.
Hypothesis 1 is confirmed, or strictly speaking,remains provisional in Korean learners’ speech of
L2 English when two conditions are met: (1) the
loanwords with an inserted segment interfere thelearner speech more frequently than theloanwords with a deleted segment; and (2) the
loanwords with both an insertion form and adeletion form observe more of inserted forms thanthose of deleted forms.
The validity of the Hypothesis 1 interplayswith the developmental aspect of learner speech,
as learner speech is assumed to include less of
non-native accent as the L2 proficiency of thelearner increases over time. We thus make anotherworking hypothesis that learner speech observes
reduced number of insertion or deletion cases
according to the increase of the proficiency.
(2) HYPOTHESIS 2: The rate of insertion anddeletion decreases in learner speech according to
the increase of the proficiency.

Keywords
English loanwords into Korean, Korean learnerspeech of English, insertion and deletion inlearner speech, loanword phonology

Hypothesis 2 can be confirmed if a cross-sectionalor longitudinal study in learner speech shows adevelopmental transition of decreased insertionand deletion in L2 words.
Thehypothesisondevelopmental
enhancement, however, is controversial inliterature, as Scovel (1988) claims that adultlearners improve insignificantly in foreign
pronunciation. We, therefore, investigate oursecond question: Whether or not learner speech
develops from the form of loanword phonology
toward the form of target speech.
We investigate the acquisition order by using
both a cross-sectional and longitudinal methods.
The longitudinal method is to test cognitive and

1 Introduction
We examine whether insertion or deletion occurs
when a learner is forced to produce the target
speech that is not permissible in native phonology.
To argue for the insertion preference, adultlanguage learners (L2 learners, henceforth) may
have stronger force of adding speech elements
when conveying the intended information to thelistener, as their speech risks at all times of lack ofintelligibility by non-native accents (Jenkins,
2000:69-98). Apparently, loanwords manifest
insertion over deletion of the target segments (See
Official Loanword Transcription Regulations,317

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

materials, participants, and the data acquisition
steps.

affective factors in adult language learning -- suchas the role of attention and the importance of
motivation in learning, as Schmidt (1995) claims,“In order to acquire phonology, one must attend tophonology” (Schmidt, 1995: 17).
The following sections test these two
hypotheses by means of a set of acoustic andperceptual phonetic experiments.

2.1 Speech materials
Three types of speech materials and the recording
lists were used: 1) recorded L1 Korean speechmaterials of English loanwords in Korean context,2) recorded L1 and L2 English speech materials
of English words in English context, 3) listening
test materials in English for Korean learners toserve as co-variance reference to the developmentin speech production.
The listening test materials were the listening
component of Test Of English for International
Communication (TOEIC). Two TOEIC listening
tests were used as a standardized test to recognize
the improvement of listening comprehension
before and after instruction.
For recorded speech materials, the native andlearner participants read words in isolation, andthose embedded in English or Korean contexts.
Table 1 is the recording list, in which the insertionand deletion to contrast are underlined. The
Korean context is romanized according to the
Official Romanization System of Korean.

2 Method
In order to accomplish our objective, we
administered the phonetic experiment thatcomprises four sub-experiments on native andlearner speech in cross-sectional and longitudinalstudies. The four sub-experiments are on: 1)
Korean native speech of English loanwords in
Korean context, 2) English native speech of the
English loanwords in English context, 3) Koreanlearner speech of the English loanwords in
English context by a cross-sectional study, 4)
Korean learner speech of the English loanwords in
English context by a longitudinal study. Eachsub-experiment used different sets of speech

Table 1: Recording list for insertion and deletion in L2 English words, spoken by L1 Korean speakers
Loanword
phonology

I.
Words
in isolation

II.
Words
in English context

III.
Words
in Korean context

1. igeoseun d[ ]rinkeuimnida.
(This is a drink.)
2. uri nait[ ]e gaja.
(Let’s go night club.)
1. I'll d[ ]rink this wine.
2. I watch[I]ed TV last night[ ]. 3. nanun geu hoesae eop[ ]lai haetta.
1. d[ ]ry
(I applied for the company.)
2. app[ ]ly
3. He app[ ]lied for the position.
(a)Insertion 3. app[ ]lication 4. Fill in the app[ ]lication form. 4. miguk daehage eop[ ]likeisyeoneul
bonaeryeogo hamnida. (I want to send
4. bus[I]ness
5. Tell me about your bus[I]ness.
the application for auniversity in US.)6. I got off[ ] the grass[ ].
5. geuuy bis[I]niseu suwaneun jota.
(His ability for business is good.)
6. na oneul geunmuneun off[ ]ya.
(I’m off duty today.)
1. taieo[ ]e gumeongnasseo.
1. There was no confirmation(b)
1. stareDeletion
about the policy.
(The tire is flat.)
1. violent[ ](c)Insertion 2. stamp[ ]and3. axe[ ]Deletion
4. act[ ]1. paint[ ] chil da haenni?
(Did you finish painting?)
1. How did you paint[ ] this wall?
2. ibuni last[ ] gaimiya.
2. I played tennis last[ ] week.
(This is the last game.)
speech of learners using the list in Table 1, we
randomized the words among themselves, and thesentences among those with the similar syllable
numbers.

Words in Table 1 are subject to insertion for thedata in (a), and deletion for the data in (b) if used asa Korean loanword, while those data in (c) are
subject to insertion or deletion. When eliciting the318Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The
recordinglists in the first
and
third
columns
wereused to obtain
L1
Koreanspeech materialsofEnglishloanwords
in
Korean context,
while the lists inthe first andsecond columns
were to obtain Figure 1: Illustration of an incorrectly inserted vowel [ ] at the end of the English word
L1andL2 violent, spoken by a female Korean learner.
English speechmaterialsofare then asked to fill in the blanks by copying down
English words in English context.
their own previously transcribed English loanwordsin Korean alphabet. At the last stage, the speakers
2.2 Participants
were asked to read the completed Korean scripts for
Research participants consisted of 11 Korean native
recording the words in isolation and the words
speakers who read English loanwords in Korean
embedded in sentences.
context, 11 native speakers of American English
For the second sub-experiment, where weand 124 Korean learners of English who read theaquired English native speech of the English
English loanwords to Korean in English context.
loanwords in English context, the native speakers of
All native speakers spoke the General
American English underwent only one stage of theAmerican English, while learners the Standard
recording of the production stimuli.
South Korean as their native language. The learner's
For the third sub-experiment, where we
English proficiency level varied with respect to theacquired Korean learner speech of the English
scale of five ranks in accordance to TOEIC score.
loanwords in English context by a cross-sectional
We then putatively used the scaling of score
study, the learners took listening and production
intervals in TOEIC Can-Do Guide (2000) as
tests after a brief listen and repeat practice of theco-variance units for our analysis. 1 This follows therecording stimuli, on a very first week of any classdevelopmental effects that the more proficient the
instruction to avoid experimental intervention.
speaker is, the more target-like the perception of the
For the fourth sub-experiment, where we acquired
target sound is for the listener.
Korean learner speech of the English loanwords in
English context by a longitudinal study, the2.3 Data acquisition procedure
procedure consisted of three stages: 1) pre-listening
The data acquisition procedure varied for all fourand production tests after a brief listen and repeat
sub-experiments. For the first sub-experiment,
practice of the recording stimuli, 2) pronunciation
where we aquired Korean native speech of English
instruction in class for 7 weeks that included many
loanwords, we used the following three stages ofdifferent aspects of pronunciation including, but noteliciting the reading speech. At the first stage, thefocused on, avoiding the Korean l-alternation and
Korean native speakers were given the English
applying the English de-aspiration rules, and 3)
word list in English alphabet, and asked topost-listening and production tests on the same datatranscribe the words into Korean alphabet. The
after 7 weeks, and again on the different data after
transcription was done for the words in isolation. At
next 7 weeks.
the next stage, the speakers were given the Koreansentence list where the English loanwords are
2.4 Analysis
embedded hidden in empty blanks. The speakers
We measured the acoustic features that are relevant
to insertion and deletion in English: the insertion in
1
This edition of the Can-do Guide fits to our learnerterms of the vowel formants as displayed in the
speech data, as we used the previous version of TOEIC
spectrogram and the deletion in terms of thelistening test using the General American English. The
absence of burst and longer consonant duration.
next edition was published on 2009 to reflect the recent
In Figure 1, the vowel [ ] is inserted after themodification in TOEIC to contain different English
final
consonant [t] in the word violent [v Il t].
accents around the world.
319

Figure 2: Rates(%)3:ofRates
deletedFigure(%)(a),of deleted or(a), deleted orinserted (b),inserted
or inserted
segments
in L2 (c) in L2(b), orinserted(c)segments
English words
in word-levelby L1
Englishwords inproduction
sentence-levelproduction by
Korean learnL1
ers.Korean learners.

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

insertion, as the valueds in (b) are generally higher
than (a). The relative dominence within Figure 2(c)and 3(c) will soon be discussed in Figure 4, to behigher in insertion as well. The results so far in (a)and (b) support our Hypothesis 1 that insertion ispreferred to deletion in learner speech.

For analysis, we compared the learner speech with
the native speech. For less clear cases of acoustic
features, we used the additional means of theperceptual judgment by researchers and native
speakers of English. We counted only the expected
errors that are shown in the loanwords for thedifferent L2 phones in question.

3 Results
A total of 3,256 word data were acquired from therecorded corpus of native and learner speech inword-level and sentence level production by 124
Korean learners of English and 11 Korean and 11
English native speakers.
The results from the cross-sectional study are
shown in Figure 2 for word-level production and
Figure 3 for sentence-level production. Thesefigures represent the interference error rate inpercentage with deletion (a), insertion (b), andinsertion and deletion (c).
In both Figures 2 and 3, the relative frequency
of insertion and deletion interference is higher in

320

Figure 4: Proportion of insertion and deletion rates of the L2 English words in isolation (a) and in sentences(b), spoken by L1 Korean learners.

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

2 that the rate of insertion and deletion decreases inlearner speech according to the increase of the
proficiency.

To move on to the developmental results inrelation to Hypothesis 2, Figure 2(a) and 2(b) for
word-level production supports the hypothesis thaterror rate decreases as the speaker proficiency
increases. The sentence level production in 3(a) and3(b) is less obvious.
The relative dominence between insertion anddeletion within Figure 2(c) and 3(c) are shown in
Figure 4. As graphically demonstrated in 4(a) for
word-level production, and 4(b) for sentence-levelproduction, insertion is more dominent overdeletion except a single case of the sentence levelproduction of the word last. The results thus
support our Hypothesis 1 that insertion is preferred
to deletion in learner speech.
The relative frequency and the developmental
results from cross-sectional study in Figures 2 and 3
are compared to the results from the longitudinal
study in Figure 5.
In Figure 5(a) for words in isolation, theaverage values before instruction shows
significantly greater rate of insertion than deletion.
The same is true in Figure 5(b) for words embedded
in sentences. The higher rates of insertion overdeletion are unexceptionally found in all stages ofdevelopment. Our results in overall thus clearlysupport the Hypothesis 1 that insertion is preferred
to deletion.
In the developmental results from alongitudinal study before and after instruction in
Figure 5, the error rate in learner speech decreased
over time. The post-test results in Figure 5 show thedecrease regardless when the test is with the samedata and the different data. The post-test was taken
after seven weeks of interval; with the same data
after the first seven weeks, and with the new data
after the second seven weeks of instruction. The
results are similar both for the words in isolation in
5(a) and the words embedded in sentences in 5(b).
The developmental results thus support Hypothesis

4 Discussions
The results indicate that the learner speech
manifests significantly more insertion errors thandeletion errors, in both word-level andsentence-level production. In addition, the error rate
decreases according to the speech proficiency.
Furthermore the error rate drops drastically after
instruction to the extent that the difference between
the insertion and deletion becomes less obvious.
The results support that an explicit instruction iseffective to phonological acquisition of the learnerspeech.
Additional findings in this study are thefollowing. Firstly, learner speech is far more distantfrom loanwords, and much closer to target
phonology. In other words, learner speech is far
more faithful to target phonology than loanword
phonology. Secondly, another difference between
learner speech and loanword phonology is thatlearner speech develops toward target phonology,
while loanword phonology is rather constant.
Thirdly, needless to mention is an additional factthat loanwords conform to native phonotactics,
whereas learner speech does not.
Currently, the discussions in this study arebased on the average values of a large number ofdata. We plan to do a more sophisticated analysis
with statistical significance.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the Korea
Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean
Government (MOEHRD) (KRF-2006-321-A00933).
References
ETS. (2000). TOEIC Can-Do Guide: Linking

Figure 5: The post-test results show the decrease of insertion and deletion of segments in L2 English
words spoken by L1 Korean learners, regardless whether the test is on the same data, on the different
data, for the words spoken in isolation (left), or for the words spoken in sentences (right).
321Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

TOEIC Scores to Activities Performed
Using English. (2000). Princeton, NJ:
Author.
[TOEIC_Can_Do.pdf,
www.ets.org]
Jenkins, J. (2000). The Phonology of English as an
International Language. Oxford University
Press.
Official Loanword Transcription Regulations.
(1995). [The current edition in official use].
Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Republicof Korea. [http://www.korean.go.kr].
Official Romanization system. (2000). [The current
edition in official use]. Ministry of Culture
and Tourism, Republic of Korea.
[http://www.korean.go.kr].
Scovel, T. (1988). A Time To Speak: A
Psychololinguistic Inquiry Into The Critical
Period For Human Speech, New York:
Newbury House.
Schmidt, R. (1995). Consciousness and foreign
language learning: A tutorial on the role ofattention and awareness in foreign language
learning. Attention and awareness inforeign language learning ed. by R.
Schmidt, 1-63. Honolulu. HI: Univ. of
Hawai’i. Second Language Teaching andCurriculum Center.

322

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The Effects of Dictation Practice in English Listening Classes
Myeong-Hee Seong1 and Eun-Hee Nam 2

1

Eul-Ji University, 2Chung-Ang University

seong@eulji.ac.kr, hieuni@hanmail.net(visual or auditory) is less effective than double
input (visual and auditory) in a language
comprehension. Despite their claims, it is notwidely used in EFL classrooms, and there is also
another voice that dictation is inefficient (Cartledge,
1968; Valette, 1964).
Under the circumstances, there have not been
many studies concerning the effects of dictation,and it is necessary for English education
professionals to examine the effects of dictation in
EFL listening classes. For this reason, this study
investigated the effects of dictation practice, interms of listening proficiency and the use oflistening strategy. For the purpose of the study, two
research questions were set. They were as follows;
1) Does dictation practice improve listening
proficiency?
2) What are the differences in the use of listening
strategies between two groups? Does dictation
practice make the participants use different listening
strategies?
.

Abstract
This study investigated the effects of dictation
practice on Korean university students, in terms oflistening proficiency and the use of listening
strategy. The research was implemented for 15
weeks with 89 Korean university students. The
subjects were divided into two groups. One of thegroups functioned as the experimental group andthe other as the control group. All conditions were
the same in both groups, except that theexperimental group had dictation practice on aregular basis in their listening classes through one
semester. A sample TOEIC listening test wasadministered as a pretest and posttest. A
questionnaire was used to find out the differences in
the use of listening strategies between the twogroups. On the basis of the results, the study
suggested some guidelines for dictation practice in
EFL listening classes, and called for more studies
on its effects.

Keywords
Dictation practice, Listening proficiency, Listening
strategy

1

Theoretical Background1.1
Dictation in Listening Classes
Dictation is an activity to write something thatsomeone says or reads out as it is being said or
immediately after it is said. Education literaturesuggests promising ways to use dictation in thelanguage classroom, and dictation has been an
exercise consistently employed throughout thehistory of language teaching. Davis and Rinvolucri(1988) write that decoding the sounds of English
and recoding them in writing is a major learning
task. Pappas (1977) considers dictation as a goodmeansofdeveloping
learners’ listening
comprehension. Byrne (1977) advocates dictation
as a useful pedagogical technique, and he believes
that dictation involves listening and the ability totransform what is heard into its written form.
Stanfield (1985) mentions that since in dictation thelearner employs more than one faculty, s/he is more
successful in internalizing the language. In addition,
Frodesen (1991) suggests that dictation can be aneffective way to address grammatical errors in

Introduction
Teaching English is now one of the most important
subjects in most Asian schools. This is because it isimportant for students to possess the English ability
to communicate with other English users, with thegrowing of English as a lingua franca. Among 4
skills of English, listening is regarded as thelanguage skill which learners usually find the mostdifficult, while it is regarded as a fundamental
factor for English learners.
Listening has received increasing attention from
EFL professionals in recent years. To find out theeffective methods of enhancing English listening
skill, a large number of researches have been
attempted. One of them is dictation, and it has long
been considered a useful method to improvelearners’listening
proficiency.
Manymethodologists have often made pedagogical claims
for its value. As the ground of its effect on language
learning, Lambert (1986) insists that a single input
323

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

to 495, the score for the listening test of this study
ranges from 1 to 100 for convenience in calculation.

writing that may be the result of erroneous aural
perception of English. She also says that if done
systematically and regularly, dictation exercises
improve students’ ability to distinguish sounds incontinuous speech as well as improving theirspelling and their recognition of grammaticallycorrect sentences and their production of them.

2.1.2

A questionnaire was used to find out thedifferences in the use of listening strategies
between the two groups. The questionnaire
consisted of 6 categories according to Oxford’s
language learning strategies. It included 50
items modified to measure listening strategies
for the purpose of this study. Each item
presented on a 5 point Likert scale (1=never to5=always) and it was written in Korean to help
students understand clearly.

1.2
Listening Strategies as one of Language
Learning Strategies
Oxford (1990) defines language learning strategies
as specific actions taken by the learners to makelearning easier, faster, more enjoyable, self-directed,
more effective, and more transferable to newsituation. Researches and theories in the field of
ESL/EFL strongly imply that strategies obviously
play an important role in learning English. Many
researchers have discovered that good learners are
strategic, meta-cognitively active in selecting
strategies, and monitor their process in order tosuccessfully accomplish given tasks (Macaro, 2001;
O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990; Rubin,1975). Phillips (1991) suggests that students’ use ofvarious learning strategies positively affect theircommand over new language skills.
Furthermore, researchers strongly implied that
language learning strategies can be taught, and they
have identified and classified their own learning
strategies (Chamot, 1987; Oxford, 1990; Rubin,1987). Oxford (1990) divided language learning
strategies into direct and indirect strategies. Sheclassified in detail them into six categories: memory,
cognitive, compensation strategies were included in
the direct strategies while metacognitive, affective,
and social strategies were included in the indirect
strategies. This study explores the students’ use oflistening strategies on the basis of Oxford’s.

2

Listening strategies

2.3
Procedures
The research has been implemented for 15 weeks.
All conditions were the same for the experimentalgroup and the control group, except that theexperimental group had dictation practice on aregular basis in their listening classes throughout
one semester.
At the beginning of the semester, a sample
TOEIC listening test was administered as a pretest,
and the same one was used as a posttest at the endof the semester. Right after the posttest, a listening
strategy questionnaire was distributed to each
student, and collected after 15 minutes.
2.4
Treatment
Both groups of students were met once a week in
two consecutive 50-minute classes, with one hourfor listening and one hour for reading section. In thelistening section, the experimental group was asked
to write what they hear from the recorded tapes. For
this study, the researcher prepared a handout for
dictation in each class. Since the study was
conducted in TOEIC class, the participants were
given different kinds of dictation practices
according to the part of TOEIC listening test. The
participants wrote down sentences for part 1, filledin the blanks for part 2 and 3, and used note taking
for part 4.

Method

2.1 Subjects
The subjects were 89 freshmen and sophomores
attending a university in Korea. They weredivided into two groups. These students were
all non-English majors who enrolled in TOEIC
classes as an elective; one of the groups
functioned as the experimental group and theother as the control group.

3

Results

3.1
Listening Proficiency
The mean scores of control group and experimentalgroup on the pre-test were compared to see whether
they were same or different before the experimentstarted. Table 1 shows the result of T- test.

2.2
Measures
2.1.1
Listening proficiency
A sample TOEFL listening comprehension test
(L/C) was used to measure participants listening
proficiency. The test consists of 100 questions withfour different parts. Even though a standard score of
TOEFL listening comprehension ranges between 5

Table 1: Listening Proficiency on the Pre-test
Group
N
M
SD
t
sig
Experimental
Control* p<.05
324

40
40

44.3
50.4

11.85
2.27 .026
12.24

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Levene’s test: F=0.03, p=.867
According to Table 1, there was no significant
difference between the two groups on the pre-test. It
can be concluded that both groups are nearlyhomogeneous, and the two groups started with thesame proficiency level. Table 2 illustrates theresults of T-test for the performance of the twogroups on the post test.

* p<.05
Data about direct listening strategies use shows thatthe experimental group appeared to use them almost
same or a little more than control group, and there
was no statistical difference in the use of three
direct listening strategies between the two groups.
Table 5 presents the results of T-test of indirect
listening strategies use: metacognitive, affective,
and social listening strategy.

Table 2: Listening Proficiency on the Post-test
Group
N
M
SD
t
sig

Tables 5: Comparison of Indirect Listening
Strategies Use

Experimental 41
54.1 8.80
1.44 .154
Control
45
57.2 11.12* p<.05
Levene’s test: F=0.03, p=.867

StrategyGroup
Experimental
Metacognitive
Control
Experimental
Affective
Control
Experimental
SocialControl

As the above results indicate, there was no
significant difference in the results of the post-test
between the two groups. However, considering themean scores of the two groups, the experimentalgroup significantly performed better (N=41;
M=57.2) than the control group (N=45; m=54.1) inthe post-test. In other words, the experimentalgroup who had regular practice with dictation mademore improvement in their listening proficiency
than the control group.

Among the indirect listening strategies, there was asignificant difference between the two groups.
More precisely, the experimental group usedmetacognitive listening strategy more than control
group (p=.037) even though there was no
significant difference.
On the whole, the most frequently used strategy
was compensation strategy for both experimental
and control group, and social strategy was the least
used one for both of the two groups.

Table 3: Comparison of Overall Listening Strategy
Use
N

M

SD

t

p

Experimental
Control

36
39

2.94 0.46
2.76 0.40

-1.2

0.73

4

Regarding the two groups’ use of overall listening
strategies, in terms of the frequency of use, there
was no significant difference. Table 4 presents theresults of T-test of direct listening strategies use:
memory, cognitive, and compensation listening
strategy.
Tables 4: Comparison of Direct Listening Strategies
Use
Group
N
Experimental 38
MemoryControl
44
Experimental 39
Cognitive
Control
45
Experimental 38
Compensation
Control
44

M
2.87
2.75
3.05
2.94
3.37
3.25

Conclusion

This study investigated the effect of dictation
practice in English listening classes at university.
For the purpose of this study, the experimentalgroup took a dictation in every session of theirlistening class for a period of one semester.
In terms of the first research question, 1) Does
dictation practice improve listening proficiency?,
there was no statistically significant improvement.
The results of the study support those of Jafarpur
and Yamini (1993) in that they saw no improvementin the proficiency of the experimental group ascompared with the control group. However, it isnecessary to note that the present study showed theexperimental group made more improvements intheir listening proficiency than the control group. A
comparison of the mean scores on the pre-test andpost-test displayed that experimental group gained
almost 10 points higher on the post-test than the
pre-test, whereas the control group gained 6.7
points higher.
With regards to the improvement listening
proficiency, this study has a couple of shortcomings.
First, the time spent on the dictation practice was* p<.05

Strategy

M SD tp2.72 0.61-2.11 .037*
2.44 0.56
3.01 0.56-0.86 .390
2.97 0.53
2.49 0.63-1.33 .187
2.28 0.82* p<.05

3.2
Listening Strategy Use
Table 3 presents the results from T-test of theoverall listening strategy use between the twogroups.

Group

N
39
45
38
44
39
45

SD
t
p
0.50
-1.01 .316
0.56
0.46
-1.02 .313
0.46
0.65
-0.93 .356
0.63

325

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Learner strategies in language learning(pp.
71-83).
Englewood
Cliffs,NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Chamot, A. U., & Kupper, L. (1989). Learning
strategies in foreign language instruction.
Foreign Language Annals, 22, 13-24.
Davis, P., & M. Rinvolucri. (1988). Dictation: New
methods, new possibilities. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Frodesen, J. (1991). Grammar in writing. In M.
Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as asecond or foreign language(p.268).
Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.
Jafarpur, A., & Yamini, M. (1993). Does practicewith dictation improve language skills?
System, 21, 359-369.
Lambert, W. E. (1986). Fairing first-andsecond-language speech and writing inways that aid language acquisition. In Vaid,
J. (ed.), Language processing in bilinguals:
Psycholinguistic and neuropsychologicalperspective,(pp.65-96). Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Macaro, E. (2001). Learning strategies in foreignand second language classrooms. London:
Continuum.
O’Malley, J., & Chamot, A. (1990). Learning
Strategies in second Language Acquisition.
Cambridge University Press.
Oxford. R. (1990). Language learning strategies:
What every teacher should know. New
York: Newbury House.
Pappas, G. S. (1977). You mean you still give
dictations? Language Arts, 54, 936-939.
Phillips, V. (1991). A look at learner strategy use
and ESL proficiency. The CA TESOLJournal, November, 57-67.
Rubin, J. (1975). What the good learner can teachus. TESOL Quarterly, 9(1), 41-51.
Rubin, J. (1987). Learner strategies: theoreticalassumptions, research history and typology.
In A. Weden, & J. Rubin. (Eds.), Learnerstrategies in language learning(pp. 15-30).
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Standfield, C. W. (1985). A history of dictation inforeign language teaching and testing.
Modern Language Journal, 69, 121-128.
Vandergrift, L. (1997). The comprehension
strategies of second language (French)
listeners: A descriptive study. Foreign
Language Annals, 30(3), 337-409.

just 50 minutes a week. Second, the post-test wasgiven only 13 weeks after the pre-test. Besides, the‘incubation hypothesis’ might have been partly
disregarded in this study. Jafarpur and Yamini(1993) claim that since language learning is aprocess which improves over time and needs an
incubation period before any learning can be seen in
the performance of the learners. The present study
lends support to their claim which implies that a
dictation practice may show its effects in the longrun, and the results of the study may hold foranother impact of dictation practice when longer
period of time is concerned.
The finding that explained the second
research question, “2) What are the differencesin the use of listening strategies between thetwo groups? Does dictation practice make theparticipants use different listening strategies?”,
was that the experimental group appeared touse more listening strategies than the control
group. Additionally, the analysis on the use of 6
different
listeningstrategies
reveals
metacognitive listening strategy had asignificant difference between the two groups.
However, there was no significant difference in
use of overall listening strategy.
Considering that successful listeners use
many strategies and various types of strategies
when they learn and use a second language(Bacon, 1992; Chamot & Kupper, 1989;
Vandegrift, 1997), English listening classes
with dictation practice have to find learners’
difficulties in listening and dictating andproceed towards processing their autonomy inlistening strategies.
With regards to the results, this study suggeststhat the research to be undertaken should consider
the followings; 1) Sufficient time of dictation
practice in English listening classes should beallowed. 2) Research should be conducted in thelong run for a better understanding of theeffectiveness of dictation. 3) Qualitative
methodology should be used to investigate whether
the dictation practice contributes to improve
English listening proficiency.

References
Bacon, S. M. (1992). Phases of listening toauthentic input in Spanish: A descriptive
study. Foreign Language Annals, 25,
317-334.
Byrne, D. (1977). Listening comprehension practice(Teacher's book). Longman.
Cartledge, H. A. (1968). A defence of dictation. ELT
Journal, 22, 226-231.
Chamot, A. (1987). The learning strategies of ESL
students. In A. Weden. & J. Rubin (Eds.),
326

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

An Analysis of the Interrelationship among Learner Variables ofDictation Practice in English Listening Classes
Myeong-Hee Seong1 and Eun-Hee Nam 2

1

Eul-Ji University, 2Chung-Ang University

seong@eulji.ac.kr, hieuni@hanmail.net

Abstract

listening comprehension involves very dynamic
process in which one must quickly catch the sounds

The purpose of this study is to investigate theand grasp their meaning, it requires special

relationships

andattention and training for acquisition of the skill. A

perceptions of dictation practice in English listening

variety of methods to promote the listening skill

classes,have been proposed and practiced, and dictation can

amonglistening

students’

proficiency,

attitudes

andlistening

be a useful method.

strategies. The research was conducted for 15
weeks with 42 Korean university students. The

However, Harris (1969) and Takeuchi (1997)

subjects had dictation practice on a regular basis ininsist that dictation can be a useful pedagogicaltheir listening classes for one semester. A sample

device but offers little empirical support. Davis and

TOEIC listening test was conducted at the end of

Rinvolucri (1988) also mention that dictation is an

the semester. Two questionnaires were used: one

effective measure of teaching, and provide us withwas to see the use of listening strategies, and thevarious methods of dictation, however, empiricalother was to find out the participants’ perceptions

support for their claim of effectiveness is slight.

and attitudes towards dictation practice. SomeOne example of empirical data was provided by

implications of the findings were discussed, along

Yoshida (1984). He found statistically significant

with the suggestions for further research.

positive correlations between dictation and theresults of listening tests, and based on these

Keywords

findings, claims that dictation can be a good

Dictation practice, Listening proficiency, Listening

teaching device.

strategies, Learners’ perception and attitudes

Some researchers insist that learners' attitudes andperceptions of language learning help language

Introduction

development (Gardner,

Listening is regarded as a crucial part of foreign

MacIntyre, 1993; MacIntyre & Noels, 1996).

language learning and listening comprehension in

Others insist learning is affected in a positive

English as a prerequisite and necessary condition

manner when learning strategies are used (O’for communicative competence in English. Since

Malley & chamot, 1990; Vandergrift, 1999).
327

1994; Gardner &Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

However, there has been done little researchtranslation

concerning the effects of dictation in relation to otherteaching until the last couple of decades of the 20thlearner variables. Under the circumstances, it iscentury. Moreover, it is not clear which type ofnecessary to explore the interrelationships among

dictation has been used throughout the history of

attitudes and perceptions and strategies of dictation

language teaching. Nor is it clear which method has

practice in English listening class and listening

been applied to administer dictation in language

proficiency. Based on the above claims, the purposeclasses. In this aspect, we need to research teachingof this study was to examine students’ attitudes andmethods and techniques on dictation.

methodthat

dominatedlanguageperceptions and strategies of dictation practice in

The term dictation refers to any activities inEnglish listening classes and their relationships

which students have the chance to write down whatwith listening proficiency.

teachers say. Davis and Rinvolucri (1998) describe
many variations in dictation format and present anarray of classroom activities. These range, for

1. Literature Review

example, from simple dictation exercises such as
Dictation has been a kind of practice consistently
vocabulary dictation and finding out silent letters to
employed throughout the history of language
more complex ones such as question sentence
teaching (Mohammad, 1995). According to Pauldictation combined with language games.
Davis and Mario Rinvolucri (1988), the benefits
Even in the case of simple dictation, manyof dictation practice can be described like thevariations are found. If students are required tofollowings: The students are active during thewrite down everything that they hear, the smallest
practice; T h e s t u d e n t s a r e all committed topossible unit is a word. When teachers ask students
produce a text in English; The students are active
to write down part of the input only, there is space
after exercising while correcting their dictation;
for more variation and flexibility in the demands
Dictation leads to oral communication activities;
made on the students. The combination of sentence
dictation can be used as a lead-in to otheras input and word as a slot is possible: teachers read
activities; Dictation leads to oral communicationa sentence, and one part of the sentence is left blankactivities; Dictation fosters unconscious thinking;for the students to complete. In this kind of exercise,Students are consciously working on thestudents can use the written co-text as a clue todictation b u t unconsciously w o r k i n g o n t h eguess what the missing part is. At the same time,
language at a deeper level; Dictation will often
teachers can tacitly draw students’ attention to whatcalm the students since in order to do a dictation
the focus is by making slots in target place.
properly, the students need to be quiet and focu
Variables of natural speed or controlled speed, andsed on the task.
of degree of repetition, can be added as important
However, dictation is regarded by many teachersplanning factors. Top-down listening skills also
as somewhat old-fashioned, a relic of the grammar
helps them become proficient at ‘chunking’ what328

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

they hear beyond word by word listening.

find out the participants’ perceptions and attitudes

Focus on the meaning and to make as many

toward dictation practice. The questionnaire ofmemo-notes as possible is an examples of a good

perception and attitudes on dictation practice in

combination of listening and comprehending skills.

class consisted of 31 items: the items related with

Some students can get the rough meaning while‘class participation’ was 6, ‘class interest’ 7,

listening to the sentences. To sum up, for dictation,‘usefulness

the three skills of listening, comprehending and‘motivation-provoking’ 6 and ‘self evaluation on

writing need to be employed closely connected withdictation class’ 5. The questionnaire for listening

one another.

strategies was designed based on the strategiesofdictation

class’

7,

format of Oxford (1990). The test for the study wasa TOEIC test.

2. Methodology
2.1 Research Questions

2.4. Design(1) What is the relationship between attitudes and
For the purposes of this paper, we did not include
perceptions of dictation practice and listening
dictating activities such as language games, but
proficiency?
rather limited the scope to dictation as an activity(2) What is the relationship between the use of
focusing on listening to what is said and writing
listening strategies and listening proficiency?
what is heard. Such writing includes not only
precise realization of what is heard, but also
2.2 Subjects
note-taking type memos.
Subjects were 42 first-year students of a university
We let the students hear a sentence and asked
with a medical specialty in Korea. Their major wasthem to write down the complete sentence. The
radiology. Students who had stayed in an English
source of dictation was either an audio-tape or the
speaking country for more than one year wereteacher’s own voice. The sentence was said once or
excluded from the subject group. Therefore, therepeated. The dictation was at a natural speed.
total number of subject was 41. The female was 33
However, sometimes teachers cut the sentences into
(80.5%) and male was 8 (19.5%). The subjects weremeaningful clauses or phrases, and read these
divided into two groups (Lower Ability Group andslowly so that students can catch up as they write.
Higher Ability Group), based on the results of the
When we wanted to train students to focus onlistening section of the TOEIC, conducted in May,
specific grammatical categories and forms, such asat the end of the class.
verbs and verb forms, we created materials withappropriate slots for dictation practice.
2.3 Instrument
All subjects were divided into two proficiency
Two questionnaires were used: one was to see thegroups according to their performances on theuse of the listening strategies, and the other was to
TOEIC Test: Higher Ability Group and Lower
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Ability Group. The Higher Ability Group included

Table 1 presents the frequency of attitudes and21 subjects whose score on the test was more thanperceptions of dictation practice for higher and

55. A total of 19 subjects were included in thelower level.

Lower Ability Group, in which each subject scored3.1.2 Correlation between attitudes and perceptions

less than 55 on the test.

of dictation practice and listening proficiency

During the 13-week period between April andJuly, subjects took a 45-minute lesson twice a week.
For evaluation of the results, a test and a

Table

2:

Correlation

betweenattitudes

andquestionnaire were conducted.

perceptions of dictation practice and listening
proficiency
Test

P

U

I

M

C

1

.120 -.096 -.129 -.126 -.090

Pearson

3. Results and Discussion
T

3.1. Research Question 1

Correlation

What is the relationship between attitudes andSig. (2-tailed)perceptions of dictation practice and listening

Pearson.120
P

proficiency?

.454 .552

.420

.431

.585

1

.241

.320*

.143

.207

.129

.042

.372

.206

1

.620** .636** .613**

Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed) .454
Pearson

3.1.1 Overall frequency of attitudes and perceptions-.096 .241
Uof dictation practice between higher and lower level

Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed) .552 .129-.129 .320* .620**

I

perceptions of dictation practice for two levels
N

Mean

S.D.

L

19

3.68

.60

Participation
22

3.91

.60

L

19

3.41

.49

H

22

3.48

.60

Usefulness
L

19

3.61

.69

Class

H

22

3.55

.83

Motivation-

L

19

3.69

.54

Provoking

H

22

3.53

.63

L

18

2.94

.47

H

21

2.79

.76

.718** .696**

Correlation-.126 .143 .636** .718**
M

.000

.000

1

.633**

Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed) .431 .372 .000

.000

.000

Pearson-.090 .207 .613** .696** .633**
C

0.23

1

Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed) .585 .206 .000

.000

.000

*p<.05, **p<.01
0.90

Confidence.000

Pearson-0.43

Interest in

1

Sig. (2-tailed) .420 .042 .000

t value
-1.20

H

.000

PearsonTable 1: Descriptive statistics of attitudes and

Level

.000

P: Participation, U: Usefulness, I: Interest in Class,
M: Motivation-provoking, C: Confidence

0.76

As Table 2 shows, 14 of the correlations weresignificant.
330

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 4: Correlation between the use of listening
strategies and listening proficiency

3.2 Research Question 2
What is the relationship between the use of

Correlations

listening strategies and listening proficiency?

Test

M

C

Co

Me

A

S

1

.164

.068 .410** .230 .364* .212

.324

.682

1

.609** .350* .507** .575** .364*

Pearson

3.2.1 Overall frequency of listening strategies for

Correlatio

two levels

T

n
Sig.

Table 3: Descriptive statistics of listening strategies(2-tailed)

For two levels

PearsonMemoryLevel

N

Mean S.D. t value

L

17

2.76

P

Correlatio .164

.39

M

-1.19

.153 .019 .184

n

.241

Strategies

H

21

2.96

.57

Sig.

Cognitive

L

18

3.04

.36

(2-tailed)

Strategies

H

21

3.05

.54

PearsonCompensation

L

19

3.20

.63

Correlatio .068

.324

-0.03

.008

.000

.031

.001 .000 .0251

.480** .752** .461**

.974
.606*

-1.63
Strategies

H

22

3.52

.63

Metacognitive

L

18

2.59

.39

H

22

2.81

.74

Affective

L

19

2.89

.53

H

22

3.23

.56

Social

L

19

2.42

.62

.245

.000

**

*

.002

.000 .003 .000

Pearson.479*.052
Correlatio .410

.350

.480

**

**

1

.619 .569

**
*

Co

n

.536

H

22

2.55

.64

Sig.

L

16

2.83

.37

(2-tailed)

H

20

3.03

.52

Total

.682
(2-tailed)-0.63
Strategies

n
Sig.

-2.00
Strategies

*

.112
C

-1.18
Strategies.609**

-1.30

.008

.031

.002

Correlatio .230****.000 .000 .002

.204
Pearson.694*

L: Lower Ability, H: Higher Ability

.507

.752

.619

**

1

.604

**
*

Me

n
Sig.

Table 3 presents the frequency of listening

.153

.001

.000

.000

*

**

**

**

.000 .000(2-tailed)strategies for two levels.

Pearson.715*
Correlatio .364

3.2.2 Correlation between the use of listening.575.461 569**.604 1*A

strategies and listening proficiency

n
Sig.
.019

Table 4 presents these correlations.

(2-tailed)

331

.000

.003 .000

.000

.000

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

student’s contribution to second language;

PearsonCorrelatio .212
S

.364*

.606** .479** .694** .715** 1

Part II. Language Teaching, 26, 1-11.
Harris, D. P. (1969). Testing English as a secondnlanguage. New York: McGraw-HillSig.(2-t
.184

.025

.000 .002.000 .000

MacIntyre, P. D. & Noels, K. A. (1996). Using

ailed)* p<.05, **p<.01

social-psychological variables to predict

M: Memory strategy, C: Cognitive strategy

the use of language learning strategies.

Co: Compensation strategies, Me: Metacognitive

Foreign Language Annals, 29, 373-386.
Mohammad K. K. (1995). The Effect ofstrategy, A: Affective strategy, S; Social strategy

dictationpracticeongeneralAs Table 4 shows, 34 of the correlations werelanguage proficiency. Mastor thesis.

significant.

Teheran:

UniversityforTeacher

Education.
O’Malley, J. M. & Chamot, A. U. (1990). Learning

4. Conclusion

Strategies in second language acquisition.

In this study, no significant correlations were foundCambridge: Cambridge University Press.

with the strategies use between the English

Oxford, R.L. (1990). Language learning strategies:

proficiency levels and the perceptions and attitudes

What every teacher should know. Boston:

between the levels, but a number of significant

Heinle and Heinle.

correlations were found.

Takeuchi, O. Y. (1997). Dictation: Is it really

Shortcoming in this experiment should be

effective

pointed out. The period of the experiment, 13 weeks

forlanguageteaching?

Audio-Visual Education 20.

was too short. This shortness may have had some

Vandergrift, L. (1999). Facilitating second language

influence upon the results gained. The number oflistening

the subjects, 41 was too small and this might havecomprehension:acquiring

successful strategies. ELT journal 53(3),affected the analysis of the data.

168-176.
Yoshida, K. (1984). Eigo no risuningu (Listening inReferences

EnglishDavis, P. & M. Rinvolucri. (1988). Dictation: New

Taishukan.

methods, new possibilities. Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press.
Gardner, R. C. (1994). On motivation, research
agendas,andtheoretical

Languageframework.

Modern Language Journal, 78. 359-368.
Gardner, R. C. & MacIntyre, P. D. (1993). A

332

Teaching)

Tokyo;

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The Development of Namseoul-Waseda Cross-Cultural Distance
Learning Project from 2005 to 2009
Bok-Myung Chang
Department of English, Namseoul University
bmchang@nsu.ac.kr
America, but also a role as a communicative toolfor every aspect of life; economics, politics, culture,
finance, travel, scientific research, military, etc.
Considering these factors in technological andcultural innovation, it is necessary to set up a newmodel of English as an international language. Until
recent times, English was used as a communicative
tool among native English speakers, but recently
English was used as a tool among native English
speakers(henceforth; NS) and nonnative English
speakers(henceforth; NNS). Even more thecommunication between NNSs and NNSs isdelivered through English, so it is urgent to set up a
new model of English as an “International
Language” or a “World English.”This work focused on facing up to the changing
roles and status of English, and establishing the new
notion of World English. The research process of
this paper is based on the data collected during
Namseoul University – Waseda University
Cross-Cultural
Distance
Learning
Project(henceforth; NWCCDLP) started from thesecond semester, 2005.
CCDL program aims to achieving the following
purposes:
The first is to raise intercultural awareness throughdeveloping deeper understanding toward othercultures and appreciating diversity and multiple
viewpoints. The second is to use English as acommunication tool. The third is to be able toexplain their own cultures in English.

Abstract
This research focuses to survey on the developmentof Namseoul-Waseda Cross-Cultural Distance
Learning Project (henceforth NWCCDLP) from thesecond semester of 2005 to the spring semester of2009. NWCCDLP has been play a very importantrole in cultivating communicative competence andintercultural understanding among the students ofNamseoul University since it was adopted in
Namseoul University from the second semester of2005. So this research aims to survey thedevelopment of NWCCDLP focusing on various
forms and functions of this project, and thereactions from the students who participated in thisproject.

Keywords
Distance Learning, Communicative competence,
English as an International Language, NNS
Interaction

1. Introduction
These days, we are using English as acommunicative tool in every aspects of life.
Jenkins(2003) found that in the period between theend of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603 andthe later years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth at
the start of the twenty-first century, the number of
speakers of English increased from a mere five toseven million to somewhere between one-and-a half
and two billion. The English language was spoken
in the mid-sixteenth century only by a relatively
small group of mother-tongue speakers born andbred within the shores of the British Isles, it is now
spoken in almost every country of the world, withits majority speakers being those for whom it is nota first language.
Crystal (1997) found that currently, there areapproximately seventy-five territories where
English is spoken either as a first language (L1), oras an official (i.e. institutionalized) second language(L2) in fields such as government, law andeducation. From these data, we can infer that
English plays not only a role as an agent oftranscending the cultural values of England or

2. The 21st century and cross-culturalcommunication
In our view, the 21st century will be characterizedby two concepts: highly advanced information
technology and globalization. The advent of highly
advanced information technology has createdcyberspace and reduced the actual distance between
states. Although we are in the incipient stage of theso-called borderless society, in the new century, it is
not so hard to infer, such a borderless society will
make a rapid development with further progress inhighly advanced information technology. As a result,333

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

participate in the course through listening andspeaking only in English.

people will be able to have more opportunities tomeet and communicate with those who differ in, say,culture, value systems, religion, manners andcustoms, and so forth. The advent of globalization,on the other hand, has called on people andenterprises as well as states to get into step andcooperate with their overseas partners in order toattain common interests. Such movements toward
globalization will intensify in the next century.
Under such circumstances, it naturally follows thathuman interchange based on mutual understanding
will play an important role in the 21st century.

4.1 Contents of NWCCDLP from 2005 to
2009
2005
2006
2007

On-line Chatting,Video-Conferencing Lecture
On-line Chatting,Video-Conferencing Lecture, New Model
LessonOn-line Chatting, Video-Conferencing
Lecture, New Model Lesson
On-line Chatting, Video-Conferencing
Lecture, New Model Lesson
On-line Chatting, Video-Conferencing
Lecture, New Model Lesson

3. Research Methodology

2008

3.1 Subjects

2009

The students from WU and NSU participated in
Namseoul University – Waseda University
Cross-Cultural
Distance
Learning
Project(henceforth NWCCDLP) started from the second
semester, 2005.

4.2 Technologies used in NWCCDLP from2005 to 2009
The latest multimedia and internet technologies
such as video conferencing, text and voice chat ande-mail systems are fully utilized for this project.

3.2 Data Collection and Analysis
The data has been collected from the fall semesterof 2005 to the spring semester of 2009.
Data is analyzed by a qualitative method throughanalyzing the students' reflection report and aquantitative method through analyzing the results of
the questionnaire implemented at the end of every
semester.

4.3 Course Description
4.3.1 Video chatting activities
The students from Namseoul and Waseda
Universities were matched as partners and had tomeet in cyberspace at the appointed time and datethrough the “Live On” system.

4. The Development of NWCCDLP

4.3.2 Video conferencing lecture

From the start of second semester, 2005, Namseoul
University participated in Namseoul – Waseda
Universities Cross-Cultural Distance Learning
Project; NWCCDLP). This project consists of twoparts, the one is the video chatting activities, andthe other is the video conferencing lecture(See 3.
NWCCDLP). For the video chatting activities,
Namseoul University students made partners withthe students from Waseda University and agreed tomeet in cyber space through a “Live On” program.
During these activities, most students from both
universities met for one hour once a week, and they
had to record all the interactions through text chatand submit them as a report for the course.
The video conferencing lecture had the theme of“World Englishes and Miscommunications,” inwhich Namseoul Univ.(Korea), Waseda Univ.
(Japan), Hudan Univ.(China), and Hannam Univ.
(Korea) participated every Thursday from 14:40 to
16:10. Every student must study the lecture inadvance through an on-demand lecture series on the
web site. During the lecture, every student must

English has been used as a common tool ofcommunication in Asia. It has been reported that
non-native users of English in the so-called outercircle and expanding circles outnumber the native
speakers of English in the inner circle. English has
thus been implanted in various regions of the world
and appended some peculiarities in the respective
regions. For this reason, this lecture’s purpose is tomake the students learn the mutual intelligibility
concerning phonetic features, syntactic features,socio-cultural differences, and para-linguisticfeatures which might cause some misunderstanding
among native speakers and Asian interlocutors.
As a second part of NWCCDLP, Namseoul Univ.
participated in this lecture along with Waseda Univ.,
Hudan Univ., and Hannam Univ. every Thursday.
Most students from Namseoul participated actively
in this lecture by expressing themselves and theiropinions about World Englishes only in English.
From the data analysis of the questionnaire
collected from the students who participated in334Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

NWCCDLP, it can be concluded that NWCCDLP
was very helpful in activating the students’ interests
about world English and cultural understanding. So
that this project resulted in the improvement ofEnglish communicative proficiency for Namseoul
Students.

□ Number of the students who participated in
NWCCDLP from 2005 to 2009Year
Spring Semester Fall Semester
2005
148
2006
175
98
2007
178
87
2008
142
78
2009
150
--------------------------------------------------------------

Syllabus for World English in NWCCDLP
Month
9
10

11

12

Date
1-29
6
13
20
27
3
10
17
24
1

Contents
Introduction for World English
Introduction for the participantsSingaporean English
Malay English / Indian English
Philippine English
Break
Hong Kong English
Chinese English
Korean English
Taiwan English

5. Results and Conclusions
1) This class helped the students to haveself-confidence in English.
2) This class helped the students to understandJapanese culture and people.
3) This class was very interesting.
4) This class helped the students to recognize theimportance of English.
5) This class helped the students to improve theirEnglish abilities.

4.3.3 New CCDL Model from 2007 to 2009
1) Course Procedure of New CCDL Model
Time
Every
Thursday
10:40-11:00
11:00-11:20
11:20-12:10

Type of
Project

Group

In conclusions, NWCCDLP can be proved as agood model for cultivating English proficiency ofthe students in EFL contexts. From the results ofthis research, the conclusions can be suggested asfollows. The first thing is that most students could
develop their English proficiency through the
NNS-NNS interaction. So it is very helpful inEnglish acquisition to communicate in English
among non-native speakers. The second thing isthat the international distance learning model can besuggested as English learning model in EFL context.
The third thing is that one of the distance learningmodels, NWCCDLP was very impressed with thepossibility of being able to get in touch withstudents and cultures in foreign countries.
Most of the students who practiced English through
NWCCDLP wished to participate in this CCDL
model again if possible, and they think this project
can help themselves to activate the interests incultural understanding, get their self-confidence inusing English, and improve their English skills.

Tool for Communication

Group Presentation Video Conferencing
Group Presentation Video Conferencing
SmallGroup Live-On System
Chatting
MOODLEand2) New CCDL model of the 2nd semester, 2008

Class Model
Preparation Class – 1 week
(Reading + Research +BBS)
Joint Class – 1week(Voice Chatting + Text Chatting + BBS)
Reflection Paper

Social and Global Issues
Topic 1 : Introduction
Facilitation Skills, Intercultural translation
Topic 2 : Happiness Factors
Individualism/Collectivism
Topic 3 : Family Roles
High/Low context communication styles
Topic 4 : Neighborhood
Relationship Development
Topic 5 : Climate Change : Agreement Styles

References
Baek, N. S. (2002). A study in the teaching methodof English literature through the Internet and its
effect. English Language & Literature Teaching,8(1), 1-13.
Chang, B.M. (2004). A critical analysis ofcommunicative strategies among non-native
English speakers. Modern English Education, 5(2),173-195.
Chang, B.M. (2005). World English
Acquisition through CCDL Project. Journal of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 9(2),335Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

241-261.
Chang, B.M. (2006). Exploring a New
Model for Cross-Cultural Distance Learning.
Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, 10(2), 1-21.
Chang, B.M. (2007). Creating an Innovative
Model for Distance Learning in EFL context.
Modern English Education, 8(1), 4-32.
Chang, B.M. (2008). English Acquisition
through NNS-NNS Interaction in EFL Context.
English Language & Literature Teaching, 13(2),1-23.
Crystal, D. (1997). English as a Global
Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Jenkins, J. (2003). World Englishes. New
York: Routledge.
Kachru, B. (1992). The Other Tongue:
English Across Cultures (2nd ed.). Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois Press.
McArthur, A. (1987). The English
languages?. English Today,11, 9-13.
Modiano, M. (1999). Standard Englishes
and educational practices for the world's lingua
franca. English Today, 15 (4), 3-13.
Modiano, M. (2000). Rethinking ELT,
English Today, 16(2), 30-34.
Park, K.J.(2001). The importance of CCDL
in English education. English Language &Literature Teaching, 7(2), 77-101.

336

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

A Method of Automatic Acquisition of Typed-Dependency
Representation of Japanese Syntactic Structure
Masanori Oya
School of Education, Waseda University
Masanorioya2008@gmail.com
dobj(read-3, book-5)

Abstract
This paper introduces a method of automatic
acquisition of typed-dependency representation ofJapanese syntactic structure, with its problems andpossibilities.

Each dependency triple represents the graphspecifications between two words which are in
dependency relationship. For example, the first
triple states that the word “read” is the third in thesentence and “I” the first, and they are connected bya directed arc labeled with “nsubj”, meaning thatthe word “read” has “I” as its nominal subject.
These triples are equivalent to the following
directed acyclic graph:

Keywords
Natural language processing, typed dependency,
directed acyclic graphs.

1. Introduction
This paper introduces a typed-dependency
representation (de Marnette and Manning, 2008a)of Japanese syntactic structure, as part of automatic
acquisition of grammatical information from aJapanese text corpus (Kyoto University Text Corpus
ver.4, henceforth KTC4) (Kurohashi et al. 1997,
Kurohashi et al. 1998).

2. Stanford Typed Dependency Parser
According to de Marneffe and Manning (2008a),
typed-dependency representation has inherited a lot
from Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) (Bresnan,2001), and “aims to provide a simple, habitable
design” of syntactic structure. In a typeddependency
representation,allsyntactic
information is represented as binary relations of twowords which are connected by a typed dependency(such as nsubj “nominal subject” or num“numerical classifier”). This representation maps
easily onto other common representations, such as
Resource Description Framework (cf. Section 4),
and researchers can implement it into various fields
of NLP. De Marneffe and Manning (2008a)
proposed the Stanford typed-dependency parser,
which outputs both the context-free phrase structure
grammar representation of the input sentence, and a
typed-dependency acyclic directed graph, with eachof the words as a node and each of thedependencies between two words as a labeled arc.
For example, Stanford typed dependency parser
outputs the following dependency triples for asentence “I have read the book”:

Figure 1: The directed acyclic graph for thesentence “I have read the book”.
When lexical information on each of the node isunified along with the directed arcs backward, thenwe have the f-structure representation for thesentence. For more details of Stanford typeddependency parser, see de Marneffe and Manning(2008b).

3. Automatic transformation of Japanese
text corpus representation and dependency
parser into typed-dependency representation
I implemented the idea of de Marneffe andManning (2008a, 2008b) into the parser output of
KNP, a dependency parser for Japanese (Kurohashi
et al. 2005), so that we can acquire typeddependency representations of Japanese sentences,which can be further implemented in the field of
NLP.
3.1 KTC4 and KNP
In KTC4, each sentence is divided into a number ofsyntactic units, and the dependencies among them
are annotated on each of the units, along with other(1)
nsubj(read-3, I-1)
aux(read-3, have-2)
det(book-5, the-4)337

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

morphological information. This corpus format isbasically the same with the parser output of KNP,
since both of them were developed along with eachother (Kurohashi et al. 1998). Therefore, a textprocessing program for KTC4 can also be applied
to the output of KNP only with minor modificationsin the program.
For example, the KNP output for a Japanese
sentence “Watashi-wa sono hon-wo yonda” (I haveread the book.) is as follows (Japanese words are
Romanized and annotated with English words, andtags which are irrelevant for the present discussion
are deleted):dependency between units.
Therefore, themorphological information in KTC4 corpus
annotations and a KNP parser output can be
employed for automatic transformation of KTC4
corpus annotations and KNP parser output into
LFG-style attribute-value pairs, and also into an
acyclic directed graph which is similar to the outputof the Stanford typed-dependency parser.
The grammatical function of a given syntactic
unit is determined according to the morphologicalinformation which is provided as KTC4/KNP tags.
Syntactic units are divided into the following
categories (Oya, forthcoming):

(2)

(3)
# S-ID:1 KNP:2009/06/28* 3D
Watashi “I” noun normal
wa particle adverbial* 2D
sono “the” det adjectival* 3D
hon “book” noun normal
wo particle case
* -1D
Yonda “read-past” verb
。 。 。 period
EOS

1. Particled inflective units: units which have atleast one particle, and which have an inflecting
element (verb, adjective, verbal suffix or copula)as their head.
2. Particled non-inflective units: units whichhave at least one particle, and which do not havean inflecting element as their head.
3. Non-particled, inflective units: units whichhave no particle, and which have an inflecting
element as their head.
4. Non-particled, non-inflective units: units
which have no particle, and which do not havean inflecting element as their head.
Every syntactic unit belongs to one of thesecategories. The units in one category are further
divided into subcategories according to the type of
the particle they have, or according to the inflection
form of the head. One grammatical function is
assigned to each of the subcategories. The process
is summarized in (4). The process proceeds
automatically and is implemented with much use ofregular expressions:

The asterisks are unit boundaries. The numbers
next to asterisk specify the syntactic unit on which
the current syntactic unit depends. For example,
the first syntactic unit “watashi-wa” depends on the
3rd unit “yonda” (notice that the counting starts
from zero; the first syntactic unit is the 0th unit, thelast the 3rd unit). The last unit “yonda” is the root
unit which depends on nothing, hence it isannotated with “-1”. The “D” next to the number
specifies that the dependency is direct; there are twoother types of dependency in KTC4/KNP
representation:
“A”
means
appositional
dependency, and “P” means parallel (orcoordination) dependency.
However, the dependency representation in
KTC4 and KNP output is not typed, i.e., nogrammatical function is annotated on thedependency. In this sense, we need to augment the
corpus representation and KNP parser output interms of which type of dependency must be
annotated on a given dependency among syntactic
units.

(4)For each syntactic unit,
Step 1. Check the root.
1. If the current syntactic unit is the root of thesentence, go to Step 9.
2. Else, go to Step 2.
Step 2. Check the presence of particles.
1. If the current syntactic unit has a particle, go to
Step 3.
2. Else, go to Step 4.
Step 3. (for particled units) Check the presenceof inflecting elements.
1. If this syntactic unit has at least one inflecting
element, go to Step 5.
2. Else, go to Step 6.
Step 4. (for non-particled units) Check thepresence of inflecting elements.
1. If this syntactic unit has at least one inflecting

3.2 Automatic acquisition of typed dependencies
among Japanese syntactic units from parser
outputIn Japanese, the type (or absence) of particles
within a syntactic unit determines the type of338

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

element, go to Step 7.
2. Else, go to Step 8.
Step 5. (for particled, inflective units) Check theparticle.
1. If this unit has the case particle “-to”, then thegrammatical function of this unit is acomplement; annotate it with COMP.
2. Else, if this unit has a formal noun and eitherof the case particles “-ga”, “-wo”, “-ni”, thenthis unit has the grammatical function subject,
object or oblique, respectively; annotated itwith “subj”, “obj” or “obl”, respectively.
3. Else, if this unit has a formal noun and a caseparticle other than “-ga”, “-wo” and “-ni”, thenthis unit is has the grammatical function
particled adjunct; annotate it with “padj”.
(Complement clause in this unit will be treatedlater).
4. Else, if this unit has a particle other than caseparticle, then this unit has the grammatical
function sentential adjunct; annotate it with“sadj”.
5. Go to Step 9.
Step 6. (for particled, non-inflective units) Check
the particle.
1. If the dependency type of this unit iscoordination, then the grammatical function is“coord”.
2. Else, if the dependency type of this unit isapposition, then the grammatical function is
APP. Else, if the particle is “-ga”, then thegrammatical function is “subj”.
3. Else, if the particle is “-wo”, then thegrammatical function is “obj”.
4. Else, if the particle is “-ni”, then thegrammatical function is “obl”.
5. Else, if the particle is a case particle other than“-ga”, “-wo” and “-ni”, then the grammatical
function is “padj”.
6. Else, if the particle is “-wa”, then thegrammatical function is “topic”.
7. Else, if the particle is an adverbial particle
other than “-wa”, then the grammatical
function is “focus”.
8. Else, the grammatical function is “padj”.
9. Go to Step 9.
Step 7. (Non-Particled, Inflective)
1. If the inflection form of the last morpheme ofthis syntactic unit is the declarative base form,or the declarative ta form, then the grammatical
function is “rel”.
2. Else, the grammatical function is “sadj”.
3. Go to Step 9.
Step 8. (Non-Particled, Non-Inflective)
1. If the dependency type of this unit iscoordination, then the grammatical function is“coord”.

2.

Else, if the dependency type of this unit isapposition, then the grammatical function is“app”.
3. Else, if the part of speech of the head of thisunit is determiner, then the grammatical
function is “det”.
Else, the grammatical
function is “adj”.
4. Go to Step 9.
Step 9. (Root or not)1. If the current unit is the root of the sentence,then stop.
2. Else, move to the next unit and go to Step 1.
This process does not yield syntactic units whosegrammatical function is ambiguous; this is based on
an assumption that every syntactic unit has at mostone grammatical function.
Through this process, we can automaticallyacquire the dependency triples from the KNP output
for the sentence “Watashi-wa sono hon-wo yonda”
as follows:(5)
topic(yonda-4, watashi-1)
det(hon-3, sono-2)
obj(yonda-4, hon-3)
These triples are equivalent to the following
directed acyclic graph:

Figure 2: The directed acyclic graph for thesentence “Watashi-wa sono hon-wo yonda” (I haveread the book).
As in the case of Stanford Parser, typed
dependency representation can be transformed
easily into other common representations, including
RDF (cf. Section 4), and researchers can implement
it into various fields of NLP.
3.3 Zero-pronoun identification
There are a number of problems in this method of
automatic acquisition of typed dependencies amongsyntactic units in Japanese sentences. First of all,this method does not identify zero pronouns in a
sentence. For example, the subject of the example
339

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

sentence is a zero pronoun which refers to the topic“watashi-wa”. This fact must be reflected in thedependency triples, yet the method describe above
fails to do so. We need to have an additional
method to address this issue, and Oya(forthcoming) proposed a simplistic method of
adding appropriate subject zero pronouns in theparser output if a clause does not contain ga-marked
noun phrase; this method is based on Subject
Condition (Dalrymple 2001), which states thatevery verbal predicate must have a subject.
As for non-subject zero pronouns, the zeropronoun identification poses a more difficult
problem. Suppose a verbal predicate in an input
sentence does not contain an object, or a womarked noun phrase. It is only after we can identify
this verbal predicate as a transitive verb that we canput an object zero pronoun for this verbal predicate.
If we put an object zero pronoun for an intransitive
verbal predicate, then this analysis is just incorrect.
Oya (forthcoming) has implemented a method for
objectzero-pronoun
identification
usingmorphological information of verbal predicates andthe probability that a given verbal predicate has its
object, yet the result of this method is the f-scoresof 54 % for identifying object zero pronouns.
Implementing more sophisticated methods for zeropronoun is a question to be addressed in further
research.

4.
Application
representationsofless linguistics-oriented; as far as they know how toprocess RDF documents and the minimum
knowledge of linguistics, they can utilize the
RDF/XML typed-dependency corpora for theirstudy.

5. Conclusion
In this paper, I present a procedure of automaticallydetermining the typed dependency among syntactic
units of Japanese, with the remaining problem ofzero-pronoun identification. I also discussed thepossibilities of applying typed-dependency
representations of English and Japanese sentences
as a format of data for various purposes.
References
Bresnan, J. (2001). Lexical-Functional Syntax.
Blackwell, Oxford.
Dalrymple, M. (2001). Lexical Functional
Grammar. Academic Press.
De Marneffe, M.C. & Manning, C. (2008a). The
Stanford
typed
dependencies
representation. In COLING Workshop on
Cross-framework and Cross-domain
Parser Evaluation. Retrieved June 27,
2009,
from
http://nlp.stanford.edu/pubs/dependenciescoling08.pdf
De Marneffe, M.C. & Manning, C. (2008b).
Stanford Typed Dependencies Manual.
Retrieved June 27, 2009, fromhttp://nlp.stanford.edu/software/dependen
cies_manual.pdf.
Kurohashi, S. and Nagao, M. (1997). Kyoto
University
text
corpusproject.
Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Meeting of
the Association for Natural Language
Processing, 115-118.
Kurohashi, S. and Nagao, M. (1998). Building a
Japanese parsed corpus while improving
the parsing system. Proceedings of the 1st
International Conference on Language
Resources and Evaluation, 719-724.
Berners-Lee, T., Hendler, J. and Lassila, O. (2001).
The Semantic Web. Scientific American
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cfm?id=the-semantic-web
Oya, M. (forthcoming). Treebank-Based Automatic
Acquisition of Wide Coverage, Deep
Linguistic Resources for Japanese. M.Sc.
thesis, Dublin City University.

typed-dependency

Since directed acyclic graph representations oftyped-dependency of sentences are simple andmathematically well-defined, it is easy to transform
it in other common formats for different purposes.
One of the possibilities is to transform it into
Resource Description Framework (RDF).
RDF is a unified framework for describing
resources on the Web. The purpose of RDF is todescribe metadata (data for data), as one of thecomponents of the Semantic Web (Berners-Lee etal. 2001).
The advantage of RDF is that it is standardized
by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a nonprofit organization for standardization of web
technology; they provide the abstract syntax of
RDF http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/, and also
provide the syntax of RDF/XML for actual
applications using RDF http://www.w3.org/TR/rdfsyntax-grammar/.
The validity of an RDF
document can be validated by a Web page provided
by W3C (http://www.w3.org/RDF/Validator/).
By formatting typed-dependency relations ofsentences in a given text into RDF/XML, we canprovide linguistic information to researchers who
are working in various fields of text processing, but
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

How intelligible and acceptable is ‘Japanese English’ pronunciation?
Nozomi Kato

College of Applied International Studies, Tokiwa University
Nozomi.Kato@gmail.com
current study investigates how intelligible andacceptable these raised features of Japanese English
are. The research questions in this study are as
follows:

Abstract
This study examines how Japanese accent inEnglish pronunciation (Japanese English) sounds toAmerican English native speakers (n=14) andJapanese native speakers (n=14) to make certain
contributions to the investigation of the features ofJapanese English functioning as an international
language (EIL). Participants’ evaluation scores ofboth intelligibility and acceptability were comparedin terms of mean ranks and the Mann Whitney Test.
This study shows that CVC 1 could be one ofJapanese English features as EIL, whereas asubstitutive vowel /i/ for /I/, which is often regarded
as one of the features of Japanese English, does notseem to work as EIL.

Q1. How intelligible and acceptable are theselected features of Japanese English (/i/ for/I/, /s/ for /θ/, and CVC for CC) for American
English and Japanese speakers andparticipants with high and low proficiency of
their respective foreign languages?
Q2. Does the frequency of the word used in the
corpus affect intelligibility and acceptabilityof Japanese English?

2

Keywords

2.1
Participants
The participants consisted of two main groups: (1)auditory material contributors and (2) the raters of
the auditory text. The participants in Group (1)were a Japanese graduate student majoring in
English language Teaching, an American
undergraduate student from Utah, USA, and an
American undergraduate student from California,
USA. The participants in group (2) were (a) seven
Japanese speakers with high proficiency English
listening skill, (b) seven Japanese speakers with low
proficiency English listening skill, (c) seven
American English speakers with high proficiency
Japanese listening skill, and (d) seven American
English speakers with low proficiency Japaneselistening skill.
The participants in (a), (b), (c), and (d) wereselected according to their self-assessment in thefollowing criteria (Table.1).

EIL, World Englishes, Asian Englishes, JapaneseEnglish, Pronunciation

1

MethodIntroduction

Now that English plays a significant role as aninternational language, according to Jenkins (2000),
it is not appropriate to hold up as the standard only
a few limited pronunciations—usually Received
Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA).
She and many other scholars such as Kachru (1996)
label these not as errors but varieties of English (theWorld Englishes) with a lot of various accentsdeviating from either RP or GA.
Although issues surrounding World Englishes
have been often discussed, Japanese English has notbeen well established yet; however, more and more
research on the World Englishes including JapaneseEnglish has been carried out in recent years(Nakano et al., 2007). This recent researchdemonstrates some of the features of JapaneseEnglish: the substitutions of /I/ (Nakano et al.,2007; Cross, 2002; Jenkins, 2000), /θ/ (Jolly, 2000;
Jenkins, 2000), and CC 2 (Jenkins, 2000). The

Table 1: Self-assessment for participants group 2
ParticipantsAmericanJapanese

Criteria
The ratio of their understanding ofJapanese films
The ratio of their understanding ofAmerican films

1

consonant + vowel + consonant (Japanese ‘imperfectconsonant cluster’ having an additional vowel inserted
between consonants)
2 consonant + consonant (consonant cluster)

The participants (a) and (c) were those who marked
60% or more in their self-assessment. The

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

and its Japanese accented word sounding like‘sick’ occurs 4333 times. They can beconsidered as a similar frequency pair.
(3) The type in which the words or phrases withJapanese accent occur more often than thosewith American accent. For example, Japanese
accented word for ‘thumb’ sounding like‘some’ occurs as many as 167317 times,
whereas the original sound of ‘thumb’ occurs
only 1096 times.

participants (b) and (d) were those who marked
40% or less in their self-assessment.
2.2
Instrument
Auditory material included the words and phrases
with the following features: /i/, /I/, /s/, /θ/, andconsonant clusters. To avoid any confusion causedby the difference between GA and RP, all thesounds of native speakers of English were collected
only from General American speakers.
Those features were selected to investigate how
Japanese accented English would be perceived asthey are some of the features shown in many
previous studies that Japanese learners of English
often cannot pronounce exactly as the phonetictranscriptions indicate. They were also chosenbecause Jenkins (2000: 158-159) points out thatsome of them are not necessarily pronounced
exactly to be intelligible and the other features need
to be pronounced as the phonetic transcriptions
indicate. According to her research, mostsubstitutions of /θ/ are permissible; vowel sounds
are intelligible as long as maintenance of theirlength contrasts is kept. However, consonant
clusters need to be pronounced as the transcriptions
indicate in order to be intelligible.
This auditory material was also chosen toinvestigate any relationship with frequency of thewords and phrases. This frequency data was takenfrom concordance software called VIEW, which
was developed by Mark Davis at Brigham Young
University. VIEW is concordance software thatallows you to investigate the frequency of theoccurrence of given words or phrase. The system
involves the major corpus data such as British
National Corpus and Corpus of Contemporary
American English.
It can be assumed that the words and phrases
that have relatively high frequency rates may be
more intelligible than the words and phrases thathave relatively low frequency rate not because ofdeviation from phonetic transcription in theirpronunciations, but because of familiarity with thewords. Three types of minimal pairs were chosen toinvestigate such effect:

With such criteria in the selection above, thefollowing words and phrases as auditory material inthis research were listed (Table 2).
Table 2: Auditory Material
GA

JE

JN

Words and Phrases/θ//s/,/ t/○think(88755)/sink(1807)
thick(4500)/sick(4333)
thumb(1096)/some(167317)
thank you(9598)/sank you(0)

/I/

/i/

△

its(160568)/eats(390)live(16834)/leave(19820),
fill(3941)/feel(25367)
give

CC

CVC

×

smoke
play

Notes:JE: Japanese English
JN: Jenkins’ notes toward JE taking from her discriptionof Lingua Franca Core (Jenkins, 2000: 158-159)○: Permissible△: Permissible as long as maintenance of vowel length
contrast is kept
×: Not desirable to be intelligent
The number in the brackets: Occurrence rate from the
Corpus Data (VIEW, Mark Davis at Brigham Young
University)

2.3
Procedure
The data was collected in the following ways:(1) One Japanese speaker’s pronunciations(Japanese English) and two American English
speakers’ pronunciations for all the items wererecorded.
(2) The participants in group 2 listened randomly
to each of three different sounds that wererecorded by the participants in group 1 so thatthe randomness would prevent the participantsin group 2 from easily recognizing whether thesound of each item was American accented orJapanese accented. Each item was pronounced
twice; one of the sounds was American(1) The type in which the words and phrases
with Japanese accent occur less than thosewith American accent. For instance, as seenin Table 2, the word, ‘think’ occurs 88755
times; on the other hand, ‘think’ withJapanese accent, which sounds like ‘sink,’
occurs 1807 times.
(2) The type in which the words or phrases withJapanese accent occur as often as those with
American accent. For example, as shown in
Table 2, the word, ‘thick’ occurs 4500 times342Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

for their foreign languages: Japanese and American
English, those with high proficiency were relatively
stricter, but the difference was smaller comparedwith the difference between American and Japanesejudges according to Table 3.

accented and the other was Japanese accented.
(3) The participants were asked to evaluate eachpronunciation item with a scale of one to six:
Q (a) How clearly can you recognize the listed
word or phrase?
Q (b) How much would you like to accept thispronunciation in international conversation?

Table 3: Mean Ranks on Intelligibility

Notes:
As for (a), one is for the least clear and six for theclearest.
As for (b), one is for the least acceptable and six for themost acceptable.

Mean
Rank

N
14
14
14
14

J/θ/
14.00
12.86
11.46
15.13

J/I/
17.14
9.64
14.57
16.43

JCC
16.71
10.93
10.86
16.79

Notes:
P: Participants
A: American
J: Japanese
L: The participants having low proficiency in Japanese or
English listening skill as their foreign languages
H: The participants having high proficiency in Japaneseor English listening skill as their foreign languages
J/θ/: An assumed Japanese English feature, /s/functioning as a substitution of /θ/J/I/: An assumed Japanese English feature, /i/ functioning
as a substitution of /I/
JCC: An assumed Japanese English feature, an imperfectconsonant cluster with a vowel inserted between two
consonants

Question (a) was used to investigate theintelligibility of Japanese English sound in each
item. Question (b) was used to investigate theacceptability of Japanese English sound in each
item. These are the definitions of intelligibility andacceptability in this study.
2.4
Analysis
Participants’ evaluation scores of both intelligibility
and acceptability were compared in terms of meanranks and a non-parametric test, called Mann
Whitney Test. This test was used to examine groupdifference of intelligibility and acceptability inperception of the accented phonemes (/i/ for /I/ and/s/ for /θ/) and the imperfect consonant cluster(CVC) between American and Japanese participants
and the participants having high and low
proficiency of their respective foreign languages.
These two group contrasts (American vs. Japanese,high vs. low proficiency) were also examined interms of corpus frequency of the item words andphrases.

3

P
A
J
L
H

As seen in Tables 4 and 5, the results of theMann-Whitney Test on intelligibility show that thedifference between American and Japanese
judgments regarding Japanese substitution of /i/ for/I/ is significant (p<.05). This test also shows thatthe participants with high proficiency in the target
languages (Japanese and English as foreign
languages) were significantly stricter in their
judgments regarding /i/ for /I/ than those with low
proficiency (p<.05).
An assumed feature of Japanese English, CVC,a substitution of CC was found to be not significant
but close to significance in both of sets: Americanand Japanese participants, and the participants withlow and high proficiency.

Results

3.1
Analysis on intelligibility
This analysis answers a half of the researchquestion 1 in this study.

Table 4: Mann-Whitney Test on Intelligibility -A J

Q1. How intelligible and acceptable are theselected features of Japanese English (/i/ for/I/, /s/ for /θ/, and CVC for CC) for American
English and Japanese speakers andparticipants with high and low proficiency of
their respective foreign languages?

J/θ/
J/I/
JCC
Mann-Whitney U
90.500 44.500 57.500
Z-.347 -2.478 -1.868
Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed)
.729
.013
.062
None:
AJ: A comparison between the scores marked by theparticipants of native speakers of American English
and Japanese

As seen in Table 3, American judges were stricter
than Japanese judges as a whole. The JapaneseEnglish features: /i/ for /I/ and CVC for CC had anespecially large deference between American andJapanese raters. This means that American
evaluated those items much more strictly.
As for the judgments between the participants
with low and high proficiency in their listening skill
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 5: Mann-Whitney Test on Intelligibility -HL
J/θ/68.000-1.388.165

J/I/
55.000-1.991.046

Q2. Does the frequency of the word used in the
corpus affect intelligibility and acceptabilityof Japanese English?

JCC
58.000-1.845.065

Mann-Whitney U
Z
Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed)None:
HL: A comparison between the scores marked by theparticipants having high and low proficiency ofJapanese or English listening skill as their foreign
languages

Mean ranks and the Mann-Whitney test did notshow any significant difference between Americanand Japanese groups or between high and low
proficiency groups based on frequency of use of thewords and phrases which contains the feature of /s/
for /θ/ on both intelligibility and acceptability
measures. However, difference was observed
between the items having the feature of /i/ for /I/.
Therefore, the following analysis focuses on thisfeature.

3.2
Analysis on acceptability
This analysis answers the other half of the researchquestion 1 shown below:
Q1. How intelligible and acceptable are theselected features of Japanese English (/i/ for/I/, /s/ for /θ/, and CVC for CC) for
American English and Japanese speakers
and participants with high and low
proficiency of their respective foreign
languages?

3.3.1
Intelligibility of /i/ for /I/
The hypothesis of this experiment was thatparticipants might understand frequently used items
better than relatively less frequently used items.
However, Table 9 did not indicate such tendency.
According to Table 2(p.3), the listed item, ‘its’ ismuch more often used than ‘fill’, but the differencein the mean ranks for ‘its’ and ‘fill’ was less than 3in any comparison (see Table 9).

As seen in Table 6, the results of mean ranks were
diverse. This results were different from the resultsof intelligibility, in which American group is always
stricter than Japanese group. The same tendency isshown in the comparison between low and highproficiency groups.

Table 9: Mean Ranks based on frequency of use thewords and phrases having the feature of
J/I/ regarding intelligibility

Table 6: Mean Ranks on Acceptability
Mean
Rank

P
A
J
L
H

N
14
14
14
14

J/θ/
13.71
15.29
13.75
15.25

J/I/
15.79
13.21
15.11
13.89

Mean
Rank

JCC
10.18
18.82
16.32
12.68

J/I/
80.000
-.833
.405

J/θ/
87.500
-.485
.628

J/I/
89.500
-.394
.694

its
18.00
11.00
16.46
12.54

live
17.04
11.96
18.00
11.00

fill
16.18
12.82
14.18
14.82

live(16834)/leave(19820)
fill(3941)/feel(25367)

As seen in Table 10, the Mann-Whitney test
demonstrates that the judgment of ‘its’ between
American and Japanese participants was
significantly different. American listeners were lessable to understand this word with Japanese accentcompared with Japanese listeners. The sametendency is found regarding ‘live.’ It is not
significant, but the probability is close tosignificant.
On the other hand, Table 11 shows nosignificant difference in any items in thecomparison between low and high proficiency
groups.

JCC
37.500-2.798.005

Table 8: Mann-Whitney Test on Intelligibility -HL
Mann-Whitney U
Z
Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed)

give
16.39
12.61
16.54
12.46

its(160568)/eats(390)

Table 7: Mann-Whitney Test on Intelligibility -A J
J/θ/87.000
-.508
.611

N
14
14
14
14

Notes:
The frequency of item use in comparison with minimal
pair is shown below based on VIEW (see 2.2).
give/no minimal pairAs seen Tables 7 and 8, we cannot see any
significant difference in any combinations of groups
in any items except the comparison between
American and Japanese participants judging
Japanese CVC for English CC. The difference issignificant (P <.05).

Mann-Whitney U
Z
Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed)

P
A
J
L
H

JCC
72.500-1.179.238

3.3
Analysis based on frequency of item use
This analysis answers the research question 2.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 10: Mann-Whitney Test on Intelligibility -A J
Mann-WhitneyU
Z
Asymp. Sig.
(2-tailed)give71.500its
49.000live
62.500fill
74.500-1.245.213-2.327.020-1.668.095-1.097.272

Table 11: Mann-Whitney Test on Intelligibility -HL
Mann-WhitneyU
Z
Asymp. Sig.
(2-tailed)give73.000its
96.000live
72.500fill
81.000-1.175
.240

-.095
.925

-1.229
.219

-.797
.425

3.3.2
Acceptability of /i/ for /I/
Mean ranks again did not indicate the effect ofoccurrence rate in perception of the items by
American and Japanese groups and high and low
proficiency groups. The largest difference in meanrank score between items and participants was only
2.08. It is difficult to say that frequency takes anyrole for the listeners’ acceptability from this.
As seen in Table 12, no significant difference
between American and Japanese groups can befound in the Mann-Whitney test. However,according to table 13, the Mann-Whitney test showsthat there was a significant difference inacceptability of the word ‘live’ with Japanese
accent between the participants with low and highproficiency of their target foreign languages. Those
who had low proficiency judged more severely
regarding ‘live’ compared with those who had highproficiency (p <.05).

4

Q1. How intelligible and acceptable are theselected features of Japanese English (/i/ for/I/, /s/ for /θ/, and CVC for CC) for American
English and Japanese speakers andparticipants with high and low proficiency of
their respective foreign languages?
Q2. Does the frequency of the word used in the
corpus affect intelligibility and acceptabilityof Japanese English?
Intelligibility
Comparison between Japanese andAmericanRegarding intelligibility, American participants
seem to be stricter than Japanese participants as awhole. This is observed in the assessment of /i/ for/I/. Although it is not statistically significant, thesimilar tendency is found in CVC for CC. Thistendency is understandable because it is natural thatJapanese listeners can understand Japanese
speakers’ English with Japanese accent more easily
than American listeners.
4.1.2

give
94.500its
89.500

live
69.500fill
84.500

-.165
.869

-.402
.688

-.1.372
.170

-.633
.527

Table 13: Mann-Whitney Test on Acceptability -HL
Mann-WhitneyU
Z
Asymp. Sig.
(2-tailed)This study investigates the answers of the following
questions:

4.1
4.1.1

Table 12: Mann-Whitney Test on Acceptability -A J
Mann-WhitneyU
Z
Asymp. Sig.
(2-tailed)with the accents of the target languages.
It is also interesting to compare the results ofperception between vowels and consonants in bothstudies. Schaiper (1992) shows that vowels are themost problematic features for listeners to perceive;
however, this study shows that only the speakers of
the target language prioritize the vowel /I/.

give
69.500its
70.500live
49.000fill
93.500-1.339.180-1.306.192-2.303
.021

-.210
.834

Comparison between high and low
proficiency
The difference is relatively smaller in thiscomparison than in the comparison between
American and Japanese groups. However it seems
that participants with high proficiency of languages
judge more strictly than those with low proficiency.
This is also natural because people with language
training know how to assess the level of others inlanguages. This tendency is also found in Schaiper(1992) even though the target language is different(Spanish in his study).

4.2
Acceptability
The only thing that is significant is the difference inthe feature of CVC for CC between American andJapanese participants. It seems that Japaneselisteners are quite critical in imperfect consonant
cluster. Japanese people do use imperfect consonant
cluster, but in many cases, they may feelembarrassed. It may be useful to make Japanese

Discussion

It is interesting to compare the results in Schaiper(1992) with this study concerning raters’
proficiency in the target language. Both studies
show that those who have target language
familiarity can understand the words and phrases
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

rating the sound of CVC for CC. This Phenomenon
may tell us a potential of CVC to be a part ofJapanese English.
Lastly, frequency of item use specifies that themost problematic and confusing feature was /i/ for/I/.
The recommendation for EIL from this study is:learners aware how intelligible and acceptable CVC
is. This may help Japanese people feel more
confident speaking Japanese English.
4.3
Frequency
Does the frequency of the word used in the corpus
affect intelligibility and acceptability of JapaneseEnglish? For this question, the results of meanranks and the Mann-Whitney tests showed which
items in what comparison are influenced byfrequency.
The results suggested there is no difference inthe feature of /s/ for /θ/, whereas you can see somedifference in the feature of /i/ for /I/.

1. Mastery of the vowel sound /I/ is necessary.
2. CVC for CC might be permissible.
For further study, it may be useful to investigate notjust at the word and phrase level but also sentence
and paragraph level so that one can apply thefindings into more authentic situations. It will also
be useful to have more diversity in participant’s
selection if one investigates EIL.

4.3.1
Intelligibility
American and Japanese participants perceived theword, ‘its’ significantly different. American raters
were much more severe in rating this word.
Although not statistically significant, similartendency was found in ‘live.’
This may explain that Japanese people, who do
not have /I/ in their first language, do not much careor notice their mispronunciation of /I/; on the other
hand American people knowing the distinction
between /I/ and /i/ do notice and care themispronunciation.

6

Cross, J. (2002). A Comparison of Japanese andEnglish Suprasegmental Pronunciation andan Aid to Raising Learner Awareness. The
Language Teacher 26,4, 9-13.
Davis, M. (n.d.). VIEW (Variation In English Words
and phrases). Retrieved December, 2006,
from http://view.byu.edu/
Jenkins, J. (2000). The Phonology of English as an
International Language. Oxford: OUP.
Jolly, Y.S. (2000). Articulatory Phonetics for
In-service Teacher Training. The Language
Teacher 24,8, 11-14.
Kachru, B. (1992). The Other Tongue. Chicago:
University of Illinois Press.
Nakano et al. (2007). On-Demand Internet Course
Book:
World
Englishesand
Miscommunications.
Tokyo:
WasedaUniversity International.
Schaiper, K. (1992). Native Speaker Reaction to
Non-Native
Speech.
The
ModernLanguage Journal 76, 309-319.

4.3.2
Acceptability
As for acceptability, the difference comes frombetween a low and high proficiency comparison.
The participants having high proficiency in thetarget languages seem to mark more critically in thesound of ‘live’ hearing /liv/ instead of /lIv/. Eachword in this minimal pair of live and leave occurs
with almost the same frequency. This might be thereason why they would like to keep the distinction
between them to avoid any confusion. Anotherspeculation is that those who had high proficiency
might know how to assess this vowel sound withsome phonetic training.

5

References

Conclusion

This study discussed the intelligibility andacceptability of selected features of JapaneseEnglish which may relate to the selection of thefeatures that could function as EIL.
As for intelligibility, the point should be raisedthat American listeners assess more severely thanJapanese listeners regarding /i/ as a substitution of/I/ and CVC as a substitution of CC. It is also clearthat people with high proficiency in the target
language tend to have stricter rating for such
Japanese accent.
Concerning acceptability, American listeners
tend to be more generous than Japanese listeners
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

A Case Study on Developing a Vocabulary Testing
Norifumi Ueda1; Eiichiro Tsutsui 2;, Yusuke Kondo 3; and Michiko Nakano 4

1

School of Foreign Language, Mejiro University, 2Center for Foreign Language, Hiroshima International, 3Center for Foreign Language, Ritsumeikan University and 4School of Education, Waseda University
uedan@mejiro.ac.jp, 2tsutsui@ic.hirokoku-u.ac.jp

1

3

ykondo@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp,

The aim of this study is to develop a vocabulary test
for testing vocabulary knowledge which is related
to semantic and syntactic restrictions in choosing
words in a context (the depth of vocabularyknowledge).
For the sake of this purpose, we chose basic
verbs: hear and listen (Group 1); see, look, watch,gaze, and stare (Group 2); say, talk, speak, tell andutter (Group 3). The verbs in each group have
similar meanings but occur in different syntactic orsemantic circumstances. We made 8 items forGroup 1, 20 items for Group 2 and 23 items forGroup 3. In each test item, there is a blank to be
filled in by the most appropriate verb(s). 280
university students participated in this test session.
We selected the items by Winsteps and created a
new vocabulary test with 37 test items.

1.1
Vocabulary knowledge
Many researchers discuss the characteristics ofvocabulary knowledge. Vocabulary knowledge isdivided into two types: perceptive and productive
vocabulary. (Nation, 1990).
Richards (1976) described vocabularyknowledge as follows:
1.

2.

Keywords
Language testing, vocabulary test, vocabularyacquisition
3.

Introduction
Many types of vocabulary tests for second language
learners have been developed. In the first section,
we will review what characteristics arehypothesized as vocabulary knowledge, and whatkinds of vocabulary tests have been developed. In
the second section, we will report thedevelopmental process in a lexical test. Then, we
will discuss the problems found in this study.

Vocabularyknowledge
Vocabulary test

nakanom@waseda.jp

knowledge such as Lex 30 (Meara & Fitzpatrick,2000). In the followings, we review what
vocabulary knowledge is hypothesized byresearchers, and, then, what vocabulary tests
estimate what kinds of vocabulary knowledge.

Abstract

1

4

4.
5.

6.

and
7.

Many types of vocabulary tests for second language
learners have been developed and these can be
categorized into two types generally. One type is fortesting the width of vocabulary knowledge like
Nation’s Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation, 1990) andthe other, for testing the depth of vocabulary8.

The native speaker of a language continues toexpand his vocabulary in adulthood, whereas
there is comparatively little development ofsyntax in adult life.
Knowing a word means knowing the degree ofprobability of encountering that word in speechor print. For many words we also know the sortof words most likely to be found associatedwith the word.
Knowing a word implies knowing thelimitations on the use of the word according tovariations of function and situation.
Knowing a word means knowing the syntactic
behaviour associated with the word.
Knowing a word entails knowledge of theunderlying form of a word and the derivations
that can be made from it.
Knowing a word entails knowledge of the
network of associations between that word andother words in the language.
Knowing a word means knowing a semantic
value of a word.
Knowing a word means knowing the different
meaning s associated with a word.

He claimed that learners should learn syntactic andsemantic usage, derivational forms, associations,and word frequencies of the words.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

word level, and 10000-word level.
Each section of Vocabulary levels test
consists of six words and three word definitions.
The definitions in one section come from the words
which are included in the higher level of the word
frequencies: for example, the words from the
2000-word level use words in the first 1000 words
for the definitions. In this test, the vocabularylevels of testees are estimated by the scores.

Some researchers divide learners’ vocabularyknowledge into two types of knowledge: depth andwidth of vocabulary knowledge. The learners’
width of vocabulary knowledge means how much
vocabulary learners know, while the learners’ depthof vocabulary knowledge refers to how deeply or
how detailed information the learners have aboutcertain words.
1.2

Vocabularyknowledge
fromtheperspective of psycholinguistics
There are many studies on vocabulary relations
between concepts, and words both in L1and L2, in
L2 acquisition process in bilingual studies. In
their study on relations between conceptual
representations and two languages (L1 and L2) inthe process of vocabulary acquisition by L2 learners,
Ding et al. (2005) and Ijaz (1986) suggest that L2
learners should integrate the conceptual differences
between two languages in the process of acquiring
the other vocabulary.
Ueda (2007) studied the L2 learning process
by Japanese learners of English, where English
prepositions were used. The results of the study
showed conceptual differences between two
languages were integrated in the process ofacquiring English vocabulary.

1.3.2
Tests for depth of vocabulary knowledge
Tests for depth of vocabulary knowledge intend toevaluate paradigmatic (synonyms), syntagmatic(collocations) and analytic knowledge (associations
which represent one aspect or components of themeaning of the stimulus word and is likely to form
part of its dictionary.) of vocabulary. (Read, 1993).
In Lex 30, for example, all test items are
selected based on the following criteria:
1. All the stimulus words are highly frequent.
2. None of the stimulus words typically elicits asingle, dominant primary response.
3. Each of the stimulus words typically generates
responses which are not common words.
(Meara & Fitzpartick, 2000)

In this test, testees were asked to write words using
free word association. The collected data wereanalyzed according to the word frequencies. Scores
were given by word frequency level. (For example,
Words in Level 0 and l were given zero points, andthose in other levels than Level 0 and 1, one point.)

1.3
Vocabulary tests
Many vocabulary tests have been developed forevaluating learner’s vocabulary size and knowledge.
Different
researchersdeveloped
different
vocabulary tests to measure vocabulary knowledge,“depending on their view of vocabularyknowledge…, their preference for a particulardimension of knowledge, and their interest in either
size or depth” (Laufer & Goldstein, 2004).
Generally, however, these tests can be categorized
into two types generally: One type is for testing thewidth of vocabulary knowledge like Nation’s
Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation, 1990) and the other,
for testing the depth of vocabulary knowledge suchas Lex 30 (Meara & Fitzpatrick, 2000). We will
review how these two types of vocabulary tests
have been made to evaluate width and depth ofvocabulary knowledge in the next section.

1.4

Problems in Vocabulary tests for depth
vocabulary knowledge
As we saw in the previous sections, the tests toevaluate width of knowledge use word frequencies
to estimate learners’ vocabulary size, whereas thetests for evaluation of depth of knowledge use word
associations task.
Considering vocabulary knowledge from theperspective of L2 language acquisition, we should
include syntactic and semantic aspects, as Richards(1976) pointed out (Vocabulary knowledge 3, 4, 6,
7, and 8) ,in vocabulary testing, especially in thetests for vocabulary depth knowledge in order toexamine integration of conceptual differences
between two languages in the acquisition process,which can show L2 learners’ proficiency level tosome extent. This is because associations are justone aspect of depth of vocabulary knowledge.

1.3.1
Tests for width of vocabulary knowledge
Tests for width of vocabulary knowledge intend toevaluate how much the learners retain in theirmental lexicon.
The width of vocabularyknowledge is estimated by word frequencies.
In Vocabulary levels test (Nation, 1990), forexample, items are randomly selected from eachword frequency level: 2000-word level,
3000-word level, 5000-word level, the university348

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

2

items.

A case study of developing a test for
depth of vocabulary knowledge

Table: The results of calculation by Winsteps

We aimed at developing a vocabulary test toevaluate depth of L2 vocabulary knowledge. In thetest, synonyms were used, test items of which
included syntactic and semantic information. The
subjects were required to distinguish synonyms byusing syntactic and semantic knowledge.

2.3
MethodSubjects were asked to answer the all the questions.
There is no time limitation for answering the items.
All the items were analyzed to calculate infit
and outfit by Winsteps 3.68.1., an IRT software, toselect good items. All the test items, in fact,
consisted of multiple choices (or the test items
developed here were not simple one answer to one
test item), because this type of test items could not
calculated by Winsteps. Hence we counted one
choice as one test item: For example, in a question(Did you () that noise? [hear/ listen]), we
regarded this as two test items.

2.1
Subjects
280 university students participated as test subjects.
They were from two different universities and they
had various academic backgrounds: 8 subjects
majors in robotics; 15, in information
communication technology; 5, in architecturetechnology; 5, in socio-environmental design; 44, in
Pharmaceutical Sciences; 22, nursing; 36, in
psychology; 27, in social welfare; 86, in social
information; and 32, in media.
2.2
Test items
As the test items, we chose basic verbs: hear andlisten (Group 1); see, look, watch, gaze, and stare(Group 2); say, talk, speak, tell and utter (Group 3).
The verbs in each group have similar meanings but
occur in different syntactic or semantic
circumstances. The subjects were required to know
syntactic and semantic knowledge to use thesynonyms. This vocabulary test aimed to estimate
how much knowledge the learners have to use
synonyms properly. We made 8 items for Group 1,
20 items for Group 2 and 23 items for Group 3. Ineach test item, there is a blank to be filled in by themost appropriate verb(s). The total number of thetest items was 53. Here are some examples (inTable 1):

2.4
Results
We used Rasch Modeling to evaluate item fit foreach test item (in Table 2). We found a lot of
misfit items 1 and 41 items were left. (SeeAppendix.)
The good items using verbs in Group 1 wereas follows: for hear, Item No.1, 2, 3, 5, and 7; andfor listen, item No. 4, 6 and 8.
The proper items using verbs in Group 2
were: for tell, item number 9, 10, 11, 18 and 21; forsay, item No. 13, 14, 15, 19 and 20; for speak, item
No. 9, 11, 12, 13, and 17; for talk, item No. 9, 13,
and 16; and for utter, item No. 13, 14 and 20
The good fit items for the verbs in Group 3
were: for see, item No. 22, 26, 30 and 35; for watch,item No. 23, 24, 27, 32, 35 and 37; for look, item
No. 24, 29 and 30; for view, item No. 24 and 33; forstare, item No. 33; for gaze, item No. 28, 34 and35; and for browse, item No. 24, 25, 27 and 36.

Table 1: Examples of the test items[hear/ listen]Choose the proper word/words.
1. Did you () that noise? [hear/ listen]

Table 2: The results of the calculation by Winsteps

2. I () to music
3. I can () somebody knocking thedoor.
4. I told him not to go, but he wouldn't().
5. She doesn't ()very well.
6. You can () that news again.
7. (), I'm sure you can work this out.
Do you (
) me?
1

INFIT

OUTFIT

RAW
Score

Model
Measure

MNSQ

ZSTD

MNSQ

ZSTD

Mean

64.8

0

1

0.1

1

0.1

S.D.

45.9

1.05

0.03

0.5

0.7

0.7

MAX.

272

2.67

1.09

3.1

1.43

3.3

MIN

5

-5.67

0.93

-1.4

0.78

-1.4

In McNamara (1996), mean square (MNSQ)
values greater than 1.3 show significant misfit, andthe values below 0.75, significant overfit. But
Winsteps adopts the criterion that MNSQ values
between 0.5 and 1.5 are productive.

The CGI on the internet was made for this test, andsubjects accessed the internet and answer all the349Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

3

7. (8. Do you (Conclusion

In this case study, we report the new type of tests
dealing with the depth of lexical knowledge. Thiskind of test is very rare and very important toestimate L2 learner’s correct vocabulary knowledge.
This study can contribute very much to teaching
setting. The multiple choices we adopted in thisvocabulary test are difficult to calculate by
Winsteps. However, to consider the guess ratio by
three parameter model, we have to gather more than
1000 subjects. This point is still left to evaluate,
so we will explore the better items in further study.

), I'm sure you can work this out.
) me?

[Tell, say, speak, talk, utter.]
9. You should ()me your name andaddress.
10. I wouldn't () so
11. Who was that you were () to at the
party?
12. He refused to ()his name.
13. Do you () English
14. He never () a word.
15. We need to ()before meeting.
16. She () a sigh.
17. The red light () you when themachine is ready to use.
18. I would like to () about our culture.
19. The stress of work () on theirmarriage.
20. The clock () it is five now.
21. Most babies start to () by 18 months.

References
Dong, Y., Gui, S. and MacWhinney, B. (2005).
Shared and Separate meanings in thebilingual mental lexicon. Bilingualism:
Language and Cognition 8, 3. 221-238.
Ijaz, H. (1986). Linguistic and cognitive
determinants of lexical acquisition in asecond language. Language Learning,
36, 401- 451.
Laufer, B. and Goldstein, Z. (2004). Testing
Vocabulary Knowledge: Size, Strength, andComputer Adaptiveness.
Language
Learning 54:3, 399-436.
Reed, J (1993). The development of a new measureof L2 vocabulary knowledge. Language
Testing, 10, 355-371.
Richards, J. (1976). The role of vocabulary teaching.
TESOL Quarterly. 10-1, 77-89.
McNamara, T. (1996). Measuring Second Langue
Performance. Addioson Wesley Longman.
Meara, P. and Fitzpatrick, T. (2000). Lex 30: an
improved methods of assessing productive
vocabulary in an L2. System 28, 19-30.
Nation, I. S. P. (1990). Teaching and Learning
Vocabulary.
HeinleandHeinlePublishers: Boston.
Ueda, N (2007). Developmental Processes in the L2
Mental Lexicon. Unpublished M.Sc.
Dissertation: The University of Edinburg.

[see, watch, look at, view, stare, gaze, browse]
22. I can() that you're not very happy
with the situation.
23. Jack () them slowly crime up thewall.
24. Sorry, I wasn't ().
25. Tourists came to () the gardens
every year.
26. She doesn't like being () at.
27. She () at me in disbelief when I told
her the news.
28. She () through the magazine.
29. I can () why.
30. I () the baseball game.
31. () at me.
32. The building is more beautiful when you() it from the river.
33. It is rude to ().
34. He () in a library.
35. Can I() your ticket?
36. Can you () my bag?
37. She was () vacantly into the space.

Appendix: Test items after the selection by
Winsteps.
[hear/ listen]
1. Did you () that noise?
2. I () to music
3. I can () somebody knocking thedoor.
4. I told him not to go, but he wouldn't().
5. She doesn't ()very well.
6. You can () that news again.
350

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Range Analysis of Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL)
Reflection Work Sheet: A Pilot Study
Satoshi Yoshida, Hideyuki Kumaki and Akiko Watanabe

Waseda University
satoshi-tko.jpn@akane.waseda.jp, t-kumaki@mua.biglobe.ne.jp,
aki49@fuji.waseda.jp

courses were designed to offer the participating
students not only the opportunities to communicate
in English with Asian students, but also theopportunities to develop their “transferable skills”
such as facilitation skills, which are adaptable
generic skills for life and work (Nakano et al, 2008).
In order to enhance these skills, for example, every
student was expected to be a facilitator in their joint
sessions. Table 1 summarizes the schedule of
CCDL classes dealing with Social and Global
Issues as the main discussion topic.

Abstract
This study analyzes the reflection work sheets
written by Cross-Cultural Distance Learning(CCDL) participants and examines if there are
significant differences in vocabulary use among
three different nationalities: Chinese, Taiwaneseand Japanese (Waseda) students. We employedrange analysis and adopted the resulting outputs
called Lexical Frequency Profiles (LFP: Laufer andNation, 1995) as the parameter of lexical richness.
All the range analyses were run with 16 base wordlists which were developed by Paul Nation on thebasis of the vocabulary frequency levels observedin British National Corpus (BNC), and the conceptof word families (Bauer and Nation, 1993). The
participants in this study were 66 students who
participated in CCDL courses in the fall semester of
2008, and submitted the reflection work sheets as aclass assignment. We grouped these students into
three groups: Chinese students (N=22), Taiwanese
students (N=22) and Japanese students (N=22), andcompared the resulting percentages of word types
calculated for each frequency level according to thebase word lists. The result showed that Taiwanese
students used frequent words in their reflection
sheets more than Chinese and Japanese students.
The result also implied that Japanese students
tended to use relatively infrequent words more than
Taiwanese students.

Table 1: Schedule Overview (as cited in Nakano, Yokota
and Karseras, 2009: 1)
Social&Global Issues Schedule Overview
WEEKreparation/Join TOPICSKILLSHOMEWORK
W1
Facilitations
None
Preparation
Intercultural
HW1: Reading facilitation skills
W2
Introduction
Translation
HW2: Reading & Video Dr.
W3 Joint Class 1
Live On
Nakano's lecture & conversation
HW3: Reading Images of
W4 Preparation HappinessIndividualism/
HW4: Reading Value Orientations:
Factors
W5 Joint Class 2
Collectivism
Individualism and Collectivism
W6 Preparation
High/Low context HW5: Reflection Paper Topic 1&2
Family Roles
Communication HW6: Research Family Roles
W7 Joint Class 3
styles
HW7: Reading Support network for
W8 Preparation International
Relationship
International Students
Students
HW8: Research international
W9 Joint Class 4
development
Students at Your University
HW9: Reflection Paper Topic 3&4
W10 Preparation
Agreement
Climate Change
HW10: Research Climate Change
W11 Joint Class 5
Styles
W12
Multiple Intelligences HW11: Power Point
HW12: Rehearsal
W13PowerPoint
Post Joint Clas Presentation
W14
Presentation
W15
Delivery

Keywords
Range Analysis, Lexical Richness, Vocabulary Use,
Lexical Frequency Profiles, Word Types, Word
Families, Cross-Cultural Distance Learning

1

As in Table 1, CCDL courses consist of three
types of activities: Preparation sessions, Joint
lessons and Post Joint lessons. In 2008, these
CCDL courses dealt with four topics: Happiness
Factors, Family Roles, International Students, andClimate Change; as current social and global issues.
All the participating students were supposed to
study the same topics along with the schedule bystudying the same textbook.

Introduction

1.1
CCDL at Waseda University
Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL) courses
at Waseda University in 2008 were joint cyberinteractive courses with East Asian Universities.
These courses provided theme-based discussion
using on-line chat system called LiveOn. CCDL
351

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

studies of L2 vocabulary use (e.g., Laufer, 1991).
As for the measure of lexical richness, it can be
estimated by quantifying the varieties of active
lexes observed in L2 productions. According toLaufer and Nation (1995), there are various
formulas to estimate the richness, -e.g., lexicaloriginality, lexical density, lexical sophisticationand lexical variation (i.e., type/token ratio).
Laufer and Nation (ibid), however, pointed out thatthese frequently used measures would possess someshortcomings in their calculations. In order toovercome these shortcomings, they introduced a
new measure of lexical richness called Lexical
Frequency Profile (LFP: Laufer and Nation, 1995),
in which lexical richness were to be measured
based on some frequency levels of vocabulary.
They claimed that LFP would be a reliable measureof lexical richness, showing its considerable
correlations with direct measures of vocabulary size,
the feasibility to differentiate the learners withdifferent language proficiency, and the consistencyof the calculation. Recently, therefore, LFP has
been frequently employed in the studies of
productive L2 vocabulary (e.g., Sugimori, 2008).
In this study, therefore, we empirically adopted
LFP as a measure of lexical richness and compare
the differences in vocabulary use among CCDL
participants with different nationalities. In sodoing, for data analysis, we employed Range
Program and the attached base word lists, both ofwhich enable us to run range analysis for producing
LFP, as an analytic tool. The following section
shows how to use Range Program and how to read
LFP.

1.2
Reflection work sheet
The reflection work sheets collected in this study
were one of the class assignments, in which thestudents were supposed to summarize what theylearned from joint lessons as well as the preparation
activities they joined. The main purpose of thisreflective writing is to make students more
conscious about their own subjective experiences,
specifically reflecting back on the discussion andinternalizing their learning by writing, and noticing
changes in their own perceptual awareness (Nakano
et al, 2009). That is, these reflection papers could
be one of the indicators which would reflect to what
extent the students could grasp the complicatedissues in each class, as well as, to what extent thestudents could come to function the academic
words (e.g., key words for each topic) as theirproductive vocabulary. Therefore, it would bevaluable to put their papers into analysis, in order toevaluate their lexical development in terms oflexical richness.
For data collection, we sought out the classes inwhich both Waseda and foreign students submitted
their reflection work sheets. We should carefully
choose the classes because all the Waseda students
were supposed to submit their reflection work
sheets after each joint session whereas foreign
students did not have to do so. Because it was
optional for them, in some classes, we could notcollect the reflection work sheets from the foreign
students. In other classes, on the other hand, all
the foreign students opted to write their reflective
sheets based on the class schedule shown in Table 1.
Because we could expect all the participating
students in the latter classes to be highly motivatedto study the topics in CCDL classes, we collected
the reflection work sheets from these classes andcompare the participants’ vocabulary use among
CCDL participants with different nationalities.

2

2.2
Range Analysis and LFPIn this section, we briefly introduce how Range
Program works for estimating lexical richness andwhat the LFP shows us, according to the instruction
papers offered by Paul Nation. Range analysis canbe implemented by installing the written
compositions to be analyzed and some Base Word
Lists (BWL) into Range Program. The word lists
should be edited and separated on the basis of somefrequency levels of the words contained in it,
because LFP is to be calculated for frequency level.
Now, two set of useful BWL are available on thewebsite of Paul Nation. One of the BWL set iscalled General Service List, which is separated into
3 types of BWL: most frequent 1000 wordfamilies-list, second frequent 1000 families-list andUniversity level Word list (for details, see Laufer
and Nation, 1995). Another set of BWL isdeveloped by Paul Nation, on the basis of frequency
levels observed in British National Corpus (BNC).
This set contains 16 lists (for details, see next
section).

Background2.1

Lexical Richness and L2 Learner’s
written productions
According to Laufer and Nation (1995), there areseveral factors which would affect the quality of L2
written composition, such as lexical richness,familiarity with the topic and writing skills.
Among these affecting factors, the concept oflexical richness has drawn the attentions from L2
researchers, because, if a certain measure could
reliably estimate the richness, it would not only be
the indicator of the quality of some L2 production,
but also provide some useful information about the
vocabulary size and L2 proficiency level of thelearners. In fact, the concept of lexical richness
has been frequently adopted or adapted in the352Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguisticsof (Word) Families, which would be calculated withsome treatments for the words in NiL (e.g., Laufer
and Nation, 1995). In this study, however, we
adopted the resulting percentages of Word Types as
the parameter of lexical richness and used the mean
percentages for group comparison. We believedthat our decision would be reasonable because theconcept of Word Families seemed to be developed,
in particular, for reducing the vocabulary load in
READING, focusing on base and affixes of thewords (Bauer and Nation, 1993).
Therefore,
several criteria that were referred to in grouping thebands of words for receptive use would not beapplicable to categorizing L2 productive vocabulary(e.g., predictability of the meaning of affix).
Hence, for group comparison, we employed theresulting percentages of Word Types calculated foreach frequency level.

In range analysis, the program divides the sortsof vocabulary, used in the written composition, into
different frequency levels, according to the levels
defined by BWL. Therefore, the LFP, an output ofrange analysis, shows the summary of the resulting
proportions of words at different frequency levels.
Table 2 shows an example of LFP, which was
calculated by analyzing the abstract of this paperwith installing BNC 16 word lists.
Table2: LFP of ABSTRACT of this study (example)
WORD
LIST

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
NiL
Total

TOKENS/%

138/ 70.77
25/ 12.82
5/
2.56
9/
4.62
2/
1.03
0/
0
1/
0.51
3/
1.54
1/
0.51
0/
0
0/
0
0/
0
0/
0
2/
1.03
3/
1.54
0/
0
6/
3.08
195

TYPES/

70/
18/
3/
7/
2/
0/
1/
1/
1/
0/
0/
0/
0/
1/
3/
0/
5/
112

%

FAMILIES

62.5
59
16.1
16
2.68
1
6.25
7
1.79
2
0
0
0.89
1
0.89
1
0.89
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.89
1
2.68
3
0
0
4.46 ?????
92

3

Method3.1
The Participants
The participants in this study were 66 students who
were all enrolled in CCDL courses dealing withSocial and Global Issues as the main discussion
topic. All the participants submitted their firstreflection work sheet as a class assignment. Thesestudents were divided into three groups according
to his/her nationality: Chinese students group(N=22), Taiwanese students group (N=22) andJapanese (i.e., Waseda) students group (N=22).
3.2
Reflection Work Sheet
The reflection work sheets analyzed in this study
were written on topics 1&2 -i.e., “introduction” and“happiness factors”. Because all the participants
took some lectures or joined the preparation classes,
we expected them to have some familiarity with the
topics. The students were assigned to write thepaper in 400-450 words. The mean length of thepapers written by Chinese students, Taiwanese
students and Japanese students were 442.5, 459.7
and 386.6 respectively.

Note: NiL stands for “Not in any list”.
As Table 2 shows, LFP is calculated for Tokens,(Word) Types and (Word) Families, in which thenumber of words and resulting percentages are
given. Along with the results of 16 word lists, we
can find the number of the word types in the resultof NiL, which means “word types not found in anylist”. That is, they are a set of words which are notfound in these 16 lists. In this analysis, we canfind that 5 words, “LFP”, “Waseda”, “CCDL”,“BNC” and “Cross-Cultural” are not found in any
list of BNC 16 word lists. Regarding the case of“Cross-Cultural”, it is categorized in NiL becauseof a hyphen occurred in the two words. If weseparate the words into “Cross” and “Cultural”, theprogram categorizes them into the appropriate
frequency levels. As for the question mark whichappears in the column of FAMILIES, it indicatesthe possibility that the word in NiL may or may not
be categorized into word families.
The important values in LFP are resulting
percentages of each measure. The most frequently
reported values in the previous studies were those

3.3
Analysis
3.3.1
Range Analysis with BNC 16 word lists
We employed range analysis for analyzing thelearners’ reflection work sheets and adopted theresulting LFP as the parameter of lexical richness.
All the range analyses were run with BNC 16
word lists. Therefore, resulting LFP showed the
proportions of the vocabulary used in thecomposition, by 17 categories (BWL1-16 plus NiL),
as in Table 2. According to user-guide attached toRange Program, among 16 BWL, the lists 1-14
contains each 1000 word family which werecategorized on the basis of frequency levels,
353

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

whereas lists 15 and 16 are not frequency-based,
but the lists of pronouns and of interjections
respectively. Therefore, it should be noted that
BWL 1-14 precisely indicates the frequency levelsof vocabulary, that is, base word list 1 stands for thelist which contains most frequent 1000 wordfamilies, whereas basic word list 14 contains mostinfrequent 1000 word families.

4

Results and Discussions

4.1
Range Analysis
Table 3 shows the mean percentages and standard
deviations of Word Types observed in eachfrequency level.
Table 3: Mean percentages and standard deviationsof Word Types for each frequency level

3.3.2
Data Processing
Prior to the analysis, we edited all the reflection
sheets to make the resulting LFP as stable. That is,
we discussed how to deal with errors (e.g.,
miss-spelled words), proper nouns, hyphenatedwords and words or sentences which were notproduced by CCDL participants, which frequently
occurred in the reflection work sheets. As thetentative solutions, we followed four procedures asfollows.
(1) Errors
If any, we remained all the words with somemistakes in spelling or usage, intact, so that we
could observe them in NiL list.
(2) Proper Nouns
If any, we DID NOT exclude the proper nouns thatappeared in body text of the reflection sheets, sothat if they were not included in base word list 15,
we could observe them in NiL list.

ChineseTaiwanese

Japanese

Word
List

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
NiL

80.84
11.53
2.10
1.17
0.51
0.37
0.09
0.21
0.19
0.05
0.15
0.00
0.04
0.02
0.04
0.00
2.67

3.67
2.07
1.32
0.75
0.50
0.51
0.19
0.28
0.26
0.17
0.27
0.00
0.14
0.09
0.12
0.00
2.66

83.92
9.14
2.13
0.85
0.34
0.35
0.06
0.49
0.04
0.02
0.16
0.02
0.00
0.00
0.04
0.03
2.40

4.80
2.66
1.22
0.83
0.49
0.41
0.16
0.55
0.19
0.09
0.34
0.09
0.00
0.00
0.19
0.14
1.92

80.88
10.84
2.59
1.26
0.49
0.68
0.20
0.33
0.18
0.04
0.04
0.02
0.08
0.04
0.19
0.02
2.10

4.14
2.35
1.21
0.77
0.52
0.54
0.40
0.42
0.26
0.13
0.14
0.10
0.18
0.14
0.37
0.10
0.91

Note: NiL stands for “Not in any list”. (N=22) for
three groups.

(3) Hyphenated words
If any, we remained all the hyphenated words intact(e.g., “self-confidence” and “self-efficacy”), so that
we could observe them in NiL list.

As in Table 3, the types of words in BWL 1, 2
and 3 could cover about 95 percent of the
productive vocabulary observed in the reflection
sheets, written by three groups of CCDL
participants.

(4) Private Information etc.
We excluded all the private information about thewriter (i.e., Name, student ID), and information
about the courses and the assignment (e.g., thename of the courses, the title of the paper), andsentences that were not produced by the writer (e.g.,questions and tasks offered by the instructor) fromthe text with the help of “ignore <>”function
installed in Range Program.

4.2
ANOVA on BWL 1, 2, 3 and above 3000
We run One-way independent ANOVA (analysis ofvariance) to compare the vocabulary use among
three groups, in terms of the resulting percentagesof Word Types calculated for each frequency level.
In so doing, we combined the percentages observedin the BWL 4-14 and regarded the cumulative
percentage as the proportion of “above 3000”
frequency level; in which the percentages of BWL
15 and 16 were also combined because of their low
percentages. As shown in Table 3, a large amountof words that appeared in the reflection work sheets
could be covered by BWL 1, 2 and 3, so that it
would be meaningless to compare the percentagesof vocabulary in BWL 4-16 separately.
Webelieved that the inclusion of these percentages
would be reasonable because Laufer and Nation(1995), in which GSL word lists were employed,

We edited all the reflection sheets based on thefour procedures above, and run range analysis oneach reflection paper. Although our procedures
were different from those in Laufer and Nation(1995) or those recommended by instruction papers
by Paul Nation, we believed that our procedures
would enable us to see the detailed contents of thestudents’ reflection work sheets, in terms of thewords in NiL. We will discuss the features ofthese words in section 3.3.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

also carried out this sort of procedure. Hence, we
put the resulting percentages of Word Types
calculated for BWL 1, 2, 3 and for above 3000 in
ANOVA. As for resulting percentage of NiL, we
did not statistically analyze because each of them
contained some errors, proper nouns or hyphenatedwords (see 2.3.1). Instead we will discuss thefeatures of these words in section 3.3.
Table 4 summarizes the results of ANOVA withmean percentages and standard deviations of Word
Types observed in BWL 1, 2, 3 and above 3000.

length of the reflection sheets by Taiwanese
students, however, we should carefully interpretthese results.

Table 4: Mean percentages and standard deviationsof Word Types for each BWL and result of
ANOVA

Table 5: Words which were spelled correctly but not
categorized into BNC 16 word lists <22words>

Chinese(SD)
Taiwanese(SD)
Japanese(SD)
F-testp-value

BWL 1 BWL 3

BWL 3

80.84
11.53
3.67
2.07
83.92
9.14
4.80
2.66
80.88
10.84
4.14
2.35
3.856* 5.933**
0.026
0.004

2.10
1.32
2.13
1.22
2.59
1.21
1.04
0.361

Note: * indicates p < 0.05.

4.3
Word Types in NiL
The following lists (Tables 5-8) show the words
which were categorized into NiL.
We cansummarize the features of these words as follows:(1) Words which were spelled correctly but not
categorized into BNC 16 word lists; (2) Hyphenatedwords; (3) Proper nouns; and (4) Errors.

above
3000
2.84
0.99
2.41
1.80
3.59
1.85
3.10
0.052

** indicates p < 0.01.

As Table 4 indicates, we could find significant
differences in the percentages of BWL 1 among
three groups. In post hoc analysis with Duncan
procedure, we found that Taiwanese students used
more vocabulary in BWL1 than Chinese andJapanese students. Between Chinese and Japanese,
we could not find significant differences. In thecomparison of the percentages of BWL2, we also
found significant differences among three groups.
In host hoc analysis, it was revealed that Taiwanese
students used significantly less lexes in BWL2 thanthe other groups. Between Chinese students andJapanese students, we could not find significant
differences. With regard to BWL 3, we could not
find significant differences among three groups.
Lastly, in the comparison of the percentages
calculated for above 3000 vocabulary level, we
could not find significant differences, but foundsignificant tendency among three groups. That is,host hoc analysis implied that Japanese students
would have used more types of words in the list ofabove 3000 than Taiwanese students.
To sum up, we can say that Taiwanese students
relied on more frequent words (i.e., those in BWL1)
in writing their reflection work sheets whereas theother two groups used almost same amount of thewords in BWL 1 and 2. The result also implied
the possibility that Japanese students might use
more infrequent words (i.e., those in BWL 4-14)
than Taiwanese students. Regarding the mean

CHINGLISH

INTERCULTURALCOLLECTIVISTICINTERNETCONVERSATIONISTSMICCONFUCIANOVERUSECONFUCIANISMOVERUSED

EASYGOINGROOMMATE

EXAGGERATEDLYSATISFACTIONSFRIENDNESSSCHOOLWORKFUNDAMENTALITYSOPHOMORE

HOMETOWNWEBSITEINDIVIDUALLISTIC

WHITEBOARD

As in Table 5, there were 22 words which were
properly spelled, but categorized into NiL.
Therefore, we can assume that, in general, words inthis category can be considered as “high level”.
Furthermore, regarding the relationship with the
topic of the reflection sheets, we can find thatseveral words that are closely related to the topics
appear in this list. This result might imply that theparticipants could come to activate the complicatedwords that taught in CCDL classes as theirproductive vocabulary. In order to examine thisfact, we will be required to make a new word list
which includes these key words for following study.
On the other hand, we believe that seemingly
frequent words, which can be used in daily
conversation (e.g., “WEBSITE” and “INTERNET”),
should be included in some lists according to theirfrequency levels.
Table 6: Hyphenated words <13 words>
ALL-ROUNDSELF-CONCERNEDCHINESE-ONLY

SELF-CONFIDENCE

FACE-TO-FACE

SELF-EGOIST

FACE-CONSCIOUSNESSSELF-RELIANCE

HIGH-TECHNOLOGY

WELL-BEING

LOW-MIDDLE

WELL-PREPAREDSELF-CENTERED

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

In the comparison of vocabulary use, we foundthat Taiwanese students used significantly more
words in BWL 1 than the other group. With regard
to BWL 2, Taiwanese students used significantly
less words than the other two groups. The result
also implied the possibility that Waseda students
tended to use more infrequent words than
Taiwanese students. It should be noted again thatthese results might be caused by the differences ineach mean length of the reflection work sheets.
Through the examination of the words in NiL,
we believed that our procedures mentioned in 3.3.2
worked well for deeper investigation of seemingly
problematic words appeared in the reflection sheets.
At the same time, we recognized that we should
analyze the data once again with some necessary
treatments for the words in NiL to see more stable
LFP as a reliable measure of lexical richness.

As in Table 6, we found 13 hyphenated words in
NiL as we intended. We believed that, if they
were correctly used in the reflection sheets, it
should be considered as high-level academic terms.
Table7: Proper nouns <10 words>
DAIREN

NATTO

GYOZA

OSECHI

KANJI

OSETHILIVEONTAKOYAKI

LIVE-ON

WASEDAIn Table 7, we can find 10 proper nouns.
Because these data were collected in CCDL courses,
we could find a word, “Live-on” or “Liveon”,
appeared more than 120 times in their compositions.
A word “Waseda” can be also predicted tofrequently appear in the compositions. Therefore
these words should be included in BWL 15;
otherwise we should make a new BWL for proper
nouns relevant to CCDL context.

References
Bauer, L. and Nation., I.S.P. (1993). Word Families.
International Journal of Lexicography. 6., 3.
235-79.
Laufer, B. and Nation, P. (1995). Vocabulary size
and use: Lexical richness in L2 written
production. Applied Linguistics. 16, 3:
307-322.
Laufer, B. (1991). The development of L2 lexis in
the expression of the advanced language
speakers. Modern Language Journal. 75, 4.
440-448.
Nakano, M., Murao, R., Yokota, M., Karseras, A. S.,
Ito, S., and McDermott, D. (2008).
Developing transferable skills and social
intelligence through theme-based crosscultural distance learning 2008 springsemester. In JACET select committee (eds.),
Information Communication Technology
Practice & Research 2007 (pp.191-199).
Waseda University International.
Nakano, M., Yokota, M, and Karseras, S. A. (2009).
Cross cultural distance learning social andglobal issues: Teacher’s note. Waseda
University International.
Sugimori, N. (2008). Eibun-raiting-ni-okeruLexical
Frequency
Profile–no-teijyousei-ni-kan-suru-kousatsu.
[A
study of the stability of lexical frequency
profile for writing composition]. The
proceedings of 34th conference of the Japan
Society of English Language Education.
120-121.
WebsiteNation, P. The range programme and the BNC lists,
retrieved
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/paul-nati
on/nation.aspx.

Table 8: Errors <13words>
ADVICESESPERIENCEAFFAIRESFAMILESAVALIABLEFRIENDNESSBIGGIST

JAPANSES

CONCERATE

MOBLEPHONESDISSCUSSIONPSYSICAL

EQUIPMENTS

Table 8 shows 13 types of “errors”, that is,words with some mistakes in spelling or usage.
Though we could have corrected their mistakes tobe counted as a Word Types as in Laufer and Nation(1995), we did not correct them to see if there
would be common errors among CCDL participants.
The remarkable features among these 13 are errors
which are collective nouns in Native Speaker
Englishes (therefore they should be singular), butwhich are acceptable in Asian Englishes as a
Lingua Franca, as in “ADVICES” and“EQUIPMENTS”. Because all the participants inthis study were non-native speakers (NNS) of
English, these errors should be saved in the word
list for “NNS’ common errors”, and utilized withsome BWL to estimate the error rates.

5

Summary

To sum up the findings in this study, we found thata large amount of vocabulary used in the reflection
work sheets can be covered by the BWL 1, 2 and 3of BNC word lists. Therefore, we should discuss
if the lists would match the vocabulary size of
CCDL participants.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL) and the Learner’s Motivation
toward the CCDL CMC Activities: A Survey on Three Types of CCDLClasses
Satoshi Yoshida and Michiko Nakano

Waseda University
satoshi-tko.jpn@akane.waseda.jp, nakanom@waseda.jp
classes into two types: elective CCDL courses (i.e.,
CCDL courses especially designed as CCDL) andcompulsory CCDL classes (i.e., regular English
classes with extra curricular CMC chat sessions),
and explained the predictable motivational
differences between the learners who participated in
the former type of CCDL and those in the latter one,referring to the Self-Determination continuum (seeFigure 1) posited by SDT (Park, 2006; Ryan andDeci, 2002). In her explanation, she claimed thatthe learner’s motivation would be less if the class
was compulsory while it would be more desirable if
one chose the class based on his/ her decision.

Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to compare thelearners’ motivation toward CCDL Computer
Mediated Communication (CMC) chat activities byfocusing on the features of class types: autonomy
supportive student-centered elective English
courses and teacher-oriented compulsory English
classes.
On evaluating the motivational
differences among CCDL participants, we adopted
theoretical framework of Self-Determination
Theory (SDT: Deci and Ryan, 1985, Ryan and Deci,
2000 and 2002). We employed a questionnaire
based on Language Learning Orientation Scale(LLOS: Noels et al., 2000) which was designed toassess learner’s motivation based on SDT. The
participants in this study were 204 Waseda
university students who participated in CCDL
classes in the fall semester of 2008. We factoranalyzed the data and compared the motivational
differences by each factor score. The result
showed that the students in autonomy supportive
student-centered classes showed higher degree ofself-determination than those in teacher-oriented
English classes. This finding demonstrated astrong relationship between autonomy supportiveclass environment and motivational enhancement.
This result also supports the notion that a learner’s
motivation would be less if the class wascompulsory while it would be more desirable if one
chose the class based on his/ her decision (Nakano,2006).

Types of
Intrinsic
Extrinsic Motivation
Amotivaion
Motivation
Motivation
Types of NonExternal
Introjected Identified Integrated Intrinsic
Regulation Regulation Regulation Regulation Regulation Regulation Regulation
Quality of NonselfBehavior determined

Figure 1: The Self-Determination Continuum (ascited in Ryan and Deci, 2002: 16)
1.2
Our Studies of Motivation
In order to test Nakano’s (2006) assumption, we
conducted two pilot studies among Waseda
University students (Nakano and Yoshida, 2008;
Nakano, Yoshida and Owada, 2008), employing aquestionnaire based on Language Learning
Orientation Scale (LLOS: Noels et al., 2000). In
these studies, we verified the applicability ofquestionnaire items, and, through the examinationof motivational comparison, we found thepossibility that autonomy supportive classenvironment which can be seen in elective CCDL
courses (e.g., student-centered approach) would beclosely related to motivational enhancement.
In this study, therefore, we categorized theparticipants into more practical groups, specifying
the features of elective CCDL classes as example ofautonomy supportive student-centered classes andthose of compulsory CCDL classes asteacher-oriented classes, and compare themotivational differences among the participants.

Keywords
Cross-Cultural Distance Learning, Motivation,
Self-Determination Theory, Autonomy Supportive
Class, Student-Centered Class, Teacher-OrientedClass
1

Selfdetermined

Introduction

1.1
CCDL and Motivation
Nakano (2006) categorized the types of CCDL

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

2

measured by overall items and to discuss if the highcorrelation(s) as well as relatively low correlation(s)would cause a serious problem in the result offactor analysis. This method would be well worth
considering in the sense of supporting the results
obtained in Analysis 1, which sometimes cause
excessive item reduction. This process would bealso important for developing the questionnaire for
future study.
We compared the students’ motivational
differences among three types of CCDL classes bymean factor scores. Both in Analysis 1 and 2, wewill discuss the result of motivational comparison.

Survey2.1
Participants
The participants in this study were 204 Waseda
university students who were all enrolled in CCDL
activities.
67 out of 204 were the students
participated in elective CCDL classes -e.g., Global
Literacy Course and Theme-based CCDL course(Elective CCDL group); 85 were English majors
participated in compulsory CCDL activities (extra
chat group, English Majors); and 52 were
non-English majors in compulsory CCDL activities(extra chat group, Non-English Majors).
2.2
Questionnaire
The questionnaire used in this study was based on
21 items in LLOS (Noels et al., 2000) and 3 items
in Park (2006), which can be categorized into 7
subscales: Intrinsic Motivation for Knowledge(IMK), Intrinsic Motivation for Accomplishment(IMA), Intrinsic Motivation for Stimulation (IMS),
Identified Regulations within Extrinsic Motivation(EMID), Introjected Regulations within EM(EMINTRO), External Regulations within EM(EMEX), and Amotivation (AMOT).
We
modified them for CCDL context. In total, 24
items were distributed among the participants. All
the items were ordered randomly, and theparticipants rated each item along 7-point Likert
scale.

3

Results and Discussions

3.1
Analysis 1
3.1.1
Exploratory Factor Analysis
In this section, we analyzed the data following thesame procedures as in our Pilot Experiments 1 and2. We employed Maximum Likelihood Techniquefollowed by promax rotation to obtain the oblique
solution. The alpha decision level set for test of
goodness of fit was 0.01.
Prior to the analysis, we checked each item anddeterminant of correlation matrix, and found that
items 13, 14 and 21 had floor effects; items 6, 16
and 18 had high correlation with other item; items 8,
14 and 20 had relatively low correlations with otheritems.
Accordingly the determinant of thecorrelation matrix became smaller than required
value, suggesting that we should exclude those
problematic items until the determinant became
qualified. Finally, we excluded all the problematic
items from the analysis (i.e., 8 items mentioned
above). Therefore, we factor- analyzed remaining
16 items.
Because several items were excluded before theanalysis, first factor extraction was based on
Kaiser’s criterion. As a result, Heywood casehappened in the analysis. As a solution for thisproblem, we examined whether we can exclude
more items, retaining the computational adequacy.
This procedure would be reasonable because wehave already excluded some seemingly problematic
items from the analysis in order to improve thedeterminant of value. Among the remaining 16
items, we found that excluding item 2 led to an
adequate solution. Therefore we continued theanalysis without item 2.
In the reanalysis, KMO Statistics of Sampling
Adequacy was 0.914.
Bartlett’s Test of sphericity
yielded statistical significance. All the items had
adequate values in KMO statistics for individual
items, ranging from 0.768 to 0.949. As a result,test of goodness of fit yielded statisticalsignificance for three-factor model (χ2=116.914, df

2.3
Procedure
We collected the data during fall semester of 2008.
Along with the paper-based survey, we distributed
the questionnaire online. The web-site for online
questionnaire was available during October, 2008.
On the first page, the instructions about how toanswer the questions were given. It was alsomentioned that their answers would never affecttheir course grade, and that their private
information would never be revealed.
The
students could access the site anytime they would
like to answer the questionnaire.
2.4
Analytic Procedure
In this study, we analyzed the data in two ways. In
Analysis 1, we followed the same procedures as in
our Pilot Experiments (see Field, 2005; Nakano andYoshida, 2008). That is, if any, items that hadhigh correlation or seemingly no correlation withother items were excluded from the analysis,referring to correlation matrix as well as its
determinant.
As for Analysis 2, we factor-analyzed all theitems by specifying the number of factors to be
extracted as predicted. We did not refer to thedeterminant of correlation matrix to see construct358

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics= 88, p < 0.001). In the pattern matrix, there were
no items which were cross-loaded onto theextracted factors. Because there were no items to
be excluded from the analysis, we can reject thenull hypothesis, as the result of test of goodness of
fit indicates. Accordingly, we discussed whether
three factors were sufficient for the data set byincreasing the number of factors to be extracted.
In second analysis, we specified the number offactors to be extracted as 4 factors. All the criteria
we referred to in the analysis were verified as infirst analysis. As a result, test of goodness of fit
yielded statistical non-significance for four-factor
model (χ2=73.736, df=51, p=0.02). Table 1 shows
the pattern matrix obtained from second analysis.

Factor4: ‘Identified Regulations’(2 items, α =0.879)
Factor 1 stands for motivation foraccomplishment. This factor would reflect the
specific relation between motivation for pursuingaccomplishment in CCDL activities and thestudents’ future directions as well as concerns fortheir partners in the class. In this sense, however,this factor no longer reflects the participants’
intrinsic predispositions for leaning English.
Therefore we tentatively labeled this factor“Motivation for Accomplishment”.
We will
discuss the details of this factor structure below (seeAnalysis 2).
Factor 3 refers to extrinsic
regulations for external pressures. EMEX1, 4 and
EMINTRO 4 reflects the similar features: externalpressures mainly caused by teachers. As for
AMOT3, it can be one of the components of thisfactor because the students who feel externalpressures to do the given tasks are expected to beamotivated in the long run (Nakano, 2006).

Table1: The Pattern Matrix of Second Analysis
Factor
Item
IMA2
item11
EMEX2
item10
IMA3
item1
EMINTRO1 item24
IMA1
item15
IMS3
item3
IMK1
item5
IMK2
item9
IMK3
item22
EMEX4
item4
EMINTRO4 item7
EMEX1
item23
AMOT3
item12
EMID1
item19EMID2
item17% of variance
Label

1
0.93
0.75
0.72
0.68
0.43
0.40
-0.07
0.06
-0.07
0.06
0.10
-0.23
0.06
0.18
0.08
45.85

2
0.07
-0.25
0.12
-0.02
0.16
0.14
0.90
0.85
0.79
0.08
0.03
-0.05
-0.14
0.05
0.31
9.48

7.29
1

1.74
0.64
1

3
0.00
0.05
-0.10
0.11
0.04
-0.08
-0.01
-0.01
0.06
0.95
0.89
0.61
0.42
0.03
-0.07
6.08

4
-0.14
0.21
-0.08
-0.03
0.21
0.33
-0.05
-0.06
0.10
-0.10
0.13
0.04
-0.11
0.75
0.54
1.87

3.1.2
Reliability Analysis
To validate the internal consistency, we conductedreliability analysis by alpha if item deleted. As aresult, we found that there were no items which
would dramatically improve overall Cronbach’s α ifthey were deleted. In other words, we verified thestructures of four factors extracted in this analysis
as stable for the data set.
3.1.3
Mean Factor Scores
We calculated the factor scores for four factors byregression method. Figure 2 shows a comparison
among three types of CCDL classes.

1.26 0.71
Correlation-0.47 0.72
-0.5 0.72
1-0.59
1Note: Each item label stands for the abbreviations ofsubcategories.

Extra chat group (Non-English Majors)

Mean Factor Scores
Extra chat group (English Majors)

Mean Factor Scores

eigenvalue

We renamed each extracted factor according to
the items contained in them. The parenthesizedvalue for each item indicates Cronbach’s α.

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8 Factor 3
Extrinsic
Regulations byExternal pressures

Factor1: ‘(Transition from EM to Intrinsic)
Motivation for Accomplishment’(6 items, α = 0.870)
Factor2: ‘Intrinsic Motivation for Knowledge’(3 items, α =0.860)
Factor3: ‘(Transition from Amotivation to)
Extrinsic Regulations by External
Pressures’: (4 items, α =0.823)

Elective Classes (Theme-Based and Global
Literacy)

Factor 4
Identified
Regulations

Factor 1
Motivation for
Accomplishment

Factor 2
Intrinsic Motivation
for Know ledge

Extracted Factors

Figure 2: Mean Factor Scores
As Figure 2 indicates, the students in electiveclasses show high motivational propensities withregard to highly self-determined motivations andself-regulations.
The degree of extrinsic
regulations by external pressures is the lowest in the359Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

obtain the oblique solution.
To determine the number of factors to be
extracted, we made two assumptions based on theintention we had in making the questionnaire andthe findings in this study. First assumption wasthat because we set seven subscales in thequestionnaire, seven-factor model would be suitable
for the data. Second assumption was that therelation among componential items within Factor 1
we observed in Analysis 1 would be also observedin this analysis. In this case, because the factor
included 6 items that were from different four
subscales, the number of factors to be extracted
would be less than seven factors. We tested thisassumption by specifying the number as 6 factors.
In testing the first assumption, we found thatseven-factor model would not be suitable in termsof factor structure; although the first factor
indicated almost same factor structure with Factor 1
we observed in Analysis 1. It implies that therelations among these items might reflect the realityof motivational propensities among CCDL
participants. In order to closely examine thespecific relations, we tested second assumption by
specifying the number of factors to be extracted as
6 factors.
In first factor analysis for six-factor model,
KMO Sampling Adequacy was 0.910. Bartlett’s
Test of sphericity yielded statistical significance.
All the items had adequate values in KMO statistics
for individual items, ranging from 0.719 to 0.966.
Because item 15 did not have appreciable factor
loadings onto any extracted factor, we excluded itfrom second analysis. In second analysis, KMO
Sampling Adequacy was 0.910. Bartlett’s Test of
sphericity yielded statistical significance. All theitems had adequate values in KMO statistics forindividual items, ranging from 0.711 to 0.966.
As a result, the resulting factor structure seemed
to be suitable although items 14 and 23
cross-loaded onto two factors. To examine thereliability of this factor solution, we run reliability
analysis with calculating alpha if item deleted. As
a result, we found that deleting items 8, 14 and 20
would increase the overall alpha of Factors 4, 6, and5 respectively. Therefore we excluded them andreanalyzed the data.
In third analysis, KMO Sampling Adequacy was
0.917.
Bartlett’s Test of sphericity yielded
statistical significance. All the items had adequate
values in KMO statistics for individual items,
ranging from 0.754 to 0.966. The pattern matrix
obtained from this analysis was shown in Table 2(see next page). Though Factor 5 had only two
componential items, it would be a suitable solution
for the data set because the factor structure
improved more than second analysis. To examinecomparison. The result implies that the students inelective classes (i.e., theme-based CCDL courses
and Global Literacy course) opt to join CCDL
activities autonomously, without feeling externalpressures. Moreover, their mean factor score of
motivation for accomplishment is obviously higher
than the others.
On the other hand, both English majors andnon-English majors in extra chat sessions show lowscores on highly self-determined motivation,
Factors 1, 2, and 4, whereas their scores of extrinsic
regulations by external pressures are shown to behigher than those in elective classes. Because
Factor 3 reflects teacher’s pressures, it is suggested
that these students are supposed to join extra chatsessions as a part of compulsory subjects.
Especially, English majors tend to perceive theirteacher’s pressures more than non-English majors.
On the other hand, non-English majors show thelowest level in comparison of Factor 3: motivation
for accomplishment. The result would reflect thefact that non-English majors might not recognize
the purpose of activities or specific relation between
learning English in CCDL activities and theiracademic accomplishment, reflecting the fact thatthey are majoring in the a subject other thanEnglish.
Through the examination of motivational
comparison, the students participated in electiveclasses showed higher motivational propensities
whereas those in regular English classes showed
low level of motivation as we assumed. However,
it would be reasonable to further examine the factor
structure obtained in this analysis because Factors 1
and 3 showed somewhat debatable aspects in termof theoretical relationship among types ofmotivation postulated by SDT. That is, the factor
structure might result from the item reduction,
following the recommendation by Field (2005) andOshio (2004). Therefore we employed second
analytic procedure to discuss if the factor structure
observed in this analysis would be valid or not.
3.2
Analysis 2
3.2.1
Exploratory Factor Analysis
In this analysis, we specified the number of factors
to be extracted as we predicted and discussed theremarkable factor structure observed in Analysis 1
by comparing each resulting factor model. We
also aimed to discuss the methodological issues
recommended by Field (2005) and Oshio (2004).
In so doing, we put all the items into the analysis
even though there were high correlations, ceiling
effects or floor effects among 24items. As forfactor extraction technique, we employed principle
factor analysis followed by promax rotation to360Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

intrinsic motivation for accomplishment. Thisfinding might imply the students’ needs to acquire
English ability in CCDL activities so as to make useof it in their future. In this sense, the motivation isconsidered to be instrumental (Deci and Ryan 1985;
Gardner, 1985; Ryan and Deci, 2000 and 2002) per
se. That is, this factor represents not only innate
tendencies for pursuing accomplishment but also
instrumental aspects subsumed in the students’highly self-determined predispositions toward
CCDL activities. Therefore we labeled the factor
as representing ‘motivation for accomplishment’.
Factors 2, 5 and 6 were extracted as we
intended.
Accordingly, we renamed intrinsic
motivation for knowledge, intrinsic motivation for
stimulation and identified regulations respectively.
Factor 3 was renamed as amotivation although it
included an item in EMEX subscale. The relation
between extrinsic regulations and amotivation was
expected by Nakano (2006) as mentioned earlier.
Factor 4 was regarded as extrinsic regulations forexternal pressures. All the items reflect externalpressures mainly caused by teachers as we
discussed in Analysis 1. We found the same 3
items clustered within one factor.

the suitability, reliability analysis with calculatingalpha if item deleted was done for each extracted
factor.
Table 2: The Pattern Matrix (6 factor model)
Factor
Label

item

1

2

3

IMA2

item11

EMID4

item2

0.83

0.10

0.04

0.75

-0.01

0.09

IMA3

item1

0.74

0.18

0.01

EMEX2
EM
INTRO1
IMS3

item10

0.72

-0.23

item24

0.68

item3

IMK1

item5

IMK2

item9

IMK3

item22

AMOT1

item13

AMOT3
AMOT2

4

5

6

0.00

0.03

-0.06

-0.04

-0.08

0.17

-0.12

0.00

-0.14

-0.14

0.19

-0.05

0.25

-0.06

0.04

0.06

0.28

-0.21

0.41

0.21

-0.03

-0.04

-0.04

0.32

0.02

0.90

-0.01

0.02

-0.14

0.00

-0.03

0.79

-0.02

0.02

0.11

0.02

-0.06

0.75

-0.01

0.05

0.05

0.09

-0.05

-0.09

0.95

-0.04

0.05

0.10

item12

0.16

-0.05

0.83

0.02

-0.15

0.11

item21

-0.06

0.12

0.69

-0.03

0.07

-0.22

EMEX1
EM
INTRO4EMEX4item23

-0.21

0.03

0.38

0.36

0.01

-0.02

item7

0.06

0.01

-0.03

0.92

0.04

0.10

item4

0.06

0.07

0.03

0.85

-0.07

-0.13

IMS2

item18

0.05

0.05

-0.01

-0.01

0.73

0.17

IMS1

item16

0.26

0.05

-0.04

0.00

0.63

0.08

EMID1

item19

0.13

0.07

0.09

0.03

0.19

0.69

EMID3

item6

0.15

0.24

0.00

-0.08

-0.04

0.59

EMID2

item17

0.00

0.31

-0.05

0.01

0.10

0.57

% of Variance

48.77

9.13

5.16

3.48

2.37

1.63

eigenvalues

10.02

2.14

1.38

0.98

0.74

0.63

correlation

1

0.6

-0.49

-0.43

0.6

0.73

1

-0.48

-0.47

0.63

0.67

1

0.64

-0.37

-0.58

1

-0.36

-0.58

1

0.57

3.2.2
Mean Factor Scores
We calculated factor scores for six factors byregression method. Figure 3 shows a comparison
among three groups. The extracted factors wereordered along the self-determination continuum
postulated by SDT.
Mean Factor Scores
1

Extra Chat Group (Non-English
Majors)Extra Chat Group (English Majors)
Elective Classes (Theme-Basedand Global Literacy)

0.8
0.6

Note: The number of factors to be extracted was
specified as 4 factors. Each item label stands for theabbreviations of subcategories.

Mean Factor Scores

0.4

As a result, there were no items which would
dramatically improve overall Cronbach’s α if they
were deleted. In other words, we verified thestructure of six factors extracted in this analysis as
stable for the data set. As for item 23, we
regarded it as a component of Factors 3 and 4.
On the basis of componential items, werenamed each factor. Factor 1 was found to be
similar to Factor 1 we extracted in Analysis 1 thatwas renamed ‘Motivation for accomplishment’. 5
items in this analysis were in correspondence withthose in Analysis 1. Besides, in this analysis, item
2, asking if the students internalize the goal of theclass with regard to future works, loaded on thefactor. That is, two items (items 2 and 10) related
to the students’ future directions are associated with

0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1

(F3)
Amotivation(F4)
Extrinsic
Regulations
by External
Pressures(F6)
Identified
Regulations(F1)
MotivationforAccomplishment(F5)Intrinsic
Motivationf or
Stimulation(F2)
Intrinsic
Motivationfor
Know ledge

Extracted Factors

Figure 3: Mean Factor Scores
As shown, the students in elective CCDL
classes show the high mean scores on types ofautonomous motivations (Factors 1, 2, 5 and 6)
while their mean factor scores on types ofcontrolled motivations (Factors 3 and 4) are thelowest. That is, they are highly motivated to join
CCDL activities. In particular, as in Analysis 1,
the result indicates that the students in elective361

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

factor delineated the controlling aspect ofcompulsory English classes.
Through the examination of factor structure andmotivational differences among three CCDL classes
we investigated, we verified that the findings in thisstudy support the notion that learner’s motivation
would be less if the class was compulsory while itwould be more desirable if one chose the classbased on his/her decision (Nakano, 2006).
Lastly, through Analyses 1 and 2, we found thathigh correlations (r > 0.8) among items inquestionnaire would not cause a serious problems
but show a suitable solution for the data set if theyoccurred in same subscale. Rather, items that had
relatively low correlations with others would beinaccurate to be included in the analysis.

CCDL classes would pursue accomplishment in theclass activities. Furthermore, because the specificrelation between accomplishment in the class andfuture contingencies was verified in Analysis 2, it
might be said that the students in elective CCDL
courses are highly motivated to pursue sense ofaccomplishment in CCDL activities for their futures.
The causality is implied in their high mean score on
both intrinsic motivation for stimulation that
represents the students’ innate interest in learning
English in CCDL classes, and identified regulations
that represent how the students internalize the goals
and purposes of activities. These motivational
aspects should be investigated in future research.
On the other hand, both English majors andnon-English majors in extra chat sessions showhigh mean scores on types of controlled motivation
whereas their scores on types of autonomous
motivations are lower than average. It implies thatthe students in extra chat session are supposed tojoin CCDL activities as a part of compulsory
subject. Comparing the students in extra chatsessions, English majors show the higher scores on
Amotivation and Extrinsic Regulations for External
Pressures than non-English majors. The result
would reflect the controlling aspects of the classdesign. That is, the students are demotivated byexternal pressures that force them to participate in
the activities. This aspect should be investigatedwith regard to three psychological needs forcompetence, autonomy and relatedness posited SDT(Ryan and Deci, 2002) to develop more suitableenvironment to enhance the students’ internalizationof non-self-determined regulations.
As for non-English majors, they show lowest
mean scores on Identified Regulations, Motivation
for Accomplishment and Intrinsic Motivation for
Stimulation.
Considering the fact that thesestudents are majoring in a subject other thanEnglish, the result would be reasonable. In otherwords, the students would not internalize theimportance as well as the values of CCDL activities.
It would be because that they do not find specificrelation between CCDL activities and theiracademic development and accomplishment.

4

References
Deci, E.L., Ryan, R.M. (1985). Intrinsic Motivationand Self-Determination in Human Behavior.
New York, Plenum Press.
Field, A., (2005). Discovering Statistics using SPSS.
2nd Edition, Sage.
Nakano, M., and CCDL Research Center. (2006).
CCDL Teacher’s manual, Vol.1.Waseda
University.
Nakano, M. and Yoshida, S. (2008). A Pilot Study:
Exploring a Relationship between Four Kindsof Motivation and Self-regulations for
Second Language Learning among Japanese
University Students in Cross-Cultural
Distance Learning Contexts. Proceedings ofthe 13th Conference of PAAL, 91-94 .
Nakano, M., Yoshida, S. and Owada, K. (2008).
Cross-Cultural Distance Learning Programs
and Program Assessment. Proceedings of 9th
APRU Distance Learning and the Internet
Conference 2008, 189-198.
Noels, K.A., Pelletier, L.G., Clement, R., andVallerand, R.J., (2000).
Why Are You
Learning a Second Language? Motivational
Orientations and Self-Determination Theory.
Language Learning., 50, 57-85.
Park, H. (2006). Motivation in a foreign language
learning context: The effect of gender issues
in a Korean social and educational context.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Korea
University.
Ryan. R. M., and Deci, E. L. (2002). Overview ofself-determination theory: An organismic
dialectical perspectives. In E.L. Deci and
R.M.
Ryan
(Eds.),
Handbookofself-determination
research(pp.3-33).
Rochester, NY: University of Rochester
Press.

Summary

The remarkable finding both in Analysis 1 and 2
was that learner’s motivation for pursuingaccomplishment was found to be associated withthe tangible rewards (i.e. future jobs) and theirpartners (i.e., partner in the class). It implied thatthe students’ motivation for accomplishment
included some instrumental aspect.
Another
finding was that one of the self-regulatory types
reflects the extrinsic pressures caused by teachers as
observed both in Analysis 1 and 2. That is, this362Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Assessing Japanese EFL Learner’s Social Skills in Cross-Cultural
Distance Learning (CCDL) Context: a Longitudinal Study among Waseda
University Students
Satoshi Yoshida and Michiko Nakano

Waseda University
satoshi-tko.jpn@akane.waseda.jp, nakanom@waseda.jp
be dealt with in the class-Global & Social Issues,
Media Issues and International Career Path Issues,
three courses have been implemented by thecommon educational purpose (see Nakano, Yoshida
and Owada, 2008). That is, in theme-based CCDL
courses, a series of skills necessary forcross-cultural communications such as Facilitation
Skills, Emotional Intelligence, Social Intelligenceand Researching Skill, has been taught. Because
these skills seem to be a series of required skills tomaintain a good relationship with the interlocutors
in cross-cultural communications, we regarded
these skills as ‘Social Skills’ and conductedevaluative studies among Waseda University
students (Yoshida and Nakano, 2008; Nakano,
Yoshida and Owada, 2008) as pilot studies for thepresent study.

Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to describe theinternal structure of social skills which would be
requiredincross-culturalcommunication,
employing a psychological scale called Students
Skillstreaming Checklist (Goldstein et al., 1997).
Also, this study aims to compare the perceived
frequency of skill use among CCDL participants so
as to examine the specific relationship between
each skill and CCDL activities. In dong so, first,
we referred to I-T correlations observed in our two
pilot studies and selected the relevant skill items fordeeper investigation. In this process, 34 skill
items were selected as relevant to CCDL activities.
In order to verify the relevance, we distributed this34-item questionnaire among 200 Waseda
University students.
The data were factoranalyzed so as to explore the latent variables among
them. The result showed that the extracted 4factors were closely related to CCDL activities aswell as a series of skills required in cross-culturalcommunications. The result also indicated that theresulting factor structures in this study were almost
the same as those in our pilot studies.

1.2
Our Pilot Studies
In our pilot studies, Yoshida and Nakano (2008) and,
Nakano, Yoshida and Owada (2008) examined theapplicability of a psychological scale called Student
Skillstreaming checklist (Goldstein et al., 1997),
which contains 50 items categorized into 6
subscale: Basic (beginning) Social Skills (8 items),
Advanced Social Skills (6 items), Skills for Dealing
with Feelings (7 items), Skills Alternatives toAggression (9 items), Skills for Dealing with Stress(12 items), and Planning Skills (8 items).
We followed the statistical procedures used in
Kikuchi (1988 and 2007), who optimized Goldstein
et al.’s questionnaire and reported the remaining 18
items as Kikuchi’s Scale of Social Skills-18(KiSS-18). In his optimizing procedure, Kikuchi
utilized Item-Total correlation analysis (I-T
correlation analysis) and reduced the total numberof items from 50 to 18, by selecting each three item
(i.e., highly correlated items) from 6 subcategories.
His procedures seemed appropriate because, in ourpilot study, we found that it was impossible tofactor-analyze 50 items.
We also adopted Kikuchi’s definition of social

Keywords
Social Skills, Theme-based CCDL courses,
Cross-Cultural Distance Learning context

1

Introduction

1.1
CCDL activities and Social Skills
CCDL is one of the most adequate and currently
challenging methods of foreign language teaching
introduced by Waseda University among Asianpartner universities in 1999. The program wasrenewed in 2008 and new classes called
theme-based CCDL courses were officially offeredby Open Education Center, Waseda University(Nakano, Yoshida, and Owada, 2008). Although
theme-based CCDL courses can be classified into
three types according to the main theme that are to363

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

skills, i.e., “the skills to convey interpersonal
relationship smoothly (Kikuchi, 1988: p.187)” forour discussions, and found that remaining 18 items
in our study can be regarded as important to the
CCDL participants. In this process, we verified
the applicability of Goldstein et al.’s scale for our
research purpose.
In pilot studies, however, we confronted amethodological issue in the process of optimizing
the questionnaire.
That is, some skill items
considered to be closely related to CCDL activities,
in terms of I-T correlation coefficient, were notincluded in our remaining 18 items. In his
optimizing process, Kikuchi (1988 and 2007) also
reported this sort of problem. Moreover, Kikuchi
did not mention the logical or statistical reasons forremaining 18 items from the original 50 items.
Therefore, it would be necessary for us toreconsider the optimizing procedures offered by
Kikuchi (1988) for deeper investigation.
In this study, therefore, we review I-T
correlation coefficients observed in our pilot studies
1 and 2 (Yoshida and Nakano, 2008; Nakano,
Yoshida and Owada, 2008) and select the relevant
skill items once again. Then we will discuss thesignificance of those selected items by conducting afollowing survey among CCDL participants. In
this process, we will also compare the participants’skill use, focusing on the types of CCDL classes.

Label

item

Pilot 2

Pilot 1

Feeling

item150.41

0.35

Feeling

item160.54

0.46

Feeling

item170.52

0.50

Feeling

item180.48

0.42

Feeling

item190.36

0.41

Feeling

item200.55

0.48

Feeling

item21

0.33

0.24

Aggression

item220.56

0.47

Aggression

item230.37

0.36

Aggression

item240.53

0.33

Aggression

item250.55

0.48

Aggression

item260.43

0.40

Aggression

item270.39

0.38

Aggression

item280.47

0.55

Aggression

item290.22

0.24

Aggression

item300.36

0.35

Stressitem31

0.40

0.35

Stressitem320.59

0.56

Stressitem330.41

0.38

Stressitem340.47

0.50

Stressitem350.34

0.37

Stressitem360.46

0.36

Stressitem37

0.41

0.41

Stressitem380.50

0.34

Table 1 summarizes I-T correlation coefficientsobserved in our pilot study 1 (Yoshida and Nakano,2008) and pilot study 2 (Nakano, Yoshida andOwada, 2008).

StressStressitem39item40

0.55
0.53

0.45
0.43

Stressitem41

0.45

0.41

Stressitem420.42

0.42

Table 1: I-T correlation coefficient in our pilot
studiesPlanning

item430.56

0.55

Planning

item440.55

0.52

Planning

item45

0.57

0.61

2

Selecting Skill Items

Label

item

Pilot 2

Pilot 1

Planning

item46

0.44

0.47

Basic

item1

0.50

0.48

Planning

item47

0.55

0.51

Basic
Basic
Basic
Basic
Basic
Basic

item2
item3
item4
item5
item6
item7

0.48
0.55
0.45
0.47
0.54
0.51

0.54
0.49
0.47
0.46
0.61
0.59

Planning
Planning

item48item49

0.47
0.48

0.48
0.43

Planning

item50

0.46

0.55

Basic

item8

0.52

0.49

Advanced

item9

0.36

0.22

Advanced

item100.50

0.43

Advanced

item110.50

0.48

Advanced

item120.40

0.32

Advanced

item130.45

0.44

Advanced

item140.55

0.56

Note: Each label stands for subcategories in Goldstein etal. (1997). The items with highlighted values in thecolumns, Pilot 1 and Pilot 2 are those retained as 18
items in each pilot study.

In selecting skill items, we set criteria as
follows: (1) I-T correlation in the pilot study 2
should be higher than or almost equal to 0.45; and,(2) I-T correlation in the pilot study 1 should behigher than or almost equal to 0.4. On the basis of
the criteria, we decided to retain 34 items as
relevant to CCDL activities, in which items 24 and364

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

36 were tentatively retained as potential items (i.e.,r < 0.4 in pilot study 1). In order to verify therelevance between these skill items and CCDL
activities, we distributed the 34-item questionnaire
to Waseda University students and conducted afollowing survey (see next section).

3

University students who were all enrolled in CCDL
classes. 70 out of 200 were in theme-based CCDL
courses group; 101 in extra chat group and 29 incyber session CCDL group.
3.3
Questionnaire
The questionnaire used in this study was the brief
questionnaire we selected based on Goldstein etal.’s (1997) scale (see, section 2). It contained 34
items. We employed both printed forms andonline questionnaires in this survey.

Method3.1
Class Types and Participants
We divided the participants into three groups
according to the types of CCDL class so as to makeit easy to compare the skill use. They were (1)theme-based CCDL courses group 1 , (2) extra chat
CCDL group and (3) cyber session CCDL group.
The features of each class can be summarized as infollowing three sections.

3.4
Procedure
The data collections were conducted during the fallsemester of 2008. The students participated in thissurvey were asked to answer all the questions basedon the situations in which they would use English.
We told that their answers would never affect theircourse grade, and that their private information
would never be revealed. These instructions were
given before they answered the questionnaire.
And they were also printed on the first page of thequestionnaire.
The online questionnaire was available during
October, 2008. The students could answer thequestionnaire anytime they would like to do. The
instructions about the questionnaire were given on
the first page of the web-site.

3.1.1
Theme-based CCDL
Theme-based CCDL courses were designed to be
specializing in cross-cultural communication
through CMC chat activities performed in regularclass hours.
These classes emphasize theimportance of various kinds of skills required incross-cultural communications, as mentioned earlier.
Because the participating students are supposed toacquire these skills in the class, we expect them tofrequently utilize various kinds of skills.
3.1.2
Extra chat group
Extra chat group included all the regular English
classes in which extra curricular chat sessions wereadopted as a part of the class activities. In theseclasses, a series of skills emphasized intheme-based CCDL courses were not taught.
Therefore we can regard this group as non-theme
based.

3.5
Analytic Procedure
We run exploratory factor analysis on 34 items.
Though we failed to obtain the desirable solution in
the analysis on overall 50 items in Pilot Study1, at
this stage it would be reasonable to examine thelatent variables among the 34 items that were
carefully selected as the skills relevant to CCDL
context. At the same time, I-T correlation analysis
was done in order to verify the suitability of those
items.
Then, the items which had enoughcorrelation (i.e., r > 0.4) were factor-analyzed.
Also, to examine the relationship between each skill
and CCDL context, we compared the skill use
among the three types of CCDL classes by mean
factor scores.

3.1.3
Cyber Session CCDL group
The features of these classes were different from theother two types of CCDL classes, because theseclasses were designed to be specializing in crosscultural communication via video-conferencing
system. In their cyber sessions, moreover, theparticipating students were expected to be amoderator of their discussions, so that they may or
may not acquire the required skills in the class.
We regarded these classes as non-theme based anddifferentiated from theme-based CCDL courses.

3.6
Research Hypothesis(1) Because the 34 items were selected as relevant
to CCDL activities, the considerable I-T correlation(i.e., r >0.4) will be a piece of evidence for its
importance.

3.2
Participants
The participants in this study were 200 Waseda(2) Mean factor scores in theme-based CCDL
courses (group) and cyber session classes (group)
will be greater than those of extra chat group
because the former two groups are designed to be
specializing in cross-cultural distance learning.

1

Because the number of students in Global Literacy
course was 4, we regarded them as the members of
theme-based CCDL courses.
365

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

4

4.2
Factor Analysis
In factor analysis, we employed principle factor
analysis, followed by promax rotation to obtain theoblique solution. All the procedures we followed
were the same as in our pilot studies 1 and 2 (fordetails, see Field, 2005; or Yoshida and Nakano,2008). Prior to the analysis, we checked all thevariables and found that items 5 and 11 had ceiling
effects. However, we tentatively included these
items in the analysis. It was because that item 5,‘skill for saying thank you for others, and item 11,‘skill for apologizing to others’, would befrequently used by Japanese EFL learners.
Therefore it would be valuable to see therelationships they would hold with other variables.
In the correlation matrix for 34 items, there
were no items which had high correlations or nocorrelations with others. Therefore, we continued
the analysis without eliminating any item at thisstage.
In factor analysis, we continued to run theanalysis until the simplest pattern was obtained.
We employed Kaiser’s criterion to decide thenumber of factors to be extracted. In first analysis,
KMO Measure of Sampling Adequacy was 0.943.
Bartlett’s Test of sphericity yielded statisticalsignificance. All the KMO statistics for individual
items were greater than 0.50. Therefore we
continued to run the analysis and excluded thevariable which did not have enough factor loadings
or which cross-loaded onto the extracted factors ineach analysis. In this process, items 1, 17, 18, 22,
24, 25, 36 and 39 were excluded in each analysis
because of their low factor loadings; items 3, 14, 44
and 50 were excluded because of theircross-loadings. In final analysis, KMO Measureof Sampling Adequacy was 0.925. Bartlett’s Testof sphericity yielded statistical significance. All
the KMO statistics for individual items were greaterthan 0.50, ranging from 0.873 to 957. As a result,four factors were extracted. Table 3 shows thepattern matrix obtained from the final analysis (seenext page). We renamed each extracted factor
according to the componential items.
Theparenthesized number indicates the Cronbach’s α.

Results and Discussions

4.1
I-T Correlation Analysis
We calculated I-T correlations of remaining 34
items. Table 2 shows the result of I-T correlation
analysis.
Table 2: Result of I-T correlation Analysis
Label

Item

Basic
Basic
Basic
Basic
Basic
Basic
Basic
Basic
Advanced
Advanced
Advanced
Advanced
FeelingFeelingFeelingFeeling

item1
item2
item3
item4
item5
item6
item7
item8
item10
item11
item13
item14
item16
item17
item18item20I-T Correlation
Coefficient
0.604
0.645
0.620
0.552
0.620
0.607
0.634
0.576
0.561
0.703
0.664
0.682
0.673
0.696
0.639
0.644

Aggression
Aggression
Aggression
Aggression
StressStressStressStressStressStressStressPlanning
Planning
Planning
Planning
Planning
Planning
Planning

item22
item24item25item28item32
item34
item36
item38item39item40
item41
item43
item44
item45
item47
item48item49item50

0.713
0.693
0.693
0.618
0.712
0.540
0.648
0.637
0.639
0.701
0.556
0.683
0.620
0.582
0.653
0.568
0.599
0.508

Factor1: ‘Basic Skills for L2 Communication’(7items, α＝0.885)
Factor2: ‘Planning Skills’ (6 items, α=0.845)

Note: Each label stands for each subcategory inGoldstein et al. (1997). Each item number refers to thenumber in the original questionnaire. (N=200)

Factor3: ‘Strategic Skills for Keeping Good
Relationship with Others’ (4 items, α＝0.799)

As shown in Table 2, all the items had
appropriate correlation with the total score in thequestionnaire (r > 0.4). That is, all the skills
measured by those 34 items could be regarded asimportant for the participating students. Therefore
we put all the 34 items in factor analysis.

Factor4: ‘Skills for Dealing with Affective Issues’(5 items, α＝0.839)

366

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 3: The pattern matrix of final factor analysis
Factor
Label

Item

1

2

3

4

Basic
Feeling
Basic
Advanced
Basic
Basic
Advanced
Planning
Planning
StressPlanning
Planning
StressBasic
Advanced
Planning
Basic
Aggression
StressStressFeeling
Stressitem2
item16item6
item10
item4
item7
item11
item47
item43
item41
item48item45
item38item5
item13
item49item8
item28item32
item34item20
item40

0.81
0.73
0.66
0.64
0.63
0.59
0.46

0.02
0.11
-0.17
-0.02
0.11
-0.08
0.19
0.75
0.73
0.70
0.67
0.62
0.41

-0.05
-0.08
0.34
-0.02
0.15
0.13
-0.09
0.13
-0.29
-0.05
0.21
0.03
0.27
0.79
0.65
0.53
0.36
-0.13
0.10
0.13
0.19
0.24

0.00
0.04
-0.04
0.11
-0.20
0.15
0.30
-0.17
0.16
-0.02
-0.05
-0.03
0.12
-0.12
0.22
0.05
-0.05
0.88
0.77
0.47
0.42
0.39

0.06
0.18
0.03
-0.13
0.07
-0.04
0.12
0.00
0.03
0.33
0.11
0.11
-0.19
-0.09
-0.02

0.00
-0.01
0.15
0.07
-0.10
-0.10
0.23
0.26
0.25

41.44

5.88

3.77

3.02

eigenvalue

9.57

1.76

1.24

1.09

Correlation

1

0.57
1

0.54
0.62
1

0.63
0.69
0.57

% of variance1Note: Each item label stands for the subcategories inGoldstein et al. (1997). Each item number refers to
those in the original questionnaire.

Factor 1 stands for ‘Beginning Skills for L2
communication’. The items contained in thisfactor are considered to be fundamental in L2
communication. It is remarkable that items 2, 6, 7
and 10 are in correspondence with those in thefactor renamed as ‘Basic Social Skills for L2
communication’ in our pilot study 1. As comparedwith the factor in Pilot Study 2 named‘Fundamental Skills for L2 Communication’, 4items (items 6, 10, 11 and 16) were incorrespondence with those in the present
experiment. Therefore it can be said that the skills
contained in this factor are essential for L2
communication in CCDL context.
Factor 2 indicates ‘Planning Skills’. We also
found this sort of factor continuously throughout
our pilot studies. Especially, items 43 and 45 were
found to be important components of this factor.
Considering the componential items in Factor 2, it

367

obviously indicates the skills for preparing forachieving any task. These skills were necessarily
required in cross cultural communication in CCDL
context. Interestingly, item 38 defined as a skill
for “responding to failure (Goldstein et al., 1997)”
is also loaded on this factor. It implies that thestudents would learn from mistakes in the past andthey try not repeat similar mistakes. This finding
would reflect the fact that the students begin,through trials and errors, to attain good learners’
well-preparedattitudesforcross-culturalcommunication tasks.
Factor 3 represents ‘Strategic Skills for Keeping
Good Relationship with Others’. Though thecomponential items, items 5 and 13 were found tohave ceiling effect, they made up thecomprehensible factor in the analysis. Because
skills for “saying thank you to others” and“apologizing others” are expected to be frequently
used by Japanese EFL learners as mentioned earlier,the factor consisting of these skills should be
regarded as essential in L2 communication. It isbecause that these skills are considered to be one of
the communication strategies to maintain good
relationships with other people. Regarding item 8,skill for ‘giving a complement to others’ isconceptually relevant skill to the former two skills,
so that it should be also regarded as one of thestrategies for keeping good relationships withothers. That is, this factor is concerned with L2
communication strategies.
Item 49 was tomeasure the skill for “making a decision (Goldstein
et al., 1997).” In the light of the relation of thisskill with other three skills, it would be possible tointerpret this skill as that for making a best decision
by grasping the situation surrounding the person inquestion. That is, this factor might imply that thestudents adjust their communication strategies,
depending on the situation to situation.
Factor 4 stands for ‘Skills for Affective Issues’.
As all the items in this factor indicate, the skills
represented by this factor are required to deal withproblems that people would face in theirinter-personal communication.
Referring toGoldstein et al.’s (1997) classification, this factor
consists of items belonging to Skills for Dealing
with Feeling, Aggression and Stress. Thus, theskill covers wide area of human’s affective issues.
Because it is expected that students in CCDL
activities would face the problems such as
misunderstandings, disagreement of opinion andaccusation in cross-cultural communication, theseskills are definitely important. That is, this factor
reflects the necessity to understand one’s own
feeling in order to facilitate the cross-culturalcommunication. This finding might suggest thatthe notion of Emotional Intelligence that has beenProceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

emphasized in theme-based CCDL courses
conforms to CCDL context.
To sum up, all the factors extracted in thepresent study were interpretable with regard to thefactor structure and the specific relationships
between each item and CCDL context. To verify
the specific relationships, we compare skill use
among three types of CCDL classes.

We could see the internal structure of social
skills that would be required in CCDL context.
The four factors extracted in exploratory factor
analysis were comprehensible with regard to therelationships between each item and CCDL
activities. In comparison of skill use among three
types of CCDL classes, it was demonstrated that thestudents in two classes designed to specialize incross-cultural communication (i.e., theme-based
CCDL courses and Cyber Session classes) would
frequently utilize these four skills in CCDL
activities. It implied that the skills represented by
4 factors were closely related to CCDL context. In
this sense, research hypothesis 2 was verified.
On the basis of these findings, therefore, it canbe said that the brief questionnaire we developed
would be appreciable to assess and evaluate theskill use among CCDL classes. To validate thefindings in this study, future research will be
required.

4.3
Mean Factor Scores
The factor scores for each extracted factor were
calculated by regression method. We comparedfrequency of skill use in terms of mean factor
scores for each group. Figure 1 indicates thecomparison among the three class types.

Mean Factor Scores

Mean Factor Scores
Extra Chat Group

0.8
0.6

Theme-Based CCDL
Cyber Session Group

0.4
0.2
0
-0.2

Acknowledgment
We would like to express our sincerest thanks tostaff members of Waseda University Internationaland CCDL Support Center, who helped us to collectthe data for this study as well as those for our
motivational study cited in this booklet. We also
thank all the professors who allowed us to distributeour questionnaire in their class hours.

-0.4
-0.6
(F1)
Beginning Skills for L2
Communication(F2)
Planning Skills(F3)
Strategic Skills for
Keeping Good
Relationship w ith
Others(F4)
Skills for Dealing
with Affective Issues

Extracted Factors

Figure 1: Mean factor scores
As Figure 1 indicates, the students who
participated in Cyber session classes show thehighest skill use in 4 factors. As for those intheme-based CCDL courses, their mean scores for 4
factors are shown to be relatively lower but almost
similar patterns to Cyber session classes. On theother hand, the students in Extra chat group show
the lowest skill use in 4 factors. This result
implies that these 4 skills observed in the present
study are relevant to CCDL context because twoclasses designed to specialize in CCDL activities
show higher skill use in each comparison as we
assumed. In this sense, the applicability of 34
questionnaire items selected in this study wasverified in terms of specific relationships between
each item and CCDL activities.

5

References
Field, A., (2005). Discovering Statistics using SPSS.
2nd Edition, Sage.
Goldstein, A. P., McGinnis, E., Sparfkin, R. P.,
Gershaw, N. J. and Klein, P. (1997).
Skillstreamingtheadolescent:newstrategies and perspectives for teachingprosocial skills. Revised Edition. Research
Press.
Kikuchi, A. (1988). Omoiyari –wo- kagaku -suru.
Kawashima Shoten.
Kikuchi, A., (2007). Shakaiteki-Sukiru-wo-hakaruKiSS-18 Handbook. Kawashima Shoten.
Nakano, M., Yoshida, S. and Owada, K. (2008).
Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL)
Programs and Program Assessment.
Proceedings of 9th APRU Distance
Learning and the Internet Conference 2008,
189-198.
Yoshida, S. and Nakano, M. (2008). Assessing
Social Skills among Japanese EFL
Learners: A Pilot Study. Proceedings of the
13th Conference of Pan- Pacific Associationof Applied Linguistics, 205-208.

SummaryFirst, we verified the suitability of 34 items selectedby I-T correlation analysis. As we hypothesized,
all the items had appropriate correlation with thetotal score (i.e., r > 0.4). Drawing on Kikuchi’s(1988 and 2007) explanation, these 34 items should
be regarded as important skills to the participating
students
forfacilitating
cross-culturalcommunication. Therefore, research hypothesis 1
was verified.
368

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Lesson Review Tests and CEFR Can-do Statements
Michiko Nakano1 Hikaru Sugiyama2, Manabu Itoh2, Yusuke Kondo3 and Hajime Tsubaki4

1

School of Education, Waseda University, 2Waseda University International Co., 3Ritsumeikan University,
4

GITS, Waseda University

nakanom@waseda.jp, sugiyama@w-int.jp, yusukekondo@asagi.waseda.jp

have been offered by the Open Education Center
since 1997, and they have been popular among
students in the university. In the past four years,
about 10,000 students took these Tutorial lessons
per year. These courses aim to promote practicalEnglish skills so that the students can communicate
functionally well in English. In order to achieve thisobjective, one tutor teaches a small group of four
students. This small group training is effective to
reduce students’ speech anxiety in English and toprovide social contexts of speech situations. Since
the tutorial lessons create a context for socialization,
it can promote acquisition of communicativecompetence and it is effective to let learners use
their passive knowledge of vocabulary andgrammar automatically and stably. The English
Tutorials are designed based on the Common
European Framework of References (CEFR) and
there
are
six
levels:beginners,
basic,
pre-intermediate, intermediate, pre-advanced andadvanced. These levels roughly correspond to thesix levels in the CEFR: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2
respectively. Each unit of the textbooks contains 2
can-do functions. Lesson Review Test examines alearner’s mastery of each function in terms of
vocabulary, idioms, listening comprehension andpartial dictations. Each test item is mapped onto
the list of CEFR descriptors. It is hoped that
Lesson Review Tests can output the degree ofmastery of can-do functions.
The CEFR was publicized in 2001 at theInternational
ConferencetoCommemorate
European Year of Languages held at the Free
University, Germany, after a long-term empiricalinvestigation in order to set up common standards
in language teaching and learning. Since then, many
books and articles about the CEFR have been
published. It is now known as the frameworkproviding the most comprehensive descriptors oflanguage learning. The CEFR managed to define L2
proficiency in functional terms so that the samedescriptors can be used to define learning goals, todevelop learning materials and activities, and tojudge learning achievement. At Waseda University,

Abstract
English Tutorials give Lesson Review Tests(LRT) every seventh lesson, totaling three
LRTs per semester.
We have assigned acan-do statement for each test item. LRT has
four sections: 30 vocabulary items, 18 idioms,
18 Listening comprehension and 18 partial
dictations.
English Tutorials have six
proficiency
levelswhich
approximately
correspond to A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2 in the
Common European Framework of Reference(CEFR). Thus, the total number of test items
amounts to 540 vocabulary items, 324 idioms,
324 listening comprehension items and 324
partial dictations. However, these test items
are not homogeneous, since the textbooks
contain some mixed items; for instance,
Beginners (A1) includes A1 and A2 items.
This is because English at University Level
requires these mixed items. This tendency
can be observed at all the six levels of English
Tutorials. In this presentation, we will clarify
whether learners’ performance indicate somedifferentiations along the ordinal scale, byrunning Exametrika program developed by
Shojima (2009). Exametrika based on neuraltest theory was adopted here, since it can yield
relevant can-do statements which are ranked
along the six levels.
According to Shojima(2008), neural test theory uses the mechanismof a self-organizing map. The item reference
profile represents statistical characteristics ofeach test item. It assumes that the latentscale is ordinal and that each examinee islocated on the latent rank scale. Thus, theframework fits our testing conditions highly
well.

Keywords
Neural Test Theory, Exametrica, Can-do statements,
CEFR

Introduction
The English Tutorial Lessons at Waseda University369

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics(3) “Not bad.”(4) “What do you mean?”
3-1 Can-do A1"Q. What year is Li in?”(1) freshman(2) sophomore(3) junior(4) senior
3-2 Can-do A1"Q. What is Li studying?”(1) Law(2) Education(3) Mathematics(4) English
4-1 Can-do A1"Kei : Hi nice to meet you. My name's Kei
Yamamoto. Please call me Kei.”
Li
: (
) (
) (
)
(
)(
) Kei. I'm Li. I'm majoringin ().
4-2 Can-do A1"Li: What are you studying?
Kei: I'm studying (). I'm a ().
What year are you in?
Li: I'm a ().

Michiko Nakano, the Director of English Language
Division, Open Education Center, introduced CEFR
into the framework of language teaching at Open
Education Center in 2001. Nakano and her
associates have modified teaching materials andtasks every year so that all the language learning
activities in English Tutorials follow the CEFR
descriptors and guidelines. In 2006 we started tovalidate the linkage of the tutorials to the CEFR.
The present report is one of our efforts in thisdirection.

1

MethodIn order to examine the relationship between the
Lesson Review Test scores and the CEFR can-dostatements, we conducted test sessions forbeginners, basic, pre-intermediate, intermediate,
pre-advanced and advanced level course
participants three times per semester. This paper
examines the score results, autumn term, 2008.
Since the data is massive, we present the result on
the first session on Basic course for illustration
here.
1.1
Materials
The test items are constructed on the basis of
can-do functions in each unit. Section 1 provides 30
vocabulary items, Section 2, 18 idioms, Section 3,
18 Listen Comprehension items and Section 4,
partial dictations. Two examples in Unit 1 aregiven below.
Basic 1-1 Can-do A1"If you study linguistics or literature you are in the().
(1) School of Political Science and Economics(2) School of Letters Arts and Sciences(3) School of Human Sciences(4) School of Commerce"
1-2 Can-do A1"If you study accounting you are in the().
(1) School of Political Science and Economics(2) School of Letters Arts and Sciences(3) School of Human Sciences(4) School of Commerce"
2-1 Can-do A1"When you introduce yourself to people you don't
know you would say ()(1) “Nice to meet you.”(2) “What's new?”(3) “Wow!”(4) “I'm sorry, I don't follow you.”
2-2 Can-do A1"When you greet people you know you would say()(1) “Nice to meet you.”(2) “How have you been?”

1.2 Correspondence list of Can-do topics and
CEFR descriptors
Appendix 1 gives a correspondence list of can-dofunctions and CEFR descriptors.
1.3
1st test session
The first test session took place at the 7th lesson and
135 students who attended the basic course
volunteered to take a test

2

Result and Discussion

As Table1 indicate, Basic course contains a mixed
level items form A1, A2 lower, A2 and A2 upper.
For this reason we set the number of ranks as 4.
Table 1370

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

基本統計量
135
84
39
79
69
68.18553.7197.329
0.816
Rank 1
Rank 2
Rank 3 Rank 4
テスト参照プロファイル(T53.69164.005 69.469 75.009
潜在ランク分布(LRD)
9
38
48
40
ランク・メンバーシップ分布 10.152
37.470 45.999 41.379
相対TRP
0.639
0.762
0.827
0.893
相対LRD
0.067
0.281
0.356
0.296
相対RMD
0.075
0.278
0.341
0.307
テスト適合度RMPに基づくテスト適合度
カイ2乗値
18.8677.227
有効自由度(effective de 6758.822
6758.822
P値
1.000
1.000
NFI
0.916
0.958
RFI
0.916
0.958
IFI
1.000
1.000
TLI
1.000
1.000
CFI
1.000
1.000
RMSEA
0.000
0.000
AIC
-13498.777 -13510.416
CAIC-39893.832 -39905.472
BIC-33135.011 -33146.650

A1l A1 A1u A2l A2 A2u. 1 - . . .
. 1 - . . .
. 1 - . . .
. 1 - . . .
. 1 - . . .
. . - . 4 2. . - . 4 2. . - . 1 1. . - . 1 1. . - . 1 1. . - 1 . 2. . - . . 2. . - 1 . 2. . - . . 2. . - 1 . .
. . - . . 1. . - . . 1. . - 1 . .
. . - . . 1. . - 1 . 1. . - . . 1. . - . . 1. . - . . 1. . - . . 2. . - . . 2. . - 1 . .
. . - 1 . .
. . - 1 . .
. . - 1 . .
. . - 1 . .

受験者数(N)
項目数(n)
最小値(Min)
最大値(Max)
中央値(Median)
平均値(Mean)
分散(Var.)
標準偏差(SD)
アルファ係数

Table 3 gives a partial list of Item Reference
Profiles. It indicates that Item 1-25 can not beranked along the four point ordinal scale; theitem does not have a discriminatory power.
Item 1-9 shows a similar tendency. Item1-30
cannot differentiate rank2 and rank3
examinees. This is endorsed by Item graphs
shown in Fig 1 ~ Fig 4.

Table 2 gives the summary of statistics.
Table 2 Basic Unit 1-6 Test Summary

371

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

項目参照プロファイル(IRP)
Rank 1
Rank 2
Rank 3
Rank 4
0.599
0.749
0.838
0.979
0.514
0.743
0.794
0.867
0.740
0.894
0.925
0.936
0.759
0.937
0.941
0.949
0.912
0.951
0.996
1.000
0.807
0.933
0.955
0.973
0.911
0.962
0.971
0.996
0.950
0.973
0.983
0.994
0.383
0.526
0.675
0.907
0.532
0.796
0.881
0.938
0.734
0.820
0.832
0.914
0.539
0.764
0.796
0.888
0.748
0.920
0.961
0.968
0.922
0.937
0.949
0.958
0.571
0.590
0.686
0.691
0.539
0.775
0.867
0.873
0.949
0.975
0.983
0.995
0.612
0.702
0.718
0.740
0.919
0.975
0.975
0.976
0.651
0.891
0.955
0.980
0.775
0.818
0.880
0.921
0.613
0.716
0.742
0.875
0.572
0.823
0.826
0.890
0.401
0.817
0.844
0.974
0.290
0.307
0.310
0.316
0.795
0.855
0.861
0.984
0.771
0.977
0.978
0.990
0.766
0.918
0.955
0.981
0.673
0.881
0.900
0.975
0.307
0.465
0.480
0.670

1-25
1.0

確率

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
1

2

3

4

潜在ランク
Fig 1-25

1-30
1.0

確率

0.8

1-9

0.6
0.4

1.0

0.2

確率

0.8

0.0

0.6

1

0.4

2

3

4

潜在ランク

0.2

Fig 1-30

0.0
項目参照プロファイル(IRP)

Table 4 gives a partial list of Examinees’ Ranking
Estimated. Since examinees’ ranking are estimated,
we can output the following can-do statements,
depending on the rank estimated.
Feedback to Rank1 examinees:z Can make an introduction and use basic
greeting and leave-taking expressions.
z Can ask and answer simple questions,
initiate and respond to simple statements
in areas of immediate need or on very
familiar topics.
Feedback to Rank2 examinees (their proficiency
subsumes Rank 1 can-do mastery):z Can communicate in simple and routine

潜 在ランクFig 1 Item 1-9

372

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

tasks using simple phrases to ask for andprovide things, to get simple information anddiscuss what to do next.
z Can communicate in simple and routine
tasks requiring a simple and direct
exchange of information on familiar androutine matters to do with work and freetime.
z Can say what he/she likes and dislikes.
z Can
describe
people,places,andpossessions in simple terms.
z Can
describe
people,places,andpossessions in simple terms.
Feedback to Rank 3 examinees (their proficiency
subsumes Rank 1 and Rank 2 can-do mastery):z Can participate in short conversations inroutine contexts on topics of interest.
Feedback to Rank 4 examinees (their proficiency
subsumes Rank 1, Rank 2 and Rank3 can-domastery):z Can participate in short conversations inroutine contexts on topics of interest.
z Can generally understand clear, standard
speech on familiar matters directed at
him/her, provided he/she can ask for
repetition or reformation from time totime.
z Can describe plans and arrangements,
habits and routines, past activities andpersonal experiences.
z Can discuss what to do in the evening, at
the weekend.
z Can ask and answer questions about
habits and routines.
z Can explain what he/she likes and dislikes.
z Can explain what he/she likes and dislikes.
z Can express how he/she feels in simple
terms, and express thanks.
z Can describe plans and arrangements,
habits and routines, past activities andpersonal experiences.
z Can ask and answer questions about
pastimes and past activities.
z Can describe plans and arrangements,
habits and routines, past activities andpersonal experiences.
z Can briefly reasons and explanations for
opinions, plans and activities.

determine which item should be removed andaltered; (4) in conjunction with the test itemswith can-do statements, one can device theappropriate feedbacks specific to their ranked
proficiency.

Table A partial list of Examinees’ Ranking
Estimated

潜在ランク ランク・メンバーシップ・プロファイル
推定値 Rank 1 Rank 2 Rank 3 Rank 4
2
0.003
0.982
0.015
0.000
2
0.118
0.868
0.014
0.000
3
0.000
0.210
0.733
0.057
3
0.000
0.090
0.909
0.000
2
0.089
0.911
0.000
0.000
4
0.000
0.001
0.066
0.933
3
0.001
0.191
0.806
0.002
2
0.001
0.866
0.133
0.000
4
0.000
0.000
0.022
0.978
2
0.003
0.995
0.002
0.000
2
0.005
0.969
0.026
0.000
4
0.000
0.012
0.064
0.924
4
0.000
0.001
0.005
0.994
2
0.000
0.758
0.242
0.000
2
0.241
0.757
0.002
0.000
4
0.000
0.000
0.006
0.994
2
0.002
0.903
0.095
0.000
2
0.000
0.537
0.297
0.165
2
0.000
0.888
0.104
0.008
2
0.002
0.818
0.169
0.011
2
0.005
0.993
0.002
0.000
3
0.000
0.448
0.546
0.007
2
0.004
0.994
0.002
0.000
1
1.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
4
0.000
0.001
0.017
0.983
3
0.001
0.402
0.596
0.001
4
0.000
0.000
0.032
0.968
3
0.000
0.033
0.961
0.006
4
0.000
0.000
0.045
0.955
2
0.016
0.950
0.034
0.000

3.0 Summary

References
Shojima, K. (2008). Neural Test Theory: Latent
Rank Theory for Analyzing Test Data. In K.
Shigematsu, A. Okada, T. Imaizumi, and T.
Hoshino(eds.)
New
Trendsin
Psychometrics. Universal Academy Press
Inc. 1-37.

Exametrica developed by Shojima (2009) basedon Neural Net Theory proves to be useful infour ways; (1) the examinees can be ranked
appropriately; (2) it estimate the probability ofcorrect responses, depending on their ranks; (3)by looking at Item Reference Profiles, we can373Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Shojima, K. (2007). Latent Rank Theory:
Estimation of Item Refernce Profile byMarginal Maximum Likelihood Methodwith EM Algorithm. DNC Research Note.
07-12.
Appendix
Can Do List： Reach Out Basic
Unit

Can-doIntroduce oneself and greet people

Level
A1

Use conversation management English

A2
lower

Exten sion Ac tivity

A2
lower
A1

1

Be a good listener.

2

Continue conversations
Exten sion Ac tivity

Talk about daily routines

3

Talk about free time activities

Exten sion Ac tivity
Express likes and dislikes
4

Explain likes and dislikes
Exten sion Ac tivity
Describe my feelings.
Discuss recent events

A2
Upper
A2
Upper
A2
upper
A2
upper
A1
lower
A2
Upper
A2
lower
A2
upper
A2
upper
A2
upper
A2
upper

5

Exten sion Ac tivity
Describe and compare places
6

Talk about the features of places
Exten sion Ac tivity

A2
upper
A2
upper
A2
lower
A2
lower
B1
lower

Level in ELP
Con ve rsation A1
Can make an introduction and use basic greeting and leave-taking expressions.
Goal- orie n te d c o- ope ration A2 (lowe r)
Can communicate in simple and routine tasks using simple phrases to ask for andprovide things, to get simple information and discuss what to do next.
Su stain e d Mon ologu e De sc ribin g Expe rie n c e A2 (lowe r)
Can describe his/her family, living conditions, educational background, present or most recent job.
O ve rall Spoke n In te rac tion A1
Can ask and answer simple questions, initiate and respond to simple statements inareas of immediate need or on very familiar topics.
Con ve rsation A2 (u pper)
Can participate in short conversations in routine contexts on topics of interest.
Con ve rsation A2 (u pper)
Can generally understand clear, standard speech on familiar matters directed at him/her,provided he/she can ask for repetition or reformation from time to time.
Su stain e d Mon ologu e De sc ribin g Expe rie n c e A2 (u ppe r)
Can describe plans and arrangements, habits and routines, past activities and personal
experiences.
In formal Disc u ssion with Frie n ds A2 (u ppe r)
Can discuss what to do in the evening, at the weekend.
O ve rall Spoke n In te rac tion A1 (lowe r)
Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange
of information on familiar and routine matters to do with work and free time.
In formation Exc h an ge A2 (u ppe r)
Can ask and answer questions about habits and routines.
Con ve rsation A2 (lowe r)
Can say what he/she likes and dislikes.
Su stain e d Mon ologu e De sc ribin g Expe rie n c e A2 (u ppe r)
Can explain what he/she likes and dislikes.
Su stain e d Mon ologu e De sc ribin g Expe rie n c e A2 (u ppe r)
Can explain what he/she likes and dislikes.
Con ve rsation A2 (u pper)
Can express how he/she feels in simple terms, and express thanks.
Su stain e d Mon ologu e De sc ribin g Expe rie n c e A2 (u ppe r)
Can describe plans and arrangements, habits and routines, past activities and personal
experiences.
In formation Exc h an ge A2 (u ppe r)
Can ask and answer questions about pastimes and past activities.
Su stain e d Mon ologu e De sc ribin g Expe rie n c e A2 (u ppe r)
Can describe plans and arrangements, habits and routines, past activities and personal experiences.
Su stain e d Mon ologu e De sc ribin g Expe rie n c e A2 (lowe r)
Can describe people, places, and possessions in simple terms.
Su stain e d Mon ologu e De sc ribin g Expe rie n c e A2 (lowe r)
Can describe people, places, and possessions in simple terms.
Su stain e d Mon ologu e Pu ttin g a Case B1 (lowe r)
Can briefly reasons and explanations for opinions, plans and activities.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

English Tutorials, CEFR and ACPA
Michiko Nakano1 Kazuharu Owada2 Eiichiro Tsutsui3 and Yusuke Kondo4

1

School of Education, Waseda University, 2Tokyo College of Music, 3International Hiroshima University and4

Ritsumeikan University

nakanom@waseda.jp, yusukekondo@asagi.waseda.jp
abilities in these domains.
In 2008 ACPA developed the Standard Skill
Descriptions in language learning (particularly
in English), using the same framework of theabove ACPA Standard Skill Descriptions basedon Common European Framework of Reference
for language (CEFR). This is due to thespecific request from Open Education Center,
Waseda University.
At Open Education
Center, English has been taught based on the
CEFR since 2001. Over the years they haveachieved the fairly cohesive syllabus byincorporating most of the requirements the
CEFR specifies into their curriculum as awhole. Their efforts to improve curriculum
and methods of teaching have been very
impressive, although the development isgradual and still continuing.
Since they
managed to provide some experimental
evidence for validation, we decided to consider
their request seriously. In 2009 we hope toissue accreditation service for Open Education
Center a part of CEFR-based curriculum,
Tutorial English.
The CEFR has been well recognized all over theworld. It is hoped that ACPA can assist
Japanese learners of English at University
levels to improve practical abilities, based ontheInternational
Standards.
ACPA
Initiatives will be useful and helpful for
Educational Institutes in Japan, Japaneseindustries and individual learners andeventually contribute to the development ofpractical language (English) skills which
Japanese Businessmen will urgently require inorder to act as competent global citizens.
This document explains the outline of theStandard Skills Descriptions in the domain of
language (English).

Abstract
Accreditation Council for Practical Abilities(ACPA) has developed the Standard Skill
Descriptions in the domains of Information
Technology and Business Management since2003. Our descriptions have been publicizedand ACPA has been conducting theaccreditation services for IT or Businesscourses and certification tests for practicalabilities in these domains.
In 2008 ACPA developed the Standard Skill
Descriptions in language learning (particularly
in English), using the same framework of theabove ACPA Standard Skill Descriptions basedon Common European Framework of Reference
for language (CEFR). This is due to thespecific request from Open Education Center,
Waseda University.
At Open Education
Center, English has been taught based on the
CEFR since 2001. Over the years they haveachieved the fairly cohesive syllabus byincorporating most of the requirements the
CEFR specifies into their curriculum as awhole. Their efforts to improve curriculum
and methods of teaching have been very
impressive, although the development isgradual and still continuing.
Since they
managed to provide some experimental
evidence for validation, we decided to consider
their request seriously. In 2009 we hope toissue accreditation service for Open Education
Center a part of CEFR-based curriculum,
Tutorial English.

Keywords
Accreditation, CEFR, English Tutorials

Introduction
Accreditation Council for Practical Abilities(ACPA) has developed the Standard Skill
Descriptions in the domains of Information
Technology and Business Management since2003. Our descriptions have been publicizedand ACPA has been conducting theaccreditation services for IT or Businesscourses and certification tests for practical

1. Accreditation Council of Practical Abilities(ACPA)
1.1 What is ACPA
The Accreditation Council for Practical Abilities(ACPA) is a non-profit organization established in375Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

In developing the ACPA Standard Skills Guide, the
CEFR illustrative descriptors are translated into
Japanese, independently from the translation by S.
Yoshijima, R. Ohashi, et. al. (2004).
The
proficiency levels of ACPA Standard Skills Guide
adopt six levels, following the CEFR.

2003 with the support of the government,
corporations and higher educational institutions.
Its objective is to establish an online network
system to assure educational quality in practicalabilities and to issue certificates to individuals, andto conduct activities to nurture human resources
needed by the present-day society.

2.2 Purpose of Standard Skills Guide forEnglish1.2 ACPA Standard Skills Descriptions

The ACPA aims to accredit courses of practicalabilities in English by examining the syllabus,teaching materials, and methods of teaching first.
After a learner completes an accredited course, hisor her practical skills learned can be described inpractical terms and a learner can obtain certificate
which describes his skill content. We can alsosuggest to a learner about his or her further studies
to improve his or her practical skills required in heror his future occupation.
The ACPA standard descriptors clarify theobjective and goal of the course and the level oflearning. It also provides guidelines to develop
systematic curriculum, and learning materials sothat one can prevent a mismatch between a learner’s
learning objectives and the course objectives.

The ACPA formulates standards in practical skills
which are required in practical works in the form ofstandard skills descriptions. The ACPA certifies thecourses and tests used in institutions, and issues
certificates to individuals.
The ACPA Standard Skills Descriptions
provides a skill standard matrix which depicts a
relationship between a profession (or a job) and a
specific set of practical skills required by a given
profession or a job. The skill standard matrix
indicates a relationship between occupational
categories and skills in the form of a table showing
which skills are required for each occupational
category. It helps institutions and individuals tounderstand a required level of a set of skills. The IT
domain Standard Skills Guide has been used for thecertification service since 2006. The Business
Management domain Standard Skills Guide has
been used for the certification service since 2007.

2.3 ACPA Format
The ACPA format has six sections: Level, Category,Sub-category, Skill Set, Items (elements) and
Descriptors.
Level in heads represents six
proficiency levels: Beginners (A1), Basic (A2),Pre-Intermediate(B1),
Intermediate(B2),
Pre-advanced and Advanced (C1), Advanced andAdvanced + (C2). Categories represent Language
Competence, Communicative Ability and Strategies
and Text. Each category has subcategories; forinstance, Language Competence has four
subcategories: lexical competence, grammaticalcompetence, phonological competence andorthographic competence The CEFR descriptors
are arranged hierarchy in terms of the language use
domains. The ACPA format can be outlined asfollows:

2. Standard Skills Guide for English
2.1 Background of Standard Skills Guide forEnglishThe global activities of business enterprises have
rapidly spread in the present-day society. The
importance of international standards of English
skills have been recognized not only in Asia but
also all over the world. Although many major
enterprises in Asia adopt TOEIC test for evaluating
English competence in business, it is not always
true that high score in TOEIC test reflects actual
content of practical abilities in daily businessnegotiations and interactions. The common
European framework of reference (CEFR), on theother hand, describes actual content of practicalabilities in language use. Using the matrix of
ACPA practical ability descriptions which has been
introduced in IT domain and Business Management
domain, we have rearranged and revised the CEFR
illustrative descriptors to suit English Language
Education as a foreign language in Japan. It is
hoped that this revision is appropriate in Asia as
well.

☆Language Competence□
Language Competence△
LexicalCompetence△
Grammatical
Competence△
PhonologicalCompetence△ Orthographic
Competence□ Sociolinguistic
Competence△ Sociolinguistic

The CEFR aims to provide a common basis for theelaboration of syllabuses, curriculum guidelines,
examinations, teaching materials, textbooks, andteaching methods in language learning. It is
widely used as authoritative international standards.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Competence□ Pragmatic Competence△ Discourse
Competence△ Functional
Competence☆ Communicative
Performance
Ability and Strategies□ Productive Activities andStrategies△ Spoken Production△ Written Production△ Production Strategy□ Perceptive Activities andStrategies△ Listening△ Reading△ AudioVisual
Reception△ Reception Strategy□ Interactive Activities andStrategies△ Spoken Interaction△ Written Interaction△ Interaction Strategy）☆Text□ Text△ Working with text
Note： ☆：Categories, □： subcategories
Skill Sets
Level

525 TOEIC score.
Pre-Intermediate Level【B1】Candidates who complete English Tutorial
Pre-Intermediate Level have to take WeTEC Test
whose test scores needs to be more than 608 which
is approximately 565 TOEIC score.
Intermediate Level【B2】Candidates who complete English Tutorial
Intermediate Level have to take WeTEC Test whose
test scores need to be more than 733 which isapproximately 705 TOEIC score.
Pre-advanced Level 【C1】
Candidates who complete English Tutorial
Pre-advanced Level as well as Discussion Tutorial
Intermediate and whose course grade must be A+ or
A have more than 800 WeTEC score which isapproximately 780 TOEIC score.
Advanced Level【C2】Candidates who complete English Tutorial
Advanced Level as well as either Discussion
Tutorial Advanced Level or English Tutorial
Advance + and whose course grade must be A+ or
A have more than 880 WeTEC score which isapproximately 870 TOEIC score.
The document of CEFR consists of the nine
chapters. We have adopted descriptors in Chapters 3,
4, and 5. ACPA skill item description was drawn
up by arranging and reorganizing the illustrativedescriptors described in these chapters of CEFR.

△：

4.1 Example in the case of Tutorial English
Course of Pre-intermediate① Course Certification（CEFR：6 Leveis of A1-C2）

Category

When it is judged that items marked with ● of acourse of Intermediate meets the course
certification screening criterion of ACPA, the skillof the course certified serves as items shown by ●marks.
② Skill Certification
When a student complete and pass theexamination of the course of the Tutorial English
Intermediate course, ACPA recognizes that thestudent acquired the skills of four items oflanguage use capability indicated by mark ●, that
is, Spoken Production, Production Strategy,
Spoken Interaction, Interaction Strategy.

（Language Competence, Communicative Performance Ability and Strategies, Text）

Sub-category

Skill Set

Items(elements)

Illustrative scales

Descriptors

Fig.1 Structure of Skill Standard Guide of English

2.4 Levels and Courses
Six levels are set up in relation to the CEFR.
Beginners Level【A1】
ACPA certificate does not include A1.
Basic Level【A2】Candidates who complete English Tutorial Basic
Level have to take WeTEC Test whose test scores
need to be more than 573 which is approximately

Reference

European Council (2001). The Common
European Framework of Reference for
Languages”http://www.coe.int/T/DG4/Portfolio/documents/Framework_EN.pdf

Appendix377

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

How ACPA is operated
Build up expertise

Privatecompanies

Provide and implement study course and certification(recruiting division)

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Educational institutions
Accredited institutions

Individual

8378Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Preliminary assessment of Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL)
competence using Discourse Completion Tasks (DCT)
Michiko Nakano1, Junko Negishi1, Kazuharu Owada2, Remi Murao1, Masanori Oya1 Tae Yamazaki,
Miyasaka, N., and Norifumi Ueda1

1

Waseda University, 2Tokyo College of Musicnakanom@waseda.jp, jnegishi@dream.com, murao@aoni.waseda.jp,
uedan@aoni.waseda.jp
Waseda students are encouraged to take this CCDL
course after they complete Intermediate Tutorial
English ( above WeTEC score 733, TOEIC score703). In 2009 spring semester, average WeTEC
scores are 730 among Waseda students and 880
among Yonsei students. The main purpose of thisCCDL course is that Asian youths should be able todiscuss current problems in the world in English
and that they should offer their own tentative
solutions to the problems which may be acceptable
compromise among Asian students whose world
views are diverse. For instance, the specific topics
in Social and Global issues include Happiness
Factors (Co-existence in Asia seen fromindividuals), Family roles in the changing society
and Climate Change, Spring semester. The course
also contains lessons on cross-cultural concepts andtransferable skills as reported in Nakano et al.
(2007a, 2007b, and 2007c). In this paper, it is
supposed that cross-cultural concepts and skills canpromote interpersonal skills which are related tospeech acts realization patterns. According toCohen (1996), “the first concern of SLA researchers
has been to arrive at the set of realization patterns”
which he called “speech act set”: Cohen (1996:385).
Discourse Completion Tasks should be able todefine the preconditions and interactional goals ofspeech act explicitly, so that DCT should elicit what
Cohen called “socio-cultural ability” which enables
a speaker to achieve his intended perlocutionary
effect. In this experiment we examine our DCTs
can achieve our desired goal to maximize alearner’ssocio-culturalability.
Cohen’s

Abstract
In this paper, we discuss how to assess CCDL
competence using Discourse Completion Tasks(DCT).
This is preliminary to automatic
assessment of oral responses to DCTs and we areinterested in finding out whether DCT is suitablefor our future research into automatic assessment oforal responses. We gave a list of 10 contexts ofsituations to our students asked what they would
say in a given situation. Their responses werecollected in textual format. These DCTs are
distributed online via Learning Management
System called Course N@vi.
66 students
participated in this preliminary investigation; out of
66, 45 were CCDL participants and the remaining
21 students were non-CCDL students. The two
types of participants were compared in terms of
response patterns in the present study. Their
responses are downloaded and analyzed according
to the coding schema by Blum-Kuluka andKasper’s CCSARP project (1989) which has beenused by various researchers in the past: Hill (1997),
Nakano et al. (1999), Nakano(2003) andNegishi(2006).
We also adopted speech act
classifications by Aijmer(1996). We will discuss
which coding is useful for the present situation.

Keywords
CCDL, DCT, Intercultural communication

Introduction
Cross-cultural Distance Learning Courses at
Waseda University are joint courses with oversea
partners in China, Korea and Taiwan.
Theme-based Cross Cultural Distance Learning(CCDL) in 2009 Spring Semester deals with twothemes: Social & Global Issues and Media. This is apart of the collaborative joint cyber seminar among
Asian Universities initiated by Waseda University.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

socio-cultural ability includes a learner’s choice ofa relevant expression relative to not only suchsituational factors as the status of the speaker andhearer, age, power relationships, but also such
personal factors as familiarity, and psychologicaldistance. This means that our participant exhibits
some sensitivity toward an addresser variability
implicit in out DCT situations.

1culturenote: S stands for speaker, H stands for hearer
Requests are face threatening acts (Brown andLevinson 1987; Suh 1999), thus we can state thatthe choice of requestive strategies is influenced by
the three factors in the formula above: social
distance between a speaker and a hearer, power thata hearer has over a speaker, and degree of
imposition that a speaker’s request would put on ahearer. It is important to bear this claim in mind
whenever we do research on requests. For thisreason, Nakano et al. (1999) we have distributed thequestionnaire about how a participant interpretssocial distance between S and H, power relationshipbetween them, and a degree of imposition inherent
in one’s request, since a participant’s interpretation
varies individually. However, in this preliminary
research we have omitted this aspect ofinvestigation.

Background of Request Speech Acts

In discussing discourse situations, what Yule
(1996:60) remarks on the relationship between
situations and speech acts in general has beenwell-received among researchers:
As a technical term, face means the public
self-image of a person. It refers to thatemotional and social sense of self thateveryone has and expects everyone else torecognize. Politeness, in an interaction,
can then be defined as the means employed
to show awareness of another person’s face.
In this sense, politeness can beaccomplished in situations of social
distance or closeness. (The two words
were bold- faced in the original text.)

1.1
Request Speech Acts and CCDLOne of the speech act practice in CCDL courses isconcerned with a facilitator role. Facilitating is
one of the core CCDL skills that students have theopportunity to develop during the course. All
students take turns facilitating activities anddiscussions. Students learn how to facilitate by a)observing others facilitate, b) experiencing being aparticipant in a discussion facilitated by anotherstudent, as well as c) facilitating a discussion
themselves.
Depending on their learning styles, some may
prefer to try first, others to watch first. Thus
asking for volunteers is preferable to allocatingroles during the first half of the course (Topics 1-3).
In order to experience personal development and tocontrast the different environments (face-to-faceversus technology interface), the course has been
structured to give all students the opportunity topractice facilitating at least twice in both
‘Preparation’ and ‘Joint Lessons’, four times in total,by the end of the semester.
Facilitation skills are introduced to the students
using a metaphor of engine oil and cooking oil.
Engine oil makes the different parts of an engine
move smoothly together and prevents the engine
seizing. This means that a facilitator helps theconversation in a group of 3 or more people gosmoothly
betweenpeoplewithdifferent
personalities and communication styles. Cooking
oil stops the food from sticking to the frying pan. It
helps to toss the food easily to stop one sideburning while the other side is uncooked. A

What is apparent in this extract is that ourawareness of politeness is necessary for our dailyinteractions, and at the same time, our awareness ofsocial situation is essential. Yule (1996:61) goeson to say:Within their everyday social interactions,people generally behave as if their
expectations
concerningtheirpublicself-image, or their face wants, will be
respected. If a speaker says something that
represents a threat to another individual’s
expectations regarding self-image, it isdescribed as a face threatening act. (Thetwo words were bold-faced in the original
text.)
Brown and Levinson (1987:76) present a formula inorder to calculate the seriousness of a face threatening
act (FTA) as follows:
Wx = D(S, H)+ P(H, S) + Rx
Wx:
the numerical value that measures theweightiness of the FTAx
D(S, H): the value that measures the social distance
between S and H
P(H, S): a measure of the power that H has over S
Rxa valu a value that measures the degree towhich the FTAx is rated an imposition in that380

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

facilitator stops the conversation getting stuck,clarifies misunderstandings, enables everyone totake part in the discussion, and has a pool ofquestions to keep the discussion moving ininteresting directions. If the oil in the engine isoverfilled, it will leak and the engine will not
function at its best. If there is not enough oil theengine may seize. If there is too much cooking oilin the pan, the food itself will become oily and theflavor of the oil overpowers taste of the food. The
facilitator’s role is not necessarily to be as
noticeable as that of a chairperson, althoughsometimes clear direction such as typing discussion
questions into the Text Box, and clear structure suchas asking for contributors by name can help. A
facilitator helps their group to get the best out of the
discussion and helps each person to give their best.
The following points are the responsibility offacilitators;
1.

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

1.2
Speech Acts and Elicitation Materials
In this experiment, we have included five facilitator
situations:
1 One student is talking in a very quiet voice and you
cannot understand what she/he has just said to you.
What are you going to say to this quiet person?
[Facilitator’s role: Request]
2 One student is very talkative and he/she has beentalking about 70 percent of the time. Others areremaining quiet most of the time. What are you goingto say to this talkative person? [Facilitator’s role:
request and remind ?]3 Students start talking off topic, or about irrelevant
things. What are you going to say to your partners?
[Facilitator’s role: Request]
4 When you are listening to someone, how do you
show to your partner that you are paying attention
to his/her talk? [Backchannel respect or non-verbal
gesture Î compliment]
5 When you are interested in what your partner istalking about, how do you communicate yourinterests to your partner? [Backchannel respect or
non-verbal gesture Î compliment]
Situations 4 and 5 are relevant to non-facilitator
participants as well, but the facilitator needs toshow his or her interest and sympathetic
understanding in other participants most. In most
speech act studies in the past, apology, thanking,request, offer, refusal and compliment have beenstudied. It is unique for us to include speech acts
relevant to oral communication such as
backchannel respect which may be subsumed undercompliment speech act. These five DCTs havebeen practiced during the lessons, but we haveelicited from students who have not been instructed
explicitly.
As for the transferable skills, we included DCTs
which have not been dealt with during the lessons:
6 You have arranged to meet your friends to study
together for an exam. But you have forgotten thearrangement. What are you going to say to yourfriends afterward? [Apology, equal status]
7 Mika is arranging to have a study meeting forwriting a report. You think that each of us should
write a report in our own way. You want to refuse
to join the meeting. What are you going to say?
[ Refusal, equal status]
8 You lent your friend 50 dollars three weeks ago.
Though she promised to return it within a week,
three weeks have already passed. What would you
say to the friend? [Request, equal status]
9 You live in an apartment house. You are often
irritated with the loud noise that your neighbor’s
children make. Today you decide you cannot endure
any more. So you go to your neighbor and what
would you say? [Request, status involves somesubjective understanding the relationship with theBeing the engine/cooking oil in thesystem; helping things go smoothly;
stopping things from getting stuck,keeping the conversation going.
Writing main questions in the Text Box.
Ensuring everyone is participating and canunderstand the discussion.
Encouraging a student to speak up or ask
questions if they have been quiet for sometime.
Offering opportunities to all students tocontribute and preventing one person fromdominating the discussion.
Deciding who should go first if two or
more people want to speak at the sametime.
Directing discussion by calling on
individual people by name.
Typing in key words in the TextBox.

After briefly introducing the role of a facilitator,
students will be given a facilitation exercise as a
homework which asks them what they would do or
say in certain situations in a discussion. For
example, one student is very talkative and talking
about 70 percent of the time while others areremaining quiet most of the time. In the preparation
lesson, students will share their answers in groupand discuss what they should say or do.
The instructor will elicit responses fromdifferent groups for the questions. The purpose ofthis activity is to a) give students phrases they canuse if they encounter those situations, and b) get
students used to the idea of asking themselves“why” they think a student was behaving in acertain way.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

neighbor]
10 You are chair of the student union at yourcollege. One of the members, who is the freshman,always comes late for the meeting. Today is thefifth time that he has come late. What would you
say? [Request, higher status]

Want statement

I'd like you to help me.

2

Suggestory formula

How about giving me a hand?

3

PreparatoryaAbility

Can/Could you lend me some money?

b

Possibility

Would/Could it be possible or is it possible…?

cWillingness

Will/Would you help me?

dPermission

May/Can I borrow some money?

Non-Conventionally Indirect request stands for
Hints such as I left my wallet at home rather thansaying I want to borrow some money.
Category 3: Internal modification
Internal modification refers to downgraders, or
upgraders; they mitigate or enhance the illocutionary
force of a request. They are optionally used within the
Head act. There are six syntactic downgrading
devices and six types of lexical phrases. Upgradersfunction to increase the impact of a request.
1 Adverbial Intensifiers
2 Commiment Upgrader ( I am sure ~.)3 Lexical Intensification
Category 4: External modification
External modification refers to supportive moves withwhich a speaker intends to mitigate or aggravate therequest. Supportive moves are located before and/or
after the Head Acts, not within the Head Act. Thereare eight sub-categories.
1.4
Simpler Coding in Nakano (2003)
Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989)
suggested the following 9 strategies on the scaleof indirectness.
l. mood derivable: utterances in which thegrammatical mood of the verb signals
illocutionary force ( 'Leave me alone'; 'Clean up
that mess').
2. performatives: utterances in which theillocutionary force is explicitly named ( 'I amasking you to clean up the mess').
3. hedged performatives: utterances in which thenaming of the illocutionary force is modified byhedging expressions ( 'I would like to ask you togive your presentation a week earlier thanscheduled').
4. obligation statements: utterances which state
the obligation of the hearer to carry out the act( 'You'll have to move that car').
5 . want statements: utterances which state thespeaker's desire that the hearer carries out the act ( 'Ireally wish you'd stop bothering me').
6. suggestory formulae: utterances which containa suggestion to do x ( 'HOW about cleaning up?').
7 . query preparatory: utterances containingreference to preparatory conditions (e.g., ability,

Table 1 Summary of DCTs
Situation Social Distance DominanceImposition
1
-SD
-D
low
2
-SD
-D
low
3
-SD
-D
low
4
-SD
-D
low
5
-SD
-D
low
6
-SD
-D
7
-SD
-D
subjective
8-SD-D
subjective
9
subjective subjective subjective
10+SD+D subjective

1

Speech Acts
RequestRequestRequestRequestRequestApology
RefusalRequestRequestRequestAs Table 1 indicates, we have some uncertainty inour data, since situational understanding varies
individually and we have not included
questionnaire asking about the self-perception ofsituational factors, particularly about the degree of
imposition. One justification comes from ourprevious experiments in 1999 in which all theexpression elicited were those learned at junior highschool or high school textbooks on thanking,apology, requests and offers.

1.3 Coding Schema for Request
In this preliminary analysis, we adopt two methods:
Bum-kuluka, House and Kasper (1989) and Aijimer(1996). The former is used for Requests. The
coding schema adapted in the study had four
categories:
Category 1: Alerters
Category 2: Head Acts categorised by directness level
Category 3: Internal modification
Category 4: External modification
In what follows, we follow Negishi (2006) and incontrast Nakano (2003) provides a shorter version.
An alerter in Category 1 refers to an opening device
that alerts the hearer’s attention prior to the actual
request. Alerters comprised one of two types: termsof address and attention getters ( e.g., Excuse me).
Category 2: Head Acts categorised by directness
level
Head Acts, actual requests, were categorised into
three types according to the senses of directness:direct requests, conventionally indirect requests andhints. Direct Requests are subdivided into four:
Imperatives, Performatives ( e.g., I ask you to helpme.), Hedged Performatives (e.g., I need to askyou.) and Obligation (You should help me.).
Conventionally indirect requests are mostcommonly used:382

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

willingness) as conventionalized in any specificlanguage ('Could you clear up the kitchen, please?';'Would you mind moving your car?').
8 . strong hints: utterances containing partial
reference to object or element needed for the
implementation of the act ( ' You have left the
kitchen in a right mess').
9. mild hints: utterances that make no reference
to the request proper (or any of its elements) but areinterpretable as requests by context ( ' I am a nun' inresponse to a persistent hassler).
Blum-Kulka, House, Kasper: (1989:18).

indirect
If the speaker uses Let us or Shall we, emphasizing
the use of inclusive we, then the utterance isinclusive: e.g., it’s time that we cleaned the room.
If the speaker uses impersonal pronouns such as
one or the utterance is stated in general terms, thenthe utterance is impersonal; e.g., one needs to clean
the room once in a while, it is our school policy toclean the room once a day, etc.
This simpler coding is easy to use and worked wellfor cross-cultural data comparison among British
speakers, German speakers, Austrarilan English
speakers, Argentinian Spanish speakers, Hebrew
speakers, French speakers and Japanese Learners ofEnglish.

Strategies 1-5 are regarded as “Direct”,“Speaker-oriented” and “Impositives”, Strategies
6 and 7 are “Conventionalized Indirect”,“Hearer-oriented” and “Query Preparatory”,
Strategies 8 and 9 are “Nonconventinalized
Indirect”, “Mutually-oriented” and “Hints”,
according to Blum-Kulka, House, Kasper. Thus, it
is reasonable to accept House (1989:102-105) who
focused on the following three strategies: 1)
Imperatives (‘direct’) e.g., Leave me alone; Clean
up
this
room;
2)
Query
Preparatory(‘conventionalized indirect’): utterances containingreferencetopreparatory
conditions
asconventionalized in any specific language e.g.,
Could you clean up the room?; 3)Hints(‘nonconventionalized indirect’) (e.g., You haveleft the kitchen in a right mess.)
Blum-kulka’s classification is based on either the
discourse orientation such as hearer-oriented,
speaker-oriented,
inclusiveor
impersonal(Bulm-Kulka (1989:59)) or on the scale ofdirectness – indirectness, ranging from Direct,
Conventional Indirect to Non-conventional Indirect( Blum-Kulka (1989:47)). As we pointed out
above, House (1989:102-103) related direct/indirectscale to syntactic realization patterns: Imperatives(direct), Query Preparatory (conventionalizedindirect) and Hints (non-conventionalized indirect).
We can suggest the following relationships:
Imperatives (direct) → speaker-oriented andimpositives
Interrogatives and Negative Interrogatives → Query
Preparatory, hearer-oriented, conventionalized

1.5 Coding Schema for Apology
Olshtain and Cohen (1990:46) defines the speech act
of apology as follows:An apology is a speech act which aims toprovide support for the hearer (H) who was
actually or potentially mal-affected by aviolation (X) for which the speaker (S) is atleast partially responsible. When apologizing,
the S is willing to humiliate him/herself tosome extent and to admit to fault andresponsibility for X.
Hence, the act of
apologizing is face-saving for the H andface-threatening for the S, in Brown andLevinson’s (1978) terms.
With regard to the apology speech act, we canassume that there are two participants involved: thespeaker, who is responsible for causing the offense,
and the hearer, who receive the apology.
According to Olshtain and Cohen (1983:21), we
can describe the apology speech act from thefollowing five points of view:
1. The recipient’s expectations based on
his/her perception of the degree ofseverity of the offense
2. The offender’s apology based on his/her
perception of the degree of severity ofthe offense
3. The offender’s apology based on theextent of reprimanding expected fromthe recipient
4. The interactive nature of both the initial
apology and the recipient’s response
5. The social status of the two participants
6. The way the tone of voice may function
to convey meaning
As indicated above, we have not distributed
self-perception questionnaires on the severity of theoffense and the social status of the participants.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

This is a serious weak point of the present study.
Although opinions vary as to the classification of
apology strategies, we follow the one proposed by
Olshtain and Cohen (1983:22-23).
They distinguish the case where the speakerrecognizes the need to apologize, and the case where
the speaker rejects the need to apologize.
Concerning the former case, five strategies and somesubcategories are presented as follows:
1.An expression of an apologya.
An expression of regret, e.g.,
I’m sorry.
b.
An offer of apology, e.g., I
apologize.
c.
A request for forgiveness, e.g.,
Excuse me. Please forgive me.
Pardon me.
2. An explanation or account of the situatione.g., The bus was delayed.
3. An acknowledgement of responsibility
a. Accepting the blame, e.g., It’s
my fault.
b. Expressing self-deficiency, e.g.,
I was confused. I wasn’t
thinking. I didn’t see you.
c. Recognizing the other person as
deserving apology, e.g., You areright!
d. Expressing lack of intent, e.g., I
didn’t mean to.
4. An offer of repair
e.g., I’ll pay for the broken vase.
5. A promise of forbearancee.g., It won’t happen again.

(Olshtain and Cohen 1983:23)
For our coding, we compared Aijimer (1996)
with Olshtain and Cohen (1990) mentioned above.
Aijimer (1996) divided Apology expressions into
two types: explicit and implicit. Each type is
subdivided into emotional and non-emotional.
Explicit emotional apologies include:(A) explicitly
apologizing, e.g. I apologize (for) and (D)expressing regret, e.g. I’m sorry, I’m afraid
Explicit non-emotional apologies include four
expression patterns: B) offering or giving,
presenting) one’s apologies, e.g. I present myapologies,(C) acknowledging a debt of apology e.g.
I owe you an apology, (E) demanding forgiveness(e.g. pardon me, excuse me), and (F) explicitly
requesting the hearer’s forgiveness, e.g. I beg yourpardon.
Implicit emotional apologies include two
expression patterns:(G) giving an explanation of
account, e.g. (I’m sorry) it’s so unusual and (J)expressing emotion, e.g. oh (I’m so sorry). Implicit
non-emotional apologies refer to the following
five expression patterns: (H) self-denigration or
self-reproach, e.g. how stupid of me, how awful, I
ought to know this; (I) minimizing responsibility,e.g. I didn’t mean to …, I thought this was …, I was
thinking it was…; (K) acknowledging responsibility
for the offending act, e.g. that was my fault (Fraser
1981: 263); (L) promising forbearance from asimilar offending act, e.g. I promise you that thatwill never happen again (Fraser 1981: 263); (M)offering redress, e.g. please let me pay for thedamage I’ve done (Fraser 1981: 263).

On the one hand, the first two strategies are general,that is, they can be used in various situations. On
the other hand, the last three strategies are situation
specific.
The apology speech act realized by thestrategies above might be modified internally or
externally (Olshtain and Cohen 1990:47). The
intensifiers such as very, really, terrible, deeply, andso on, usually occur internally to apology
expressions. The external modification emerges in
the form of a comment added to apology
expressions. They can strengthen or diminish thedegree of sincerity of a speaker.
As mentioned before, there might be the casewhere a speaker does not intend to apologize. In
such cases, the person who caused some offense
can express 1) no reaction, 2) a denial of the need toapologize, e.g., there was no need for you to get
insulted, and 3) a denial of responsibility by notaccepting the blame, e.g., It wasn’t my fault, or byblaming the other participant for bringing theoffense upon him/herself, e.g., It’s your own fault.

Partial Reference
Negishi, J. (2006). Australians’ Perceptions ofRequests Employed by Japanese Speakers ofEnglish. Unpublished M.A. thesis, Sydney
University.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Cyber course on World Englishes and ELF: Some tentative evidence

Michiko Nakano and Yuko Haraguchi
Director, Distance Learning Center, Waseda University
nakanom@waseda.jp
developmental simplification patterns across threeeducational levels among Japanese learners ofEnglish.
In Section 2, we will discuss Lingua Franca Core
(LFC): Jenkins, 2000.
In order to avoid
communication breakdown caused by lack ofmutual intelligibility, Jenkins and Gimson
make some suggestion for phonological corefeatures for basic intelligibility (Jenkins, 2001
and Gimson, 2001). The greatest characteristic
in the LFC presented by Jenkins lies in its
practicality and it makes our goal of teachingfeasible and practical for Asian users of English.
On the other hand, in Gimson’s proposal,
learning inventory is traditional and we haveto learn most of NS norms.
With thisbackground in mind, we examine the following
features
1. The aspiration of /p, t, k/ in Experiment 1
2. The distinction of /i:, I/ in Experiment 2
The purpose of Experiment 1 is two-fold: 1) toinvestigate whether or not adult Japanese users ofEnglish (JUE) can pronounce aspirated andunaspirated voiceless stops in English distinctly,
and 2) to examine whether or not the aspiration of
the voiceless stops is learnable for adult JUEs
without explicit instruction. Asian users of English
who use English as a tool of communication are notoften phonetically trained. In LFC, the durationis regarded as more crucial than the quality in[i:] and [I]. In our native language, we have
durational difference between the two, butthere is no qualitative difference.
Thus,
Experiment 2 is to investigate 1) whether adult
JUEs can learn to distinguish the soundqualities of /i(:)/ and /I/ after the training and 2)
whether Japanese teachers of English canrecognize learners’ improvement in quality.
The result suggests that although learner can
improve sound qualities to some extent, theexperienced teachers failed to notice andrecognize the improvement which was
acoustically manifested in their spectrograms.
This suggests that the training does not yieldpractical use, supporting LFC position that

Abstract
Since 2002, we have run the cyber course World
Englishes and Miscommunications’ in which ninevarieties of English in Asia has been discussed
online. We have since then obtained sufficient data
both experimental and observational, for us to beable to discuss Asian Englishes in general. Firstly,
in Asian Englishes there are grammatical features
which are different from Native Speaker (NS)norms in our colloquial speech as well as in writing.
Although our mother tongues are all different, ourfeatures different from the NS norms are allidentical in Asia. In Section 1, we will compare
our typical features presented in the on-demand
lectures with those in ELF lexico-grammar
generalized from Seidlhofer’s Vienna-Oxford
International Corpus of English (VOICE):
Seidlehofer (2002).
In Section 2, we will discuss
Lingua Franca Core (LFC): Jenkins, 2000.

Keywords
Asian Englishes, English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)

Introduction
Firstly, in Asian Englishes there are grammaticalfeatures which are different from Native Speaker(NS) norms in our colloquial speech as well as inwriting. Although our mother tongues are alldifferent, our features different from the NS norms
are all identical in Asia. In Section 1, we willcompare our typical features presented in the
on-demand lectures with those in ELF
lexico-grammar generalized from Seidlhofer’s
Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English(VOICE): Seidlehofer (2002). The present data
appear to confirm ELF lexico-grammar. We willthen argue that these features are the outcome ofGrammar simplification. Kirkpatrick (2005 and2007) points out that “any apparent systematic
simplification of the inflectional system follows
historical principles and is thus likely to be
characteristic of a new variety of English”:(Kirkpatrick, 2005, p.47). It is interesting to notethat Englishes in the expanding circle follows thesame pattern of simplification.
The present
section endorses that it also replicates the385Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

6 Indian English and Estuary English [TheNumbers correspond to ELF Lexico-Grammar cited
above]In order to support the present claim, I will refer tothe corpus-based research done in my researchgroup, to illustrate the point concerning Japan
English. First, look at Baustista’s corpus analysis
in Table 1 in which grammatical features seen in
Philippine English are listed. The frequency list offeatures is extracted from Corpus of Written
English consisting of 150 files each of whichcontains 2000 words up to 2300 words: see
Baustista (2000).

duration is more helpful in intelligibility thanquality at least for Japanese users of English.

1

Evidence for ELF Lexico-Grammarfrom Cyber materials

Seidlhofer (2004:220) proposes the following ELF
Lexico-Grammar.
1 non-use of the third person present tense -s,(as in “She look very sad.”)2 omissions of the definite and indefinite
articles where they are obligatory in NS
English, and insertion where they do not occur
in NS English
3 heavy reliance on verbs of high semantic
generality, such as get, make, have, do, etc
4 pluralization of nouns which are considered
uncountable in NS English, e.g., informations,staffs, advices, furnitures, softwares
5 addition of unnecessary prepositions, such as“discuss about” or “study about.”
6 use of an all-purpose tag questions, e.g., isn’t
it? or no?
Adapted from Seidlhofer (2004:220)
Cited by Jenkins (2005:5)
Japanese English in the on-demand lecture is
explained by dividing it into three formal
educational levels: junior high school level, highschool level and university level. Interestingly, we
have found that most grammatical features different
from NS norms are similar all through the threeeducational stages. The on-demand lectures onother varieties of Englsih in Asia indicate that thoseare also observed among English users of other
Asian varieties. The following numbered list
summarizes tendencies in Asian Englishes lectured
byresearchers,comparedwith
ELF
Lexico-Grammar (each number corresponds toSeidlfoher’s item number above):
1 Japan English, Korean English, China English,
Thai English, Singapore English, Malay English,
Hong Kong English Philippine English and India
English2 Japan English, Korean English, China English,
Thai English, Singapore English, Malay English,
Hong Kong English, Philippine English and India
English3 Not discussed except for Japan English andEnglishes in Europe
4 Japan English, Korean English, China English,
Thai English, Singapore English, Malay English,
Hong Kong English, Philippine English and India
English5 Japan English, Korean English, China
English, Thai English, Singapore English,
Malay English, Hong Kong English, Philippine
English and India English

Table 1 Number of Deviant Cases Found for Each Grammatical
Category
Grammatical Categories Number
Percent
Subject-Verb Agreement 136
27
Articles11022Prepositions
77
15
Tenses77
15
Mass and Count Nouns
46
9
Pronoun-Antecedent
23
5
Others
34
7
Total
503
100
Baustista (2000:36)

Observe the data for Japanese learners of English(JLEs) at the high school level in Fig. 1, Appendix
1. This spoken corpus is composed of Oral
Speech among 58 high school students. Ano (2002)
observed 644 non-NS features. In this corpus, Ano
did not count the subject-verb number agreement
errors, since it is difficult to detect such errors inoral speech. But frequent errors (i.e., featuresdifferent from NS norms) occur in the use of tense,
articles, and prepositions, which is the salientfeatures in other Asian varieties. It is widely
known that JLEs make mistakes in collective nouns,
by regarding them as countable nouns. This isalso common among other varieties in Asia.
The identical tendency was observed in Spoken
English Corpus among university students. Thistime, 30 university students talked in English insuch tasks as picture descriptions, role-play, andstory-telling. They talked about 15 minutes. We
obtained 1511 erroneous features: see Fig.2 Error
types in oral English at the university level inAppendix 2.
Table 2 Comparison between JLEs and Phillipinnes
JLEs (Speaking) Phillipino (Writing)Subject-Verb Agreement93
136
Articles370
10Prepositions
202
77
Tense
201
77
Nouns（countable vs uncountable）157
46
Pronouns
89
23
Others399
34

These comparisons suggest that in Asian Englishes
we exhibit similar grammatical features different
386Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The Det↑ def = +A Det
↑ def = This lexical rule state that the determiner ‘the’requires the notion of definiteness, while thedeterminer ‘a’ does not. This lexical rule isvariably missing in colloquial Asian Englishes;
hence it is a grammar simplification.
Feature 3 is also seen in many varieties of NNS
Englishes: See Appendix 3, Tables 3 ~7. This
overuse of the verbs of high semantic generality canbe interpreted as simplification of verb
subcategorizations. The same argument holds inthe case of Features 4, 5, and 6. In Feature 4, NS
English has the following lexical rule:
Furniture: ↑Collective Noun ↑ pred =‘furniture’↓ num = sg
The lexical rule states that if it is a collective noun,
the number is necessarily singular. But in thecolloquial Asian English and ELF, this lexical ruleis variably missing and the lexical rule for thecommon nouns is applied; hence it is an instance ofgrammar simplifications. Feature 5 ( addition of
preposition, about) is also a failure of
sub-categorization with a touch of mother tongue
semantic transfer. In Japanese, the following
verbs all need to co-occur with the preposition,“about.”Talk about
Speak about*study about*discuss about
However, in NS English, study and discuss aretransitive verbs. In our colloquial mode, we fail tonotice that they are transitive verbs and our mothertongue semantics intuit us to say “study about ~”and “discuss about ~.” But in terms of NS English,
this is the case of the failure of subcategorization;
hence, it is a form of grammar simplification.
Feature 6 deals with tag questions. In NS
English, there are varieties of tag-questions,depending on the subject and verb of the mainclause. If all the tag-questions are replaced by asingle form, “isn’t it?”, it is the simplification ofgrammar.
In this section, we have provided some evidence
to support ELF lexico-grammar whose 6 features
are all observed among Asian varieties of English.
I have characterized these features as internal
grammar simplifications. Asian users of English
receive the standard norms in their input at least attheir formal education, but they appear to simplify
the forms cognitively in order to meet thecommunicative pressure, which might account for
the identical features among Asian users of English.

from NS norms. Particularly in Japan English thesame error types persist at all the three educational
stages.
Although our mother tongues are alldifferent in Asia, our features which are different
from the NS norms are identical in both outer circle
and expanding circle Englishes in Asia. The
textbooks in Asia are however based on NS
Englishes which do not contain any features notedin ELF Lexico-Grammar. For this reason, someresearchers characterize the phenomena as
restructuring: see Kirkpatrick, 2007. Error sources
might be argued as the outcome of cognitive
activities we all share. Nakano (2007b) argues that
it is the outcome of universal mechanisms ofgrammar simplification, as shown in Bresnan(2000). Nakano (2007b) also demonstrates that
English among JLEs reflects the influence of input
our learners receive in their formal education andsome language-independent mapping mechanismsof argument-structures onto grammatical functions.
But in this section, we will focus on whether thesefeatures can be described as grammar simplification.
Our features different from NS Englishes are thosein VOICE, as we have seen in Section 1.
All the six items can be considered as
grammar simplifications. If we can confirm thatthey are the outcome of internal grammar
simplifications, it indicates that it is the inevitable
result of cognitive activities, perhaps to reduce
cognitive load and efforts on the part of non-native
users of English, in order to meet thecommunicative pressure. For this reason, it is
crucial to check whether the features can be
described as the outcome of internal grammar
simplifications.
These simplifications do notoccur systematically; therefore we cannot represent
them as categorical rules. They are variable,
depending on each lexical item. For this reason,
Lexical Functional Syntax (LFS) provides optimal
descriptive framework. In Feature 1, NS
English can be described, following LFS
format:Look
VI-s: Inflv ↑ Tense = pres↑subj = ↓↓ pers = 3↓ num = sg
This lexical rule states that if the verb ‘look’ is in
the present tense and the subject noun is third
person singular, the verb needs to be inflected as“looks.” But this lexical rule is missing in
colloquial Asian Englishes; hence it is a grammar
simplification.
Feature 2 is variable use of definite andnon-definite articles. In LFS, it can be represented
as follows:387

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Seven long monophthongs: /i:/, /e:/, /ɑ:/,/ɔ:/, /o:/, /u:/, /ə:/Three diphthongs: /aɪ/, /aʊ/, /ɔɪ/The core features by Gimson and Jenkins differ
on some points. With respect to the consonants,
Jenkins excludes some items from the LFC,
unlike Gimson. The exclusion is reasonable
regarding the number of the minimal pairs
including those consonants. According to
Higgins, there are only eight minimal pairs
including /ɵ/ and /ð/ in “the 1974 edition of theAdvanced Learners Dictionary, incorporating
Mitton's 1990 additions to the word list”(http://www.marlodge.supanet.com/wordlist/).
Therefore learners do not need to worry about
the confusion of these sounds. Also /ɫ/ and /ɹ/are, as the former is an allophonic element andthe latter is not produced by all native speakers,
less crucial in the achievement of mutual
intelligibility. As for the vowels, though theiropinions are congruous about the diphthongs,
they differ in one crucial point that Jenkins
prioritizes quantity over quality. Our
experiment thus concentrates on
The aspiration of /p, t, k/ in Experiment 1
The distinction of /i:, I/ in Experiment 2
2.2 Experiment 1: Aspiration of [p, t, k]Experiment 1 is 1) to investigate whether or not
adult JUEs’ can pronounce aspirated andunaspirated voiceless stops in English distinctly,
and 2) to examine whether or not the aspiration of
the voiceless stops is learnable for adult JUEs
without explicit instruction. The second point
relates to LFC, since Asian users who use English
as a tool of communication are not often
phonetically trained.
Ten participants are divided into two groups: 1)
the novice group and 2) the advanced group,
depending on 1) whether they have received
phonetic instruction or not, and 2) whether they
have stayed abroad or not. If a subject met neitherof these conditions, the person was placed in thenovice group. On the other hand, if a subject meteither of the two conditions, the person was
included in the advanced group. Voice Onset Time
(VOT) of aspirated and unaspirated /p, t, k/ sounds
were extracted from the subjects’ running speechduring their picture descriptions. The pictures
were designed to elicit words which contain /p, t, k/sounds. Tables 8, 9 and 11 summarize the result.
Table 10 represents VOT among the four NSs in(Lisker and Abramson, 1967, p.10).
Table 8 VOT values by the novice group.
Mean
SD
N

Kirkpatrick (2007) argues that “the simplificationsof syntax … are features of new varieties of English
and mirror the way inflections have become simpler
within traditional English itself”: Kirkpatrick, 2007,
p. 163. Therefore, we might argue that
simplification takes place, diachronically,
synchronically as well as developmentally.

2

Experimental studies on ELF corephonetics

In this section, I will refer to the two experiments
concerning Dr Jenkins’s proposal of ELF corephonetic inventory. The experiments reported here
were carried out by Haraguchi and analyzed thedata jointly by the author.
2.1Background
In order to avoid communication breakdown
caused by lack of mutual intelligibility, Jenkins
and Gimson make some suggestion forphonologicalcore
featuresforbasic
intelligibility (Jenkins, 2001 and Gimson, 2001).
Gimson argues the items shown below arerequired for basic intelligibility:
All consonants except /hw/
Six short monophthongs: /I/ , /ɛ/, /a/, /ɒ/,/ʊ/ , /ə/Seven long monophthongs: /i:/, /e:/, /ɑ:/,/ɔ:/, /o:/, /u:/, /ə:/Three diphthongs: /aɪ/, /aʊ/, /ɔɪ/(Gimson, 2001, p.310)
On the other hand, Jenkins proposes anotherconcept of the Lingua Franca Core (LFC). LFC
presented by her is as follows:
All consonantal phonemes except /ɵ/,/ð/, /ɫ/, /ɹ/Allophones of unvoiced consonants (/p,t, k/) by the distinction of aspiration
Long-shot contrast (quantity) of
vowelsDiphthongs /ɑʊ/, /aɪ/, /ɔɪ//ɜ:/ (not to confuse it with /ɑ:/)(Jenkins, 2001, pp.136-146)
The greatest characteristic in the LFC
presented by Jenkins lies in its practicality andusefulness in classroom teaching, as we noted
in Introdution. She also says the following
items should be excluded from the LFC:
Consonants /ɵ/, /ð/, /ɫ/, /ɹ/Vowel diphthongs /ɪe/, /eə/, /ʊə/Vowel quality(Jenkins, 2001, pp.137-138, p.145)
The core features shown by Gimson andJenkins are common on the following points:
Six short monophthongs: /I/ , /ɛ/, /a/, /ɒ/,/ʊ/ , /ə/

[ph]
[p]
[th]

388

26.29
30.88
32.9

11.45
19.97
18.44

11
11
47

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics[t] 21.48
7.84
26.49
[kh] 66.42[k] 38.74
9.55
N stands for the number of the tokens.

10
42
8

of whether the sound is aspirated or unaspirated,
and they even showed confusion of [ph] and [p]. On
the other hand, the subjects in the advanced group
showed greater difference of VOT by aspiration in/t/ and /k/ than the novice group. Advanced group
had received phonetic instruction more than one
year, and the effect of the instruction may besuggested in their performance. In conclusion, we
may argue that JUEs cannot achieve distinction
between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops
without explicit instruction.
The present
experiment supports Jenkins’s view that allallophones of the voiceless stops with thedistinction of aspiration should be taught as ELF
core items.
2.3 Experiment 2: [i:] vs [I]
In LFC, the duration is regarded as more crucial
than the quality in [i:] and [I]. This small
experiment is to investigate 1) whether adult JUEs
can learn to distinguish the sound qualities of /i(:)/
and /I/ after the training and 2) whether Japaneseteachers of English can recognize learners’
improvement in quality.
The qualitative contrast of /i(:)/ and /I/ isobserved visually through spectrographic analysis.
By observing the first and the second formant (F1and F2), we can confirm qualitative difference ofvowels: see Table 12. The native speakers in
Table 12 demonstrate that the qualitative difference
is revealed in the difference between Formant 2 andFormant 1. The difference ( F2 – F1) in [i:] isalways larger than the difference (F2 – F1) in [I]:(F2 – F1 ) in [i:] > (F2 – F1) in [I:]Table 12 Formant Frequency for /i(:)/ and /I/ bynative English speakers (Hz.).
/i(:)//I/

Table 9 VOT values by the advanced group.

Meanh[p ] 34.00[p] 25.01[th] 63.22[t] 25.1[kh] 66.42[k] 38.74

SD

N

20.64
8.26
23.42
5.37
26.49
9.55

56
12
90
22
52
16

N stands for the number of the tokens.

Table 10 VOT in English word-initial /p, t, k/ (runningspeech) among 4 native speakers.

Mean
Range
N.

/p/

/t/

/k/

33
10-70
110

38
10-90
125

48
10-91
163

N. in the first column stands for the Number of Tokens.
(Lisker and Abramson, 1967, p.10)

It may be noticed that VOT in the unaspirated
sounds among JUEs are close to the aspirated
sounds by the native speakers. Especially the
subjects of the advanced group, in production of
aspirated voiceless stops, they showed much greater
VOT values than those by native speakers inrunning speech.
This may be the case of
hypercorrection. The difference of VOT values by
aspiration was smaller in the utterances of thenovice group and as Table 11 indicates, they were
confused with aspirated [ph].
Table 11 Aspirated – Unaspirated VOT values (msec.).

[ph]-[p][th]-[t][kh]-[k]Novice
-3.59
11.42
11.55

Advanced
8.99
38.12
27.68

F1

F2

RP (male)280
2249
RP (female)303 2654
GA 280
2250

F1

F2

367
374
400

1757
2174
1920

The data of RP speakers are from Gimson (2001, p.99), and thedata of GA speakers are from Ladefoged (1975, p.99). The dataof RP speakers were taken from 5 male and 5 female speakers.
The number and the details of the GA speakers are not shownin the source.

The answer to the research question 1) ispartially ‘Yes,’ because the advanced group showed
high proficiency in distinguishing aspirated andunaspirated /t/ and /k/. However, they showed muchsmaller VOT difference in /p/, and they confused
aspirated and unaspirated sounds in production of/p/ in some words. Therefore we can say that adult
JUEs can acquire the distinction of aspirated andunaspirated voiceless stops, but /p/ is difficult forthem to pronounce with proper amount ofaspiration.
The answer to the research question 2) is‘No,’ because the subjects of the novice group, who
had not received phonetic instruction, reveal poor
proficiency in discriminating aspirated andunaspirated voiceless stops. In all the phonemes
they showed similar VOT distributions irrespective

2.3.1 Procedure
The present experiment was run by Haraguchi(2005) in the following way: 1. the first Perception
test, 2. the first production test, 3. instruction, 4. thesecond perception test, and 5. the second production
test. Three to seven days of intervals were inserted
between each step, but First Production Test andInstruction were held on the same day. The
perception tests are identification tasks. Each of theperception tests has twenty items and the
production test, eight tokens.
The traditional training group had studied389

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics(0.88) (1.32)(1.07)(0.85)(3.5)
Second Perception Test
Section
1
2
3
4
Total
Computer3.7 3.7
4
4.2
15.6
(0.95) (0.82)(0.94)(0.63)(2.76)
Traditional 3.4 4.2
4
3.6
15.5
(1.17) (0.82)(1.1)(0.99)(2.59)The numbers without parenthesis show mean values of thescores. The numbers in the parenthesis show SDs.

video-taped instruction by the author, and after
having watched the video, they pronounced thetarget phonemes and their pronunciations werecorrected. The correction was done up to ten times
for each subject. In the instruction, we emphasizedin the traditional-training group that /i(:)/ and /I/ aredifferent in quality.
The computer assisted instruction was given as
follows. The software consists of the following
six phases: 1) visual instruction with description ofsounds, anatomical diagram and the image ofmovement of lips to show the movement of soundorgans, 2) practice with model pronunciation ofwords with contrasting sounds, 3) practice withmodel speech of sentences, 4) listening
discrimination tasks on contrasting sounds insentences, 5) practice of the target phonemes insentences, and 6) visual feedback with waveforms.
The subjects can both listen to the model speech bynative speakers and record their own voices forcomparison. They were told to have training
whenever convenient for them, but not to practicemore than ten times in order to control theexperimental condition. The subjects in thecomputer-assisted training group do not receive
explicit instruction about the difference of thesound quality between /i(:)/ and /I/.
The perception test is to test participants towhat extent they can discriminate the vowels
aurally given. Both perception and production
tests are composed of the four sections:
Section 1: /easy consonants/ + /i(:)/, /I/ + /easy
consonants/
Section 2: /easy consonants/ + /i(:)/, /I/ + /difficult
consonants/
Section 3: /difficult consonants/ + /i(:)/, /I/ + /easy
consonants/
Section 4: /difficult consonants/ + /i(:)/, /I/ +/difficult consonants/
The ease or difficulty of consonants for JLEs isbased on Fujii (1986) and Ono(1986).

In order to see whether JUEs were successful indiscriminating /i(:)/ and /I/ in quality, (F2 values–
F1 values of /i/) – (F2 values – F1 values of /I/) was
calculated. Their performance was regarded as
successful, if they pronounce /i(:)/ with larger
difference between F1 and F2 frequency than /I/.
Table 14 implies that the traditional
instruction is more effective for improvement indistinguishing vowel quality than thecomputer-assisted training.
Table 14 Quality Improvement by the computerassisted and traditional training groups (Hz.)
1st Production Test MeanSD
Computer
38.33
673.5
Traditional 60.24
423.44
2nd Production Test
Computer
349.26
831.49Traditional 438.33
739.84
Table 15 refers to the duration measurement.
Table 15 Duration of /i(:)/ and /I/.
/i(:)//I//i(:)//I/
1st Production Test
Computer-assisted
28.53
12.93
8.63
4.86
Traditional
28.96
10.23
18.5
3.62
2nd Production Test
Computer-assisted
33.08
11.84
34.26
4.57
Traditional
30.72
11.12
20.59
4.37

2.3.2 Result and discussion
Table 13 indicates that the scores slightly dropped
in the second test in both groups. The only
exception is Section 2; the subjects in both groups
show higher scores in the second perception test
than in the first only in this section. This suggeststhat the explicit instruction given by traditional
method and by computer assisted instruction were
not effective to the participants.

The subjects in both groups show almost identicalduration in producing the phonemes in the first andsecond production tests. This may indicate that they
still rely on duration in discriminating /i(:)/ and /I/even after the training. In order to verify thisassumption, we examined the data with two-way
ANOVA. With respect to the computer-assisted
training group, there was a main effect of Phoneme(/i(:)/ and /I/), F(1, 159)= 83.92, p=
0.00<0.01.There was no statistically significant
main effect of Test (the first and second production
tests), F(1, 159)= 0.74, p= 0.39>0.05, norinteraction between Phoneme and Test, F(1, 159)=
1.97, p= 0.16>0.05. As for the traditional training

Table 13 the scores in the perception tests.
First Perception Test
Section1
2
Computer 4.4
3.3(0.52) (1.06)
Traditional3.9
3.8

3
4.5
(0.7)
4.4

4
4.3
(0.7)
4.4

Total
16.5
(1.5)
15.6

390

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

were all expert English teachers, they could not
perceive spectrographic improvement by the
subjects, and this confirms the difficulty ofacquisition of L2 vowel quality.
2.3.3 Summary and implications in English
Language TeachingThis chapter examined ELF lexico-grammar anda part of ELF Lingua Franca Core. The former
was examined in terms of cyber materials anddiscussion as well as some corpus-based researchby my graduate seminar group at Graduate Schoolof Education, Waseda University. It was foundthat ELF lexico grammar describes our features inour spoken mode among Asian varieties of English.
This suggests that at least in our spoken mode
Non-NS features among Asian users of English
could be tolerated.
As for ELF LFC, our experimental findings
confirms LFC in the area of aspiration in stops andduration in [i:] and [I] It was interesting to noticethat even experienced teachers who are phoneticallytrained failed to notice the acoustic improvement
exhibited by Japanese users of English.
If a learner is content with achieving his own
goal, say, as a businessman [Toeic 630] he or she
could rely on durational difference of vowels as
Jenkins (2001) suggests. There is also a time factor:a business person would not have time to spare forsuch task, so he or she should not be bothered byacquisition of the quality distinction. However, if alearner is to develop his or her career as a language
teacher, the person should know qualitative
distinction of the vowels to some extent, althoughnative-like quality production may not be attainable.
As Widdowson (2003, 2004 and 2005) proposes,
each of us should appropriate one’s goal of English
Language Learning to suit our purpose. Most ofJapanese users of English aim to be competent inEnglish as a lingua franca or as an International
Language. It is our attitude and belief toward one’s
English whether we despise our use of English as
Inter-language with errors or whether we accept ourEnglish as a legitimate variety consisting ofinternational-situation specific utterances.

group, there was a main effect of Phoneme, F(1,159)= 147.22, p= 0.00<0.01. However there was no
main effect of Test, F(1, 159) = 0.71, p= 0.4>0.05,
nor interaction of Phoneme and Test, F(1,159)=
0.08, p= 0.08>0.05. ANOVA thus suggests thesimilar tendencies between the two groups ofsubjects; that is, there was a main effect of
Phoneme but not main effect of Test and theinteraction between Phoneme and Test in bothgroups. Therefore, one can claim that the subjects
showed significant differences in duration between
the two phonemes in the two production tests, butthey did not change their performance in producing
each phoneme with respect to quality. Therefore, we
can confirm that the subjects in both groups reliedon duration in distinguishing /i(:)/ and /I/ regardlessof the training and test settings.
As for the human judgments, the ten raters with
MA holders were asked to judge whether the
subjects were successful in discriminating /i(:)/ and/I/ in the production tests. In order to examineinternal-consistency reliability of the judgments andtest reliability, Cronbach α and Kuder-Richardson
formula 21 (K-R 21) were estimated: Cronbach α(0.92) and KR-21 0.995 in the first production test,
and 0.99 in the second test.
Thus,
internal-consistency of the judgment data is veryhigh. KR-21 verifies high test reliability of theevaluation sheet. However, except for two raters,
they failed to recognize Quality improvement.
They told us that they put priority to sound quality
in evaluation, since they had studied Gimson for 13
years, whereas the two exceptional raters took
duration into account. The raters' focus on quality
than quantity may be the reason why most subjects
were judged to be unsuccessful in discriminating/i(:)/ and /I/ in both first and second production
tests.
In comparison of acoustic analysis and humanjudgments by the raters, it was revealed that humanevaluation does not reflect acoustic analysis
accurately. The statistic analysis verified highinter-rater consistency in their judgments by the ten
raters, but the evaluation was contradictory to theresult of the acoustic analysis. We should note thateven expert English teachers could not perceive theimprovement of sound quality in subjects'
pronunciation of /i(:)/ and /I/. There seem no
noticeable merits in providing the quality training inthis case. This supports the proposal of LFC whichasserts the priority of durational distinction rather
than the quality. Although subjects showed some
improvement in production of these phonemes inacoustic analysis, the qualitative improvement was
not recognized sufficiently by the ten experienced
teachers. It indicates invalidity of human judgmentsin evaluating vowel quality; although the raters

3

References and appendicesAno, K. (2002).
「高校生英語学習者の発話における流暢さと正確さの関係」(A study of therelationship between fluency and accuracy inspeech production among high school students)、
STEP BULLETIN Vol.14 pp.39-49.
Bautista, MA Lourdes S. (2000). Defining Standard
Philippine English: Its Status and Grammatical
Features. De La Salle University Press: Manila.
Bresnan, J. (2000). "Pidgin Genesis and Optimality
Theory". In Processes of Language Contact:391

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Nakano, M., Yamazaki, T., Miyasaka, N. and Saito,
T. (1999). A Study of EFL Discourse Using
Corpora(7): An Analysis of E-mail Discourse andVariation of Expressions. Proceedings of the 4th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, 55-59.
Nakano, Michiko (2003) ‘Japanese Learners ofEnglish are not necessarily polite in English? –some evidence from Discourse Completion Tasks
and Naturally Occurrung Data.” The 31st Jacet
Summer Seminar Proceedings, Japan Association ofCollege English Teachers, No. 3. pp39-60.
Nakano, M. (2007a). Japan English. In Asia
Englishes and Miscommunication, Eds. Park,
K and Nakano, M. Korea University Press, pp319-428.
Nakano, M. (Ed.) (2007b). On-demand Cyber
Course Book: World Englishes andMiscommunications.
WasedaUniversity
International.
Ono, S. (1986). Introduction to English Phonetics.
Liber Press: Tokyo.
Ringbom, H. (1998). Vocabulary frequencies inadvanced learner English: a cross-linguistic
approach. In S. Granger (Ed.), Learner English
on Computer. Longman
Seidlehofer, B. 2001. Closing a conceptual gap: thecase for a description of English as a lingua
franca. International Journal of Applied
Linguistics. 11/2. pp133-158.
Seidlehofer, B. (2004). Research perspectives onteaching English as a lingua franca. Annual
Review of Applied Linguistics. Vol. 24, pp.
209-239.
Widdowson, H. G. 2003. Defining Issues in English
Language Teaching.
Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Widdowson, H. G. 2004. Text, Context, Pretext.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Widdowson, H. G. 2005. ‘On the subject ofEnglish.’ Invited Lecture given at Waseda
University.

Case Studies from Australia and the Pacific,
edited by Jeff Siegel. Montreal: Les Editions
Fides, 145--173.
Corder, S. Pit. (1980). Error analysis. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Fujii, K. (1986). The Basis for Pronunciation ofPresent-day English: Phonological Comparison ofJapanese and English. Kenkyusha Press: Tokyo.
Gimson, A.C. (2001). Gimson’s Pronunciation ofEnglish. Oxford University Press: New York.
Haraguchi, Y. (2006). Acquisition of English
Phonemes by Japanese English Learners,
Unpublished M.A. thesis, Graduate School of
Education, Waseda University.
Higgins's
Minimal
Pairs
ofRP
http://www.marlodge.supanet.com/wordlist/
Jenkins, J. (2000). The Phonology of English as an
International Language. Oxford University Press:
Oxford.
Jenkins, J. (2003). World Englishes. Routledge:
London.
Jenkins, J. (2005). English as a Lingua Franca: Past
Empirical, Present Controversial, Future
Uncertain, Ed. J.A. Foley, New Directions in
the Teaching of Oral Communication,
SEAMEO Regional Language Centre,
Singapore. Pp1-19.
Kirkpatrick, A. (2005). Oral Communication andIntelligibility among ASEAN Speakers ofEnglish.
Ed. J.A. Foley, New Directions in the Teaching ofOral Communication, SEAMEO Regional
Language Centre, Singapore. Pp33-54.
Kirkpatrick, A. (2007).
World Englishes:
Implification for international communicationand English language teaching. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Ladefoged, P. (1975). A Course in Phonetics.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: New York.
Ladefoged, P. (1993). A Course in Phonetics.
Harcourt Brace & Company: Florida.
Ladefoged, P. (2001). A Course in Phonetics.
Fourth Edition. Heinle & Heinle. Boston.
Lisker, L., Abramson, A.S. (1967) ‘Some effects oncontext on voice onset time in English stops.’
Language and Speech. 10. pp.1-28.
Nakano, M. 2000. “An Experimental Study of a
Relationship between Lexical Functional
Grammar and Learner-Language Data.”
Selected Papers from AILA’99 TOKYO.
Waseda University Press, 344-361.
Nakano, M., Miyasaka, N., Yamazaki, T (2000). A
Study of EFL Discourse Using Corpora: An
Analysis of Discourse Completion Tasks. Journalof Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Lingiustics
4(2), 273-297
392

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Assessment of Teaching Practice of an EFL teacher – A Working
Model of a Practical Scheme
Taehee Choi

Guryong Middle School
calm91@chol.com

two schemes, TPS and TDA, resulted in a waste ofresources for the government, the teacher evaluatorsand the teachers. It was thought that TDA would
not improve the quality of education since it was
not linked to any rewards or penalties (SNU &KICE, 2008). These results indicated a need forincorporating both evaluation schemes into arigorous scheme that promotes changes in teacher
behavior.
The purpose of this research is to develop tools that
constitute a part of that scheme. The objective ofthe tools is to evaluate teaching practice of asecondary school, English as a Foreign Language(EFL) subject teacher 2 . The scope of the tools,
however, is not limited to the area of teachingpractice in TPS but, in a sense, covers all the otherareas since it will look at teaching practice in termsof the whole curriculum, in which case a teacher’s
personality, attitude, guidance skills, scholarship &duties are all related to teaching practice.
However, research into other areas of TPS is limited
to the extent that these other areas affect students’learning of the EFL subject.

Abstract
Recently in Korea the media and parents
associations have raised criticism that public school
education has become a disaster. They claim thatpublic schools do not meet students’ needs or carefor them, and that parents are forced to pay extra foreducation and for private tutoring or education
abroad. They demand the reformation of education,
blaming its failure mostly on teachers, claiming thatthe majority of public school teachers are
inadequate or half-hearted.
In response to this criticism, the government hasrevised the existing teacher evaluation scheme,
called Teacher Promotion Scheme (TPS) 1 , which isa basis for promotion, relocation, awards, anddistribution of performance pay. In TPS, theproportion of the score for teaching practice has
increased from 12% to 20%. The government has
also instituted a new teacher evaluation scheme
called Teacher Development Appraisal (TDA).
The criteria of TDA are lesson planning, teaching,evaluation and feedback, and satisfaction of
students and parents. The details for this appraisal
are left flexible to meet the needs of individual
schools. TDA was originally planned to be usedby the educational offices in different regions for
deciding pay and in dealings with individual
teachers. However, because of incompleteness ofthe system and protests from teachers’ associations,
it is currently being used only for encouraging
personal development, thus indirectly improving
the quality of education.
Research which was done after the government’s
intervention concluded that TPS still did not ensure
the quality of education. Overlapping between the

A WORKING MODEL TO ASSESS THE
TEACHING PRACTICE OF EFL TEACHERS
The scheme includes both evaluation tools and astandard procedure for evaluation using the tools,
which evaluates the teaching practice of asecondary level EFL teacher. The scheme isintended for in-school use and is a practical scheme
in that it measures practical knowledge, rather thandeclarative knowledge, and would require a
reasonable amount of time for evaluation.
The tools consist of three components: assessment
kits, assessment manuals for the assessor and theassessee, and items for assessing the assessment
itself. The tools cover the three phases of the1

The evaluation is relative and is composed of 5
areas:
Personality, Attitude, Teaching Practice,
Guidance, and Scholarship & Duties. There are four
grades, the percentage for each grade being set: Su,
the highest, can be given to 20% of the teachers; Wu,
40%; Mi, 30%; Yang, the lowest, 10%. The result of
the appraisal is communicated to the individual only
when it is requested.

2

In this research, EFL means learning English as a
subject within the school environment. The researchis concerned with secondary level which includes both
middle and high schools; in Korea teachers movefreely between the two levels of schools.

393

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

assessment:
pre-assessment, assessment, andpost-assessment. The composition of the tools
was decided after research into teacher
effectiveness and teacher assessment researchwhich include Campbell, 2004; Choi, 2006; Hill etal, 2004, 2005; Jeong, 2005; Jin et al, 2001, 2002;
Kim et al, 2004; Leshem & Bar-Hama, 2007; Pasko,
1992; . Sinnema, 2005; Yu & Kim, 2005.
The justification of rather complex composition of
the tools follows herewith. In Korea, the frequencyof teacher assessment/supervision is increasing,
especially for EFL subject teachers. However,many supervisors did not receive systematictraining
forassessingor
supervisingteaching/teachers. The case is truer for subject
supervisors in particular, who are consulted on an
irregular basis. On top of that, recruitment from
July of the year of 2009 of a vast number of English
conversation teachers with various backgrounds
entails an excessive workload on supervisors.
This will probably lead to commissioning veteranteachers (who did not have professional training forsupervision or assessment of teaching/teachers) to
supervise or assess those teachers either on apermanent or temporary basis.
Thus,
standardization of the procedure of EFL teacher
assessment, as well as building in measures toimprove the reliability of the assessment, ismandatory.

1

evaluate without asking for any materials to be usedin the evaluation. Also, Baek’s study (as cited in
SNU & KICE, 2008) found that the evaluation isdone perfunctorily for most teachers and only theevaluations for those few who are considered for
promotion are done properly.
In the case of TDA, in some schools it was based onreal data such as video recording of one class andhandouts from the class; however, the evaluation
was limited to each individual class and did notlook at teaching practice in terms of the wholecurriculum. These results show the need for valid
and reliable teacher evaluation tools that look atteaching practice throughout the curriculum. This
will satisfy the recent demands from educational
parties, teachers and parents alike 5 .
Also, an analysis of recent studies on teacher
evaluation showed that assessment systems are nottransferable from one context to another (Lee et al,
2003; Teddlie et al, 2006). Therefore, theprerequisite for the defining work is research into
the needs and wants of different educational
stakeholders in Korea. The research data include
documents produced by the media, the educational
offices, the schools, and teachers’ associations, etc.
Lastly, the assessment tools are to be piloted to asample of the target population using multi-stage
sampling technique. To determine the validity andreliability of the tools, factor analyses are to be
conducted.

Methods
References
Campbell, R. J. Kyriakides, L., Muijs, D., &As the first step in developing such tools, theresearcher examined current practices through aninvestigationofrelateddocuments.
The
investigation found that TPS is an evaluation basedon impressions for the most part. The evaluators 3
ask four questions about the evaluatee: Does the
person prepare well for the class? Is the person
enthusiastic about their teaching and developing
their teaching skills? Does the person reorganize
the curriculum to meet the needs of the students anduse teaching resources efficiently?
Does theperson evaluate students well and make use of theresults? The principal and the vice principal
evaluate evaluatees referring to a one-page,self-reporting form 4 , and the evaluation committee

Robinson, W. (2004). Assessing teacher
effectiveness: developing a differentiatedmodel. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
Choi, C. (2006). A study on a plan to improve theperformance appraisal system as comparedwith the essence of teacher evaluation.

efforts. Evaluatees evaluate themselves using threegrades: satisfied, okay, unsatisfied. If needs be, anevaluatee can attach extra pages to the form.
5 The government has increased the percentage ofperformance pay to30% of the whole salary andbanned distributing it evenly among
teachers,
against which teacher associations are protesting.
Teacher associations request a transparent and reliableevaluation system as a prerequisite for a pay systemtied to performance. On the other hand, several
parents associations insist that the entire salary be paid
according to performance based on evaluation, andthat those who do not qualify be either reeducated ordischarged.

3

The evaluators are the principal, the vice principal,
and the evaluation committee composed of threeteachers who know the teacher best; their evaluationaccounts for 40%, 30%, and 30% of the evaluation
score, respectively.
4 The form requests reports on self-set goals
regarding three items:
duties, performance andinnovations. At the bottom there is a table forself-evaluation of four categories; degree ofachievement of the goals, creativity, punctuality and394

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Unpublished master’s thesis, Seoul

PubViw.php?Pl_Num0=4392&Pc_Code=01

National University of Education, Seoul,

0301&PageNum=1&S_Part=A00&S_Menu

Korea.

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Hill, H. C., Schilling, S. G., & Ball, D. L. (2004).

Lee, J.C.K.; Lam, W.P.; Li, Y.Y. (2003).

TeacherDeveloping measures of teacher’s

evaluation and effectiveness in Hong Kong:

mathematics knowledge for teaching.

issues and challenges.

Elementary School Journal, 105, 11-30.

Personnel Evaluation in Education, 17(1),Hill, H. C., Rowan, B., & Ball, D. L. (2005).

Journal of

41-65.

Effects of teachers' mathematical

Leshem S., & Bar-Hama, R. (2007). Evaluatingknowledge for teaching on student

teaching practice. ELT Journal, 62(3).

achievement. American Educational257-265.

Research Journal, 42(2), 371-406.

Pasko, E. A. (1992). Handbook for the evaluation

Jeong, K. (2005). 외국의 교원 평정 제도 [Aof teachers and foreign language programs.

case study of teacher evaluation systems of

Boston University. (ERIC Document

foreign countries]. Seoul: Korea Education

Reproduction Service No. ED376698).
Sinnema, C. E. L. (2005). Teacher appraisal:

Development Institute.
Jin, K., Kim, M., Yi, W., Brown, A., & McNamara,

missed opportunities for learning.

T. (2001). 초등 영어 교수 능력 신장을

Unpublished doctoral dissertation,위한 진단 도구 개발 연구 [Measuring

University of Auckland, New Zealand.
SNU (Seoul National University) & KEDI (Korea

an elementary school teacher’s ability to

Education Development Institute), (2008).

teach English]. (Available from Korea공교육 정상화를 위한 기초 연구

Institute of Curriculum & Evaluation, 142
Gahoe-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-230[Fundamental study for educational

Korea).

reformation]. Seoul: Korea Education
Development Institute.

Jin, K., Kim, J., Brown, A., & McNamara, T. (2002).

Teddlie, C., Creemersb, B., Kyriakidesc, L., Muijs,중등 영어 교수 능력 진단 프로그램D., & Yua, F. (2006). The International개발 연구 [Measuring a middle school

System for Teacher Observation andteacher’s ability to teach English].

Feedback: Evolution of an international(Available from Korea Institute ofstudy of teacher effectiveness constructs 1.

Curriculum & Evaluation, 142 Gahoe-ro,

Educational Research and Evaluation,

Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-230 Korea).

12(6), 561 – 582.

Kim, I., Yu, K., Yi, T., Baek, S., Jeong, K., & Park,Yu, K., & Kim, I. (2005, October 10). 교수 평가

S. (2004, December 31). 교사 평가시스템 분석 및 향후 개선 방향시스템 연구 [A study on the teacher[Analysis of teacher appraisal system andappraisal system]. Retrieved April 3, 2009

ways to improve the system]. KEDI

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http://public.kedi.re.kr/Report/LuPublic/Gz
PubViw.php?Pl_Num0=5351&Pc_Code=01
0301&PageNum=1&S_Part=A00&S_Menu=&S_Key=&Pc_Part=A00&S_Kind=KP.

396

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

A Research on Children’s Motivation
Eunpyo Lee

1

School of Medicine, Eulji University
elee@eulji.ac.kr

learning requires time, effort, and persistence on thepart of learner as Gardner (2001) states whereas his
earlier socio-educational model of motivation(1985) suggests that effort, desire, and positive
affect, are necessary factors distinguishingsuccessful L2 learners from less successful ones.
Concerning motivation, Chomsky (1988) stresses
the importance of activating learners’ motivationand claims that “the truth of the matter is that about
99 percent of teaching is making the students feelinterested in the material” (p. 181). Also Schumann(1997) asserts in his book, The Neurobiology of
Affect in Language, that second language
acquisition is primarily emotionally driven andemotion underlies most, if not all, cognition.
The primary purpose of the study is to examine
L2 learning motivation in an environment in whichstamp-awards are given to the students who actively
participate in class and/or outperform their
homework. It will examine how the students instamp-awarded group do on eh English pre- andpost-test and if they are better motivated to do theirassignment. It further examines on the degree ofinteraction between the teacher and the learners ofEnglish.

Abstract
This study examines how stamp-awards affectchildren for English class participation, assignment
and performance on tests. Two 18-student groups ofthe similar level children were the subjects and one
group was stamped as awards when they did theirassignment well and participation was good. The
results showed the stamp-awarded groupoutperformed on the post-test, and close rapport
was built between the teacher and the students. As
stamps boost children’s motivation, teachers need tocreate a positive motivation-inducing atmosphere sothat the young learners participate and do theirwork voluntarily to learn.

Keywords
Elementary
motivation1

schooleducation,

stamp-awards,

Introduction

Offering English classes to elementary students has
been a controversial, yet demanding issue, and has
become part of the curriculum in Korea. The
Ministryof
Education,
Science,&Technology(MOEST) stipulates the objectives of
elementary school English as acquiring basic
communicative skills and inducing interest alongwith confidence in students. To meet such demandand fulfill the objectives of English education, theMOEST implemented one-hour-a-week English
program for 3rd and 4th graders and two-hour for 5th
and 6th graders. With the emphasis on the new
English curriculum, the on-going English camp forelementary students wins parents’ support and still
plays an important part in elementary school
English.
The compelling fact that America plays a role ofsuper power in world economy makes more nations
focus on communicative aspect of the English
language. Even in the nations where English islearned as a foreign language, a special priority isgiven to English education because of its global
status in the international society (Graddol, 1997,
2006; MaKay, 2002).
Like any other type of learning, second language

2

Literature Review

Arnold and Brown (2005) state that providing
an emotionally safe atmosphere is becoming animportant issue that neuro-science delivers
substantial research into the mechanism for
motivation and memory.
An alternative motivational framework has
been formulated based on a self-determination
theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1995). According to
the theory, they types of motivation can be
categorized in terms of learners’ goal setting for
performing an activity: intrinsic and extrinsic
motivationandamotivation.
Intrinsic
motivation, according to Deci & Tyan (1985,
1995), refers to motivation to engage in an
activity for itself, and the pleasure, fun,interest, and satisfaction derived from theparticipation. Intrinsic motivated activity is
considered to be fully self-determined without

397

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

any external enforcement or rewards (Noels,
Pelletier, Clement, & Vallerand, 2000, recitedfrom Kim (2004)).
On the other hand, extrinsic motivatedbehaviorsarecontrolledbyexternal
constraints and less self-determined thanintrinsically motivated ones (Deci & Ryan,
1985, 1995; Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier & Ryan,
1991).
Williams and Burden (1997) proposed threestages of motivational process along acontinuum in L2 learning. They focused ontime and separated stages into 1) reasons fordoing something, 2) deciding to do something,and 3) sustaining the effort or persisting.
Motivating learners is a continuing practice
evolving from creating the condition andgenerating an initial motivation to maintaining
and protecting it and encouraging positive
self-evaluation (Dornyei, 2001a). In formal
instructionalsettings,
Cameron(2003)
underlines the task of sustaining or sometimes
restoring learner motivation over longer
periods of time is challenging and effort-taking.
Understanding what motivates children in
English education will be an important concern
and task for the language teachers as well as
professionals involved in developing textbooks.

3

Method3.1

Subjects

The study was based on the pre- andpost-test and the questionnaire to learn how
thestudents
progressed,
howthestamp-awarded group felt about such awards
and if the stamp-awards helped build rapport
between the teacher and the students.

3.2
Study Design
The three steps were involved in the study. On thefirst day of the program, student orientation wasgiven to the two classes as to how the class was tobe conducted, what they were expected to do inclass, and how much homework would be given.
The pre-test was administered to measure thesubjects’ background knowledge of animals,
weather and season related adjectives, and ability todiscern different sounds of the language. The test
items included matching the same sound word
animals, counting the words that start with thegiven sound, writing the first letter of weather
related adjectives and distinguishing 
 and <sh>sounds of 16 words. The total number of the test
questions was 42.
From the second day on, students were taught on
the various sounds using the minimal pairs alongwith the textbook prepared by the District Office.
The students were asked to write three words ofeach sound that was practiced in class. And the ones
who did their assignment well were stamp-awarded.
Their performance and the progress were measured
by comparing pre- and post-test.

Two 18-student classes of the similar level
children based on the placement test wereselected among the ones participating in the2008 summer English camp at H University,
sponsored by Daejeon District Office and
Education Office. Camp participants werechosen by their homeroom teachers fromvarious elementary schools located in theeastern and western districts of the city.
Students in Class Eagle(E), experimentalgroup, were from 11 schools, 6 males and 12
females, mostly 5th and 6th graders. This groupwas stamp-awarded upon active participation
and/or satisfactory performance on homeworkassignment. Students in Class Shark(S),control group, were from 15 schools, 7 males
and 11 females, 5th and 6th grades except for
one 4th grader, and this group was not
stamp-awarded.
Both groups were encouraged to work hard
and learn by participating actively. They had
four hours of study from Monday to Friday for 3
weeks, 2 hours of native speaking teachers and2 hours of Korean English (bilingual) teachers
each day. The primary language in theclassroom was English.

3.3
Data Analysis Procedure
The results of the pre- and post-test of the twoclasses were analyzed. Also the results of thequestionnaires were analyzed to learn of thestudents’ opinion.

4

Results and Discussion

The noticeable difference in the two groups
was the class atmosphere. The experimentalgroup was very active to show what theyknew
andparticipated
with
great
enthusiasm.
Theirperformanceonhomework was better than that of the control
group. There was no single student who had
not done homework. About half of the class
did more than asked for, and they were
extremely happy to receive stamp-awards. It
was evident that most of the students, except
for the three shy ones who always sat at theback of the classroom, were eager to show
their vocabulary lists of knowledge.
The results of the stamp-awarded groupwere 39.82 on the post-test showing 1.88

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

points improvement whereas 35.06 with
-2.28
point
difference
among
the
non-stamped group. These differences could
be explained that the students who did theirassignment and got praised with thestamp-awards
performed
betterbyremembering what they learned in class.
Since the post-test questions were based on
the material the students learned during theEnglish camp, the results were likely todecrease if they did not put in effort to theirstudy.
The t-test was done on the improvement of
the two groups, and the two-sided p-value
was 0.001294. Therefore, the improvement of
the stamp-awarded group showed statisticalsignificance as its P(T<=t) shows a lot lessthan 0.05.
Though the overall improvement was notstatistically significant, it showed stamped
group was better performing and doing theirassignment better. The questionnaireanswers showed they were favorable toward
stamp-awards.

5

unexpected external effects during the period
between the two tests.
Having the objectives of English education forthe young learners as acquiring basic
communicative skills and inducing interest andconfidence in students, teachers need to implement
ways to motivate young learners in classroom sothey can participate more actively and learn
efficiently. Along with awarding stamp, praisingeach student on his/her achievement, progress or
performance also gives positive impact on thestudents.
References
Arnold, J., & Brown, D. (2005). A map of theterrain. In J. Arnold. (Eds.) Affect inlanguage learning. Cambridge University
Press.
Cameron, L. (2003). Challenges for ELT from the
expansion in teaching children. ELT
Journal, 57(2), 105-112.
Chomsky, N. (1988). Language and problems ofknowledge. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Covington, M. (1999). Caring about learning: The
nature and nurturing of subject-matterappreciation. Educational Psychologist, 34,
127-136.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic
motivation and self-determination in humanbehavior. New York: Plenum Press.
Dornyei, Z. (2001). Teaching and researching
motivation. New York: Longman.
Dornyei, Z. (1990). Conceptualizing motivation inforeign-language
learning.
Language
Learning, 40, 45-78.
Gardner, R. (1985). Social psychology and second
language learning: The role of attitude andmotivation. London: Edward Arnold.
Gardner, R. C. & Lambert, W. E. (1959).
Motivational variables in second language
acquisition.
Canadian
Journalof
Psychology, 13, 266-272.
Graddol, D. (2006). English next. London: The
British Council.
Kym, I (2008). Motivational structures among
learners with different levels of L2
proficiency: The case of Korean young
learners of English. English Teaching,63(1), 101-129.
McKay, S. (2002). Teaching English as aninternational language. Oxford University
Press.
Murray, B. (2007). Classroom Motivation of
Korean EFL Students from the Perspectiveof Self-determination Theory. English
Teaching, 62(4), 391-409.
Oxford, R. & Nyikos, M. (1989). Variables

Conclusion and Limitation

As was already pointed out in Kym’s(2008) study,
L2 teaching at a primary level should pay more
attention to the potential development of the child.
Dornyei (1990, 2001a) maintains that children are
at an early stage of the language development andtheir initial experiences in L2 learning and attitudes
toward it crucially influence the ultimate
achievement of their language learning. Younglearners seemed very enthused in getting any formof awards and such an award-giving triggers themto do their work enthusiastically and participate inclass more actively.
Graddol (2006) points out that the institutional
education is to provide the generic skills needed toacquire new knowledge and specialist skills in the
future. English is considered an important anduseful skill for modern people.
The findings of the current study indicate thatstamp-awards or any kind of awards for that matterprovide students with such motivation in English
class that students actively participate in theclassroom and outperform in their assignment. At
the same time, close rapport was built between theteacher and the students.
Since the study is exploratory with a rather small
sample size students, the results are not to begeneralized. A bigger sample size in a different
context might yield a different finding. And the preand post-test were not comprehensive to determine
students’ lexical knowledge. There might have been399

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

affecting choice of language learning
strategies by university students. The
Modern Language Journal, 73, 292-300.
Pintrich, P., & Schunk, D. (2002). Motivation in
education:
Theory,research
andapplications (2nd Edition). Upper Saddle
River, N.J.: Merrill Prentice Hall.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. (2000). Intrinsic andextrinsic motivations: Classic definitions
andnewdirections.
Contemporary
Educational Psychology, 25, 54-67.
Schumann, J. H., & Wood, L. (2004). The
neurobiology of motivation. In J.
Schumann (Eds.), The neurobiology oflearning: Perspectives from second
language acquisition, Nahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Schumann, J. H. (1997). The Neurobiology of Affectin Language. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Williams, J., & Burden, R. (1997). Psychology for
language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Award-giving as a Means of Motivation andEnglish Grades
Eunpyo Lee

1

School of Medicine, Eulji University
elee@eulji.ac.kr

English knowledge and skills are tested for college
entrance, prestigious high school admittance, job
recruitment, graduate school admission, and otherfields.
In any kind of education, learners’ motivation iswhat leads them to learn and acquire the skills oflearning. In this context, understanding what
motivation is, what it does to learners, where itcomes from, and how to instill motivation tolearners is a very crucial element for teachers.
The issue of motivation is an essential part of ourdaily lives, and few would overlook the importantrole it plays in human affaires in general, and ineducation and language learning in particular(Dornyei, 2001).
In regards to motivation, medical students are
already considered highly motivated academic
group and their class performance generally excels
in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics and otherscience subjects. However, since their workload,
especially of second year and on in medical schoolis heavy, and study demands extensive time andconcentration in the basic medical subjects such as
anatomy, embryology, organic chemistry andosteology, non-medical subjects like English areoften neglected. Therefore, conducting an English
class to the seemingly non-interested group of
students may be an energy-depleting task for any
language teacher.
Considering unique circumstance of somewhat
non-interested group of students whose major is
medicine, administering a language class that
motivates students should be a pertinent task for the
instructors who teach English for ESP. This study
aims to examine if award-giving is actuallyeffective for students as extrinsic motivation, how it
affects students’ performance in English, and how
their grades are different from those of the
non-awarded ones.

Abstract
This study examines how award-giving affects
students’ performance in English class bycomparing their grades before and after the awards.
49 students were the subjects and those who wrote
grammatical, coherent, and thematically-organized
essays, and who did their best to present wereawarded. The results show that the awarded group
improved significantly than the non-awarded. It canbe concluded that inducing students’ motivation
through awards results in better performance andefficient language learning.

Keywords
Award-giving, intrinsic & extrinsic motivation,
English grades
The proceedings are the records of the conference.
PAAL hopes to give these by-products ahigh-quality appearance. We would like authors tomake the papers look exactly like this document.
The easiest way to achieve this is to replace thecontent with you own material.

1

Introduction

Fluency in English was perceived as a symbol ofthe so-called exclusive elite group in Koreansociety in the past several decades. As America
plays a leading role in world academia, economy,
science and technology, English is considered oneof the most important subjects regardless oflearners’ major. Furthermore, as Koreans expand
their capacity outside the nation, carrying out
prominent positions like the U.N. secretary-general,
it is obvious that English is becoming a world
language spoken by more people than ever before.
The need of English for medical students is
especially on the rise since English textbooks areused for their study and research papers are required
to be written in the language. Competence in the
English language is no longer a symbol of social
status but a requirement for the modern competitive
world called the global village. Moreover in Korea,

2

Literature Review

There have been numerous research studies on
motivation. The foundation of motivation theory
was laid by Gardner & Lambert (1959) and they401

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

they met twice a week for 2 hours each for 16
weeks. English reading was emphasizedparticularly with acquisition of college levelvocabulary including commonly used medical
terminology. Along with the textbook articles,
additional reading material related to new medical
procedures, extraordinary reconstructive surgeries,
and other life and death related articles were
supplemented to read for class discussion andwriting.
Since reading was considered a passive activity
and each class met immediately after lunch, it wasinevitable for students to fall asleep, an
understandable physiological phenomenon. So
unless the material was interesting enough for the
students to keep awake and/or students were
demanded to participate in class presentation, they
were likely to remain asleep. Consequently, thestudents asked to write an essay or article after eachreading material either related to the textbook or
supplementary handouts. Such writing requirement
was one of the reasons why these students were notvery favorable in terms of the course evaluation andthe instructor stating the class was too demanding
with much writing work.

identified two motivational orientations: integrative
motivation and instrumental motivation. The
learners’ desire to identify with members from theL2 community is characterized as the integrative
motivation, while the learners’ interest in learning
L2 for the pragmatic benefit of L2 proficiency ishighlighted by the instrumental motivation(Dornyei, 1990).
Oxford & Nyikos (1989) have shown that
motivation directly influences the use of L2
strategies. It also influences the higher level ofachievement in language learning (Clement, Major,
Gardner, & Smythe, 1977; Gardner, 1985).
Motivation is identified primarily with theindividual person’s orientation toward the goal of
second language learning within Gardner’sframework, known as the Socio-Educational Model(Gardner, 1985).
The word “motivation” is derived from the Latinverb movere, which suggests the idea of movement
or a drive to complete a particular task (Pintrich &Schunk, 2002). Brophy (1999) refers to motivation
as a theoretical concept used to describe theinitiation, direction, intensity, and persistence ofsome activity, especially if that activity isgoal-directed.
Ryan and Deci (2000) describe motivation as animpulse or inspiration to do something and tocomplete the task. The concept of motivation was
outlined by Deci and Ryan’s (1985) Intrinsic
Motivation and Self-Determination in Human
Behavior. Their intrinsic-extrinsic motivation
explains that human motivation can be seen to exist
on a six-point continuum, from amotivation that is
non-internalized,
non-regulation
through4categories of extrinsic motivation of external,
introjected, identified, and integrated regulation, tointrinsic motivation that is fully internalized,
intrinsic regulation.
Intrinsic motivation is defined as “the doing of anactivity, for its inherent satisfactions rather than forsome separable reason” (Ryan & Deci, 2000). They
further elaborate that “When intrinsically motivated,a person is moved to act for the fun or challenge
entailed rather than because of external prods,pressures or reward.” On the other hand, extrinsic
motivation is explained with four natural process
where humans actively seek to transform extrinsic
or external regulation into a more internalized typeof self-regulation by Ryan (1995).

3

3.2
Procedures
For students’ class presentation, over 50 topics wereselected and each student picked one topic andprepared class presentation. Also other written
assignment was given such as writing aparagraph-long description and/or answers to the
textbook questions, and short essay. Theirassignment was collected, reviewed, and given backwith the teacher feedback.
The award winners were selected based on
originality, creativity, and grammaticality of thewritten context. Other technical aspect such as great
Power Point, interesting video clips with the ability
to draw audience’s attention was taken into
consideration.
English final grades were compared between theawarded and non-awarded groups.

4

Results and Discussion

The total twelve students were awarded, 6 females
and 6 males. But two of them were repeaters, one
returned from two and a half year’s leave ofabsence, and the other a year. They were excluded
from the analysis because their last grades were notretraced.
It showed no gender difference in award winners
but the proportion of the female awardees was
slightly higher by 10%(female 30%, male 20%).
They showed positive response toward the awards

Method3.1
Subjects
The second year medical students in English
Reading and Writing were the subjects. The classcomprised 20 female(41%) and 29 male(59%), and402

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

are fully equipped with a necessary tool for
their future career.
Even for the highly motivated medical
students, award-giving acts as an importantmeans to induce motivation for studying
English harder and affects their performance
positively and in fact, shows better grades atthe end of the semester.
However, the present study has some
limitations. The sample size was too small tomake any generalization from the study. And
the number of the awardees was only ten (astwo repeaters were excluded from the study)
and the comparison of the two groups did notprovide statistically significant results. The
study was done on a homogeneous group of
students who were already highly motivatedin learning and being engaged in theacademic activities. Further study on alarger sample of both experimental andcontrol groups may render more inclusive
conclusion.

and the medical students were motivated by theawards.
Ten awarded students’ post-grades were 92.7
showing 4.9 points improvement whereas
non-awarded students’ post-grades 81.45 with only
1.09 points improvement. Among the total 33
students, ten students (33%) showed points drop,
one particular student showed 14 points drop fromthe previous class, from B+ to C.
The comparison of the two groups shows thet-value of 1.733275 and two-sided p-value of
0.090563. As the p-value is greater than 0.05, it
may not be considered of statistical significance dueto the small sample size of the awarded group.
However, the improvement of 4.9 points can beinterpreted as significant difference while the
non-awarded group showed only 1.09 points
improvement.
The awarded students’ feedback about theawards revealed positive and motivational. They
stated that it boosted their pride, made them write
better and pay closer attention in class. Korean
students rarely had a chance to receive an English
award. Therefore, award-giving provided them withgreat pleasure, and the awardees were envied bytheir non-awarded peers.

5

References
Brophy, J. (1999). Research on motivation in
education:
Theory,researchandndEdition). Language
applications (2Research. In T. C. Urdan (Ed.), The context(pp. 1-44). Stanford, CT: JAI Press.
Clement, R., Major, L., Gardner, R. C., & Smythe, P.
C. (1977). Attitudes and motivation insecondlanguageacquisition:An
investigation of Ontario francophones.
Working Papers on Bilingualism, 12, 1-20.
Dornyei, Z. (2001). Teaching and researching
motivation. New York: Longman.
Dornyei, Z. (1990). Conceptualizing motivation inforeign-language
learning.
Language
Learning, 40, 45-78.
Gardner, R. (1985). Social psychology and second
language learning: The role of attitude andmotivation. London: Edward Arnold.
Gardner, R. C. & Lambert, W. E. (1959).
Motivational variables in second language
acquisition.
Canadian
Journalof
Psychology, 13, 266-272.
Murray, B. (2007). Classroom Motivation of
Korean EFL Students from the Perspectiveof Self-determination Theory. English
Teaching, 62(4), 391-409.
Oxford, R. & Nyikos, M. (1989). Variables
affecting choice of language learning
strategies by university students. The
Modern Language Journal, 73, 292-300.
Pintrich, P., & Schunk, D. (2002). Motivation in
education:
Theory,researchandConclusion

Student motivation is an important factor for
any kind of learning and it plays especiallyan essential role in language learning.
Without motivation, learners easily shut off
their interest and neglect engrossing inlearning. It is one of the English teachers’
tasks to stimulate students to actively
engage in classroom language learning.
Although medical students are a highly
motivated group, their performance in thelanguage classroom depends on the degree of
how motivated they are in the class. For the
students who learn the language as ESP,
providing an environment in which they feelthe desire to learn and participate is a very
essential task for language teachers
especially the ones who teach English for
non-English majors.
Conducting and ideal reading and writingclass that invites all the students to the
maximum level of participation andconcentration may not be feasible. However,understanding what can be done for students’
extrinsic motivation and what impact it canhave on their class performance and further
language acquisition is a primary step forbetter teaching English so that the learners

403

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

applications (2nd Edition). Upper Saddle
River, N.J.: Merrill Prentice Hall.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. (2000). Intrinsic andextrinsic motivations: Classic definitions
andnewdirections.
Contemporary
Educational Psychology, 25, 54-67.
Ryan, R. M. (1995). Psychological needs and thefacilitation of intergrative processes.
Journal of Personality, 63, 397-427.
Van Lier, L. (1996). Interaction in the language
classroom. New York: Longman404

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Durational Analysis of the Acoustical Characteristics
of English Speech by Japanese Learners
based on the Contrast between the Stressed and the Unstressed
Shizuka Nakamura

Graduate School of Global Information and Telecommunication Studies, Waseda University
shizuka@akane.waseda.jp

syllable (the strong/weak syllable, the closed/open
syllable, the syllable in the content/function word),
the word (the content/function word), the sentence,and the pause.
Speech samples were selected from the speech
database of second language learners [5]. We used
480 samples uttered by a large number of Japaneselearners (127 subjects), and these were compared to
215 samples uttered by English native speakers (21subjects). Five text groups of four English
sentences, 20 in total, were used to construct the
speech materials. Each of the text groups consistedof four text lengths, namely, VS (Very Short), S(Short), L (Long), and VL (Very Long); these wereedited by simply adding new phrases/clauses/words.
Examples of the text are shown in Table 1.
In the process of these previous studies, we
noticed that the ingrained mora-timing of Japaneselearners might unfavourably affect the stress-timingof English speech. In this paper, we analyzed thedurational differences between Japanese learners
and native speakers in various speech units from theperspective of that the contrast between the stressed
and the unstressed is one of the most importantfeatures to characterize stress-timing by comparison
with mora-timing.
The purpose of this study is to analyze the

Abstract
In this paper, we analyzed the durational differences
between learners and native speakers in various
speech units from the perspective of that thecontrast between the stressed and the unstressed is
one of the most important features to characterizestress-timing of English by comparison withmora-timing of Japanese. The results showed thatthe lengthening and shortening of learner speech
were not enough to convey the difference between
the stressed and the unstressed. Finally, it was
confirmed that these durational differences strongly
affected the subjective evaluation scores given by
English language teachers.

Keywordsrhythm control, mora-timing, stress-timing, syllable,
Japanese, English

Introduction
We have studied the objective evaluation of English
rhythm control by learners whose native language isJapanese (called “Japanese learners” or “learners”
in this paper), and constructed an objective
evaluation model which could simulate the processof evaluating rhythm control of learners by English
language teachers (called “evaluators” in this paper)[1-4].
Durational information, which, among theacoustical features, can be calculated automaticallyin the relatively simple way, has been used for
objective evaluation. Durational differences
between native speakers and learners are correlatedwith subjective evaluation scores. Speech units, inwhich durational differences show strong
correlations, have been selected from the phonetic
viewpoint as parameters for the objective
evaluation model. Such speech units included thephoneme, the vowel (the stressed/unstressed vowel,
the vowel in the content/function word), theconsonant (the voiced/unvoiced consonant, theconsonant in the content/function word), theTable 1: Sample texts of VS (Very Short), S (Short),
L (Long) and VL (Very Long) varieties in textgroup A, and VL in group B, C and D. (‘: primarystress, , : secondary stress, . : syllable boundary, and/: phrase boundary)[Group, Text length] Text
[A, VS (Very Short)] ’Thank you.
[A, S (Short)] ‚Thank you ‚ver.y ’much.
[A, L (Long)] ‚Thank you ‚ver.y ’much / for ’eve.ry.thing.
[A, VL (Very Long)]‚Thank you ‚ver.y ’much / for ’eve.ry.thing / that you ’did for us.
[B, VL]I’m a.’mused / by the ’man / and his ‚ver.y ‚fun.ny ’jokes.
[C, VL]Why won’t you ’wait / un.‚til ’Fri.day / when he’s ’back ?
[D, VL]I was ‚ter.ri.bly an.’noyed / with the ’man / for ‚beat.ing the ’dog.

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

properties in detail of the speech units used for theobjective evaluation model from the phonetic
viewpoint. An increase of correlation coefficients
between durational differences and subjective
evaluation scores attributed this study can also
increase an accuracy of a prediction. Furthermore,
the results of this study are expected to be useful forthe study to specify the effects of mora-timing in
the future.

1of the preceding consonant, can be lengthened andshortened depending on factors such as whether thesyllable is stressed or not, whether it is part of acontent or function word, its position within a wordor its context in a sentence. However, the innate
mora-timing of Japanese learners causes them tohave difficulty in lengthening or shortening thesyllable durations.
First, the syllable durations of learners and thatof native speakers are compared to analyze theinfluences on the durational difference. The syllable
durations of learners in general are longer thanthose of native speakers.
Next, the phrase durations of all speakers arenormalized by that of the typical native speaker tocompare the ratios of the syllable duration to that ofthe phrase duration. An example of normalized
syllable duration is shown in Figure 1—for thephrase “for everything” in a VL (Very Long) text intext group A, “Thank you very much for everythingthat you did for us.” The learner characteristics oflengthening the first syllable “for” can be observed
more clearly after normalization in the areas
encircled by dotted line.
This observation may be affected by thecontrast between the stressed and unstressedsyllables, and by the content and function words.
Such learner characteristics of rhythm control,
which differ from the native styles, are analyzed in
the next chapter.

Durational characteristics of learnerspeechIn this chapter, in order to analyze the actual
conditions of learner speech, the durational
characteristics in speech units—sentences, pauses
and syllables—are examined by comparing themwith the corresponding durations of native speech.
1.1
Sentence duration
First, sentence durations which consist of all speech
units are analyzed. For English texts being used as
evaluation material, only the VL texts of each textgroup in Table 1 were used, since it was statisticallyconfirmed that a similar or higher accuracy ofanalysis could be obtained by this reduced set ofmaterial texts.
Although variations by text are observed, theaverage sentence duration of learners is about 1.5
times that of native speakers. In addition, theindividual variety of learners extends to three times
as wide as that of native speakers. In the following
sections, in such a long sentence duration uttered bylearners, the cause of different rhythm control bylearners from that by native speakers is analyzed by
dividing the sentence duration into the various
speech units.

for

'eve.

ry.

thing

SYLLABLE DURATION (ms)

350
300
250
200
150
100

1.2
Pause duration
In this section, the sentence durations are separated
into pause and non-pause durations in order toanalyze the ratio of each to the overall sentence
duration. While pauses are exceptionally inserted
into native speech, the sum of the pause durationsin the learner speech was found to increase inproportion with the increase in the text length.
On one hand, the percentage of pause durationsin the VS (Very Short) texts is low; on the other
hand, that in VL (Very Long) texts is around 40%.
On the contrary, the percentage of non-pause
durations is not variable unlike that in the case of
the pause durations.

NATIVE SPEAKER (BOLD LINE：A TYPICAL NATIVE SPEAKER)50SYLLABLE DURATION (ms)

350
300
250
200
150
100
LEARNER
50
0

200

400

600

800

TIME (ms)Figure 1: Syllable durations are plotted alongsidetime for the phrase “for everything,” uttered bynative speakers (top figure) and learners (bottom
figure). The phrase durations are normalized by thatof the typical native speaker (bold line).

1.3
Syllable duration
The syllable duration of English native speakers, as
required by the place and the manner of articulation406

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The contrast between the stressed
and the unstressed

ratio of the stressed to unstressed syllable durationof about one and a half.

Compared to the mora-timing of Japanese, one of
the most important features to characterizestress-timing of English is the contrast between the
stressed and the unstressed. In the following section,
the characteristics of learner speech are analyzed bycomparing them to the native style from theperspective of the contrast between the stressed andthe unstressed.

2.2
Strong/weak vowel
The durational differences between the stressed andthe unstressed syllables in the previous section areaffected, primarily, by not the consonants but thevowels, which lengthen and shorten more easily. In
this section, the vowels in stressed and unstressedsyllables, that is, the strong and weak vowels, areanalyzed to study the results spelt out in the lastsection in greater detail.

2

2.1
Stressed/unstressed syllable
Considering the fact that a mora tends to be utteredfor just as long as other morae in Japanese, it can bethought that shortened unstressed syllables help tomake equal intervals between stresses in English. It
is expected therefore that the difficulty in adjustingthese durations can be shown in the stressed/
unstressed syllable durations and the relationship.
The contrast between the average durations of
the stressed and unstressed syllables is shown in
Figure 2. The numbers of the stressed andunstressed syllables involved in the four VL texts
are 19 and 34, respectively. The durations of thestressed syllables uttered by native speakers aretwice as long as those of the unstressed ones, andthey gather in the small solid ellipse drawn with theaverage as its center and an axis along the solidline; on the other hand, there is no significant
tendency among those of learners, and they expandin the large dotted circle on the dotted line with theY = 2.06 X

The inter-speaker average sentence durations
and the vowel durations were analyzed. The
difference between the strong and the weak vowels
uttered by native speakers was approximately 100
ms. On the contrary, the difference among them bylearners was only about 50 ms. This result, that is,the degree of the decrease of learner speech was
smaller than that of native one, indicates that
lengthening and shortening of learner speech were
not enough to convey the difference between strong
and weak vowels.
2.3
Syllables in content/function words
These contrasts between the stressed and unstressedsyllables and vowel durations are also affected by
the differences between content and function words,
since the vowel in content rather than in function
words tends to be stressed. In this section, thevowel durations, which greatly influence syllable
durations in content and function words, areanalyzed. The number of vowels involved in thecontent and function words in the four VL (VeryLong) texts are 29 and 27, respectively.
The ratios of the intra-speaker average vowel
duration in content words to that in function words
in native speech gathered around two, while thosein learner speech expanded from two to one. In
order to analyze how these ratios were consistentamong the learners, both values were divided by theaverage vowel duration of the native speakers tonormalize the differences across different texts.
As shown in Figure 3, the data on native
speakers gathers in a small solid ellipse with theaxis along the function to content ratio of aboutone; in comparison, the data on learners expands
over a large dotted ellipse with the axis along theratio of about one and a half. The ratios deviate
from the native data up to almost two. These results
show that the shortening of the vowel duration bylearners are not enough to convey the contrast
between content and function words, in addition,
the deviation from the native data are not consistentamong the learners.

Y = 1.56 X

AVERAGE DURATION OF STRESSED SYLLABLES (ms）

450

400

350

Y= X

300

250

200
100

150

200

250

300

350

AVERAGE DURATION OF UNSTRESSED SYLLABLES （ms）

Figure 2: Relationship between the intra-speakeraverage durations of stressed and unstressedsyllables, uttered by native speakers (closed circle)
and learners (open circle) in each of the four VL(Very Long) texts. + markes indicate the averagesof native speakers (large) and learners (small). Thelines (solid: native speakers, and dotted: learners)
are drawn from the origin through their averages.

407

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics
Y = 2X

4

3.0

NORMALIZED AVERAGE VOWEL DRATION IN FUNCTION WORD

Y = 1.44 X

In this paper, we analyzed durational differences
between learners and native speakers in various
speech units from the perspective of the contrast
between stressed and unstressed syllables, devoting
attention to the fact that stress-timing of English
speech is unfavourably affected by the ingrained
was not enough to convey the difference between
the stressed and the unstressed. Furthermore, it was
confirmed that durational differences between
learners and native speakers strongly affected thesubjective evaluation scores.
Since the characteristics of English rhythm
control in speech units such as stressed/unstressedsyllable, strong/weak vowel and vowel incontent/function word by Japanese learners shouldbe effective in the evaluation of learner proficiency
at rhythm control, the results of this study is
expected to be taken in the objective evaluation
model.

2.5

Y=X

2.0

Y = 0.94 X

1.5

1.0

0.5
0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

NORMALIZED AVERAGE VOWEL DURATION IN CONTENT WORD

Figure 3: Relationship between the intra-speakeraverage durations of vowels in content words andfunction words uttered by native speakers (closed
circle) and learners (open circle). The values arenormalized by dividing by their respective native
average durations of each text. + markes and thelines are drawn in the same way in Figure 2.

3

Conclusions

Acknowledgements
This study was supported in part by the
Grant-in-Aid for Research fellow No. 21・06162
and for Scientific Research (B) No. 20300069,
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. We
express our thanks to Prof. Y. Sagisaka (Waseda
University), H. Kato (NICT), Prof. M. Tsuzaki(Kyoto City University of Arts) and Dr. S. Matsuda(NICT) for their cooperation in this study, and Prof.
S. Hiki (Waseda University) for his advice.

Correlations between durational
differences with subjective evaluation
scoresIn this chapter, we shall study the relationshipbetween the unnatural speech durations of learners
and their subjective evaluation by evaluators basedon the correlation coefficients between durational
differences and subjective evaluation scores.
The durational differences were the RMS scorescalculated by using the corresponding typical native
speech taken in each speech unit by texts. If thedurational differences affect subjective evaluation,
the former should have negative correlation withthe subjective evaluation scores, whereby smallerscores would indicate a greater degree of
unnaturalness.
As a result of the correlation analysis, it was
confirmed that durational differences strongly
affected subjective evaluation scores. Althoughvariation by texts was observed, for the speech units
referred to in the last chapter, the results showedthat it was the unstressed (correlation coefficients:-0.49) rather than the stressed (-0.18) syllable, theweak (-0.58) rather than strong (-0.18) vowel, andvowels in function (-0.56) rather than content(-0.31) words had the stronger correlation with thesubjective evaluation scores.

References[1] M. Muto et al. (2003). Corpus-based modeling of
naturalness estimation in timing control for
non-native
speech.
Proceedings
ofEUROSPEECH, 498-501.
[2] S. Nakamura et al. (2007). Tempo-normalizedmeasurement and test set dependency inobjective evaluation of English learners' timing
characteristics. Proceedings of International
Congress of Phonetic Science (ICPhS),
1733-1736.
[3] S. Nakamura et al. (2009). Objective evaluation ofEnglish learners’ timing control based on ameasure reflecting perceptual characteristics.
Proceedings of IEEE International Conferenceon Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing(ICASSP), 4837-4840.
[4] S. Nakamura et al. (2009). Effects of mora-timing in
English rhythm control by Japanese learners.
Proceedings of INTERSPEECH, (in press).
[5] N. Minematsu et al. (2004). Development of English
speech database read by Japanese to support
CALL research. Proceedings of International
Congress on Acoustics (ICA), 557-560.

408

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The relation between familiarity rating and productive
knowledge of academic words
Toru Nakamura

Tokyo Metropolitan Aoyama High School
shobota@gmail.com

attractive because he distinguished productive
knowledge of words from receptive one in his
components. According to his assumption, the word
to use requires extended knowledge beyond what
you need just to understand it. That is, the numberof words native speakers can recognize andunderstand is rather larger than the number they use
in their own speech and writing. L2 learners also
have different mastery of the various kinds of word
knowledge (Schmitt N. and Meara P., 1997).

Abstract
In this study, we focus on the relation between
familiarity rating and productive knowledge ofacademic words. The research questions are as
follows.
1) Is there any relation between the frequency ofoccurrence of the academic words and the number
and the variety of associations written by theparticipants?
2) Is there any relation between familiarity ratings
and the number and the variety of associations
written by the participants?
3) Are the word associations with the low
familiarity rating words similar to stimulus words inspelling and sound, whereas are the associations
with the high familiarity rating words similar inmeaning?
Results suggest that there is a close relation
between the familiarity ratings and the number andthe variety of response words written by theparticipants, namely participants produced more
responses to high familiarity rating words than to
low familiarity rating words. In addition,
associations with the low familiarity rating words
were similar to stimulus words in spelling only.
However, associations with high familiarity ratingwords were similar in meaning, such as synonyms.

1

Background to the current research

1.1

What is involved in knowing a word?

1.2

Modern tests based on corpora

Nation’s framework is purely descriptive andcannot explain either the processes of acquisition
for the different kinds of word knowledge or themechanisms by which they interrelate. Lexical
knowledge is not a directly accessible quality.
Therefore, some researchers designed the tests
which use Nation’s definition of knowing a wordsuch as X-Lex (Meara and Milton, 2006) and theLevels Test (Nation, 2001). X-Lex samples the
5,000 most frequent words of English, and thendraws 20 words from each of the five 1,000-wordfrequency bands within this list and uses this tomake an estimate of the number of words known
out of these 5,000 words. Like X-Lex, the Levels
Test samples a range of frequency bands in order tomeasure learners’ overall vocabulary knowledge.
Eighteen words are tested at each of the 1,000 word
frequency bands. It is similar to X-Lex in that it tests
vocabulary breadth and takes advantage of
frequency information in its design. One of theadvantages of these tests is that they can be tested
empirically, that is, they tend to be relatively quick
to administer and mark, and produce a numeralscore. As a consequence of this, they were used tomake judgments about the language level of
non-native speakers.
However, there are three factors that arepotential threats to the validity of these tests. First,
they calculate vocabulary size and are based on theassumption that the more frequently a word is in alanguage then the more easily, and earlier, it is

In the last 30 years, there has been a growinginterest in vocabulary learning and teaching. At thesame time, researchers have become aware that
there is much more to knowing a word than justlearning its meaning and form. Richards (1976)
made the first attempt to list the different aspects ofknowledge that are necessary to fully know a word.
Nation (2001) developed this list further andcovered all the aspects of various types ofknowledge that one must possess. His model is very409

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

also noted that learners tend to produce non-related
but similar-sounding words, instead of thesemantically related responses that adult native
speakers typically produce. Overall, L2 associations
are often very different from those of native
speakers. We used the design of the Lex30 (Mearaand Fitzpatrick, 2000) as the test of productive
knowledge of vocabulary. The Lex30 is a word
association task, in which participants are presented
with a list of stimulus words, and required to
produce responses to the stimuli.

likely to be learned. Indeed, a typical L1 learner’s
knowledge is high in the frequent words and lower
in the less frequent words. Nevertheless, we need todeal with this assumption with extreme caution
because frequency information drawn from native
speakers may not be relevant to L2 learners who are
not exposed to the target language except textbooks(Nakamura, 2007). Second, these tests focus on
receptive rather than productive vocabulary because
it is difficult to measure the productive knowledge
effectively. X-Lex is receptive since it is a Yes/No orchecklist test which requires learners merely to say
if they recognize a target word as a word. For the
Levels Test, Laufer and Nation (1999) themselves
describe the blank-filling version as a measure ofactive or productive vocabulary knowledge.
However, they have limited evidence to support thisinterpretation. Thus, it may simply be an alternative
way of asserting receptive knowledge rather than ameasure of productive ability (Reed, 2000). Third,these tests did not explore the interrelationshipamong the various types of word knowledge andthe results of these tests have been isolated.
Furthermore, few researches have explicitly
explored the interrelationships among the various
types of word knowledge. This is unfortunate,because a better understanding of theseinterrelationships enables us to explain the model of
L2 vocabulary acquisition.
1.3

1.4

Research questions

In the present study, the following researchquestions were identified:
1) Is there any relation between the frequency ofoccurrence of the academic words and the number
and the variety of response words written by theparticipants?
2) Is there any relation between familiarity ratings
and the number and the variety of response words
written by the participants?
3) Are the word associations with the low
familiarity rating words similar to stimulus words inspelling and sound, whereas are the associations
with the high familiarity rating words similar inmeaning?

2

Experiment2.1

Participants and Instruments

The design of this study

This study examines how two types of word
knowledge, familiarity and word associations,interrelate with each other. As this is one of the firstpilot studies exploring the interrelationship among
the various types of word knowledge, it was
impossible to design a study that could capture allof the word knowledge categories Nation (2001)
pointed out. Therefore, it was decided to limit thecurrent study to two types of word knowledge.
The framework of the familiarity rating follows
Familiarity Ratings among Japanese learners ofEnglish (J-EFL) by Yokokawa (2006). J-EFL has
the following features. 1) 3,000 words werecomplied from JACET 8000. 2) The scores are
rated on seven-point scale. 3) It does not intend to
ask knowledge of words.
Word associations are the links that connect orrelate words in some manner in a person’s mind. A
common way of drawing out them is to have atester give a stimulus word and have the participant
write the first word that comes to mind. Meara(1983) gave an outline of the work done on word
association and concluded that L2 learners tend to
give more varied responses than native speakers,
even though their vocabulary size is smaller. He

There were 34 participants. They were students
of a high school in Tokyo, Japan; all of these werefrom Grade 12. All participants had Japanese as
their L1. All had not lived in English-speaking
countries during childhood. All stimulus words
were from Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000).
The word list is divided into ten sublists based on
the frequency of occurrence of the words in the
Academic Corpus. We used sublist 1 (60 more
frequent words) and sublist 10 (30 less frequentwords) in this study.
2.2

ProcedureFirst, the participants were asked to rate on a
7-point scale how familiar they regarded theacademic words. The participants were asked to ratewords as to the number of times they had
experienced them, with 1 indicating that theparticipant had never seen, heard, or used the wordin his or her life, 4 indicating that he or she hadseen it before, but is not sure of the meaning and 7
indicating that he or she had seen, heard, or used itnearly every day of his or her life. Second, the410Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

different associations (Y) with each stimulus werecompared. In this comparison, if we see the same
association, we do not count it again.

participants were asked to write a series of responsewords at least three if possible for each stimulus
word, using word association. Participants had 30
seconds to write responses to each stimulus word.
The participants were shown examples of how tocomplete the test before beginning.
After the experiment, response words wereclassified into three categories, that is, Form,Meaning, and Use according to Nation’s framework(2001). After that these categories were classified
into more detail eight categories (Table 1).

Sublist 1
Sublist 10(more frequent words)(less frequent words)

Y=28.62
Y=17.20

The participants also produced more varied
associations with frequent words (Sublist 1) thanwith infrequent words (Sublist 10). However, theratio between X and Y (Z = Y/X) was not different
significantly.

Table 1: Eight Categories of Word Associations
Sublist 1
Sublist 10
Form
A similar in spelling (persist-insist)
B part of the stimulus word (likewise-like)
C derivative and inflection (reluctant-reluctance)

The results of the analyses are shown in Table 2
and 3. The Pearson correlation between the threevariables (familiarity (F) and the number ofassociations (X) (Y) ) appears to be fairly high for
sublist 1 and sublist 10. It indicates that as
familiarity with stimulus word increases,
participants easily produce more and varied
associations.

Use
G collocation 1（number-large）
H collocation 2（reluctant-to）

Table 2: Correlation between familiarity andassociations (Sublist 1)
F
X
Y
F
1
.834
.729
X
.834
1
.802
Y
.729
.802
1
Note: All coefficients are significant at p<.01.
F=familiarity rating of stimulus word
X=averages of the total number of associations
Y=averages of the number of different associations

Note: (stimulus word-Response word)

Results and Discussion

First, the averages of the familiarity ratings forthe stimulus words (F) were compared. Surprisingly,
there was no significant difference between sublist
1 and sublist 10.
Sublist 1
Sublist 10

Z=0.69Z=0.73

3.2 Results with respect to research question 2

Meaning
D synonym given by Concise Oxford Thesaurus(odd-strange)
E not synonym but similar in meaning (depress-sad)
F same semantic networks (encounter-accident)

3(more frequent words)(less frequent words)

Table 3: Correlation between familiarity andassociations (Sublist 10)
F
X
Y
F
1
.892
.818
X
.892
1
.876
Y
.818
.876
1
Note: All coefficients are significant at p<.01.
F=familiarity rating of stimulus word
X=averages of the total number of associations
Y=averages of the number of different associations(more frequent words) F=4.89(less frequent words)
F=4.37

3.1 Results with respect to research question 1
Then, the averages of the total number ofassociations (X) with each stimulus were compared.
In this comparison, every association is counted.

3.3 Results with respect to research question 3
Sublist 1
Sublist 10(more frequent words) X=43.22(less frequent words)
X=24.70

The part of the results of the experiment can beseen in Appendix. In the paper-based test, it ispossible for participants to produce infrequentwords randomly. Therefore, associations produced
more than two participants were counted. For eachstimulus word, the participants produced more andvaried associations with familiar words (convince:

The participants produced more associations
with frequent words (Sublist 1) than with infrequentwords (Sublist 10).
In addition, the averages of the number of411

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Even in the paper-based test, it is useful to use aparticular correction formula in order to deal withthe response bias issue.

F=6.59, X=33, Y=25) than with unfamiliar words(adjacent: F=1.81, X=16, Y=7).
While associations with the low familiarity
rating words (levy: F=2.04) were similar to
stimulus words in spelling only (levy-envy) and thenumber of associations were very small (levy: X=9,
Y=6), associations with high familiarity ratingwords (encounter: F=6.3) were similar in meaningsuch as synonyms (encounter-meet), and thenumber of associations were very large (encounter:
X=50, Y=31).
Summarizing the answers for the researchquestions, we have found that the frequency effecton vocabulary learning is very strong. In addition,
participants produced more responses to the highfamiliarity rating words than to the low familiarity
rating words. While they tend to produce
non-related but similar-sounding associations withthe low familiarity rating words, they produced thesemantically related associations with the highfamiliarity rating words.

4

5

References

Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list.
TESOL Quarterly 34, 213-238.
Laufer, B. and P. Nation. (1999). A vocabulary-size
test of controlled productive ability. Language
Testing 16 /1, 33-51.
Meara, P. (1983). Word associations in a foreign
language, Nottingham Linguistic Circular 11,
29-38.
Meara, P. and Fitzpatrick. T. (2000). Lex 30: an
improved method of assessing productive
vocabulary in an L2. System 28, 19-30.
Meara, P. and Milton, J. (2006). X_Lex: The Swansa
Levels Test. Newbury, UK: Express Publishing.
Nation, I.S.P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in
Another Language. Cambridge University Press.
Read, J. (2000). Assessing vocabulary. Cambridge:
Cambridge University.
Richards, J. C. (1976). The role of vocabulary
teaching. TESOL Quarterly 10, 77-89.
Schmitt, N. and Meara, P. (1997). Researching
Vocabulary Through a Word Knowledge
Framework: word associations and verbal suffixes.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 19, 17-36.
Nakamura, T. (2007). Conceptual Representation in
Word Recognition. STEP BULLETIN vol.19, 23-36.
Yokokawa, H. (2006). Familiarity Ratings among
Japanese learners of English. Kuroshio Publishing
Company.

Directions for Future Research

There appears to be a strong relation between
the familiarity ratings and the number and thevariety of response words written by theparticipants. As for the quality of associations, wearrived at the same conclusion as Meara’s (1983)
that “clang associations” are likely to result from alack of familiarity with the stimulus words.
However, if we investigate the features of two tasks
used in this study more closely, we can find anotherpossible explanation for these results.
The first problem is that there are a number ofissues concerning the validity of the test used in thisstudy and its results. Familiarity is not the only
factor which can influence the number ofassociations produced by participants. In a
familiarity test, the participants’ task is closer toself-assessment than to a real language task. The
response bias is in fact caused by the element ofself-assessment that is part of the test format. In
addition, the method we used was based on written
forms of knowledge and only predicts
writing-based language ability. The tasks shouldhave focused on actual language use. Therefore
phonologically based test and the interviews needed
to assess face validity or content validity.
A second problem is that the results were
influenced by the learner attitude. It is clear that thecomputer-based test has more control over the test
situation. Through computer programming, time
limits per item can be built in, the possibility ofomitted responses can be ruled out, test-takers canbe denied an overview of the test, etc. All thesefactors may affect the individual’s test performance.
412

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Appendix A (Sublist 1) N=the number of participants
F

X

Y

Z

1

N

2

N

3

N

4

N

1

analyze

4.24

48

34

0.71

data

3

H

study

3

D

investigate

5D

examine22

approach

5.97

66

41

0.62

goal

2

F

come

3

E

near

8

E

tennis

2

F

3

area

6.53

69

41

0.59

country

4

E

teritory

2

D

place

14

D

field

3

D

D

4

assess

2.79

21

21

1.00

5

assume

5.35

39

27

0.69

think

13

D

6

authority

3.88

41

30

0.73

author

5

B

power

5

D

book

3

F

teacher2

F

7

available

4.38

45

33

0.73

can

5

E

get

4

E

use

4

E

easy

2

E

8

benefit

5.24

50

31

0.62

company

4

F

profit

6

D

money

10

F

good

2

D

9

concept

5.59

53

41

0.77

policy2

Enotion3

Dthought

4

E

image

2

D

10

consist

5.71

39

31

0.79

compose5

E

insist

2

A

make

2

E

people2F11constitute

4.35

24

17

0.71

constitution

4

C

institute

2

A

America2

F

consist2A

12context

3.41

20

12

0.60

book

5

F

back

2

F

word

2

F

sentence3

F

13

contract

4.18

28

24

0.86

paper

2

?

contrast

3

A

color

2

?

14

create

6.06

63

35

0.56

art

6

F

make

18

D

music

3

F

creater

2

C

15

data

6.15

65

45

0.69

investigate

2F

information

3

D

research

4

F

graph

3

F

16

define

5.26

42

31

0.74

dictionary

2

F

eye

2

?

contact2?

country2?

17

derive

3.24

25

20

0.80

name

4

F

from

3

H

grandmother18

distribute

3.18

21

19

0.90

distribution

3

C

19

economy

6.32

72

44

0.61

company

2

F

money

13

F

save

4

F

class

2

F

20

environment

6.41

67

39

0.58

ecology2

F

destruction

2

F

pollution

8

F

forest4

F

21

establish

4.41

45

23

0.51

found

7

D

school6

Fcollege

2

F

make

4

E

22

estimate

3.85

30

25

0.83

money

5

F

budget2

F23

evident

3.79

29

24

0.83

evidence

3

C

plain

2

D

clear

2

D

accident

2

F

24

export

4.79

60

29

0.48

import

20

F

world

2

F

sea

2

F

track

2

F

25

factor

4.97

34

31

0.91

fact

2

B

cause

3

F

result3

F

26

finance

4.32

53

24

0.45

money

20

D

economy2Ecompany

3

Ffinancial

2

C

27

formula

3.41

21

18

0.86

formal

2

A

car

3

F

28

function

4.71

36

34

0.94

car

2

F

move

2

E

29

identify

5.68

49

37

0.76

person2Fidentity

5

C

mind

2

F

individual

3

E

30

income

5.68

65

28

0.43

high

2

F

father

2

F

money

12

E

salary

4

D

F

31

indicate

4.65

26

22

0.85

problem

2

F

show

2

D

indication

3

C

32

individual

5.59

46

36

0.78

personal

7D

person2

Doneself

2

E

see

2

?

33

interpret

4.50

31

23

0.74

understand4

Dtranslate

3

E

book

2

F

English3

F34

involve

4.85

36

30

0.83

accident

3

F

concern3

D

incident

2

F

problem

2

F

35

issue

5.85

57

25

0.44

question

6D

difficult2

G

problem

19

D

solve

5

G

36

labor

4.24

43

29

0.67

hard

2

G

work

10

D

worker3

F

company

3

F

37

legal

4.50

56

36

0.64

crime

2

F

police2Fcriminal

2

F

illegal6C

38

legislate

2.71

22

20

0.91

law

3

F

39

major

6.26

67

34

0.51

baseball

9

F

minor

20

F

specialize

2

D

many

3

E

40

method

5.88

48

28

0.58

way

18

E

use

2

G

science

2

F

means

2

E

41

occur

4.85

38

25

0.66

happen

11

D

issue

2

F

accident3F

42

percent

6.24

58

32

0.55

average3

E

proportion

6

E

number

9

F

graph

43

period

6.03

61

29

0.48

sentence

3

F

term

10

D

era

2

D

point

3

44

policy

5.65

47

35

0.74

thought

3E

politic2

C

important

3

G

pride

4

45

principle

4.65

47

31

0.66

school8?

important

4

G

one

2

?

principal

2

46

proceed

4.06

25

16

0.64

advance6Dprogress

4

D

way

2

F

47

process

6.44

51

33

0.65

produce

2

A

make

2

?

result

7

F

way

8

48

require

5.03

45

30

0.67

demand4

A

request

2

E

ask

2

E

need

6

49

research

6.24

53

31

0.58

study

7

D

examine

2

D

find

2

E

data

4

50

respond

5.68

36

25

0.69

call

2

F

question

4H

answer5

D

letter

2

51

role

5.21

50

27

0.54

musical

2

F

part

5

D

movie

3

F

cast

3

52

section

5.32

48

31

0.65

part

10

D

group

4

E

company2E

devide253sector

3.00

15

14

0.93

section2

D54

significant

3.74

25

15

0.60

important

11

D

55

similar

5.76

46

24

0.52

brother

2

F

like

5

D

familiar

4

A

resemble456source

4.85

40

29

0.73

resource

6

A

forest

2

F

oil

2

F

water

2

57

specific

3.26

27

21

0.78

life

2

?

space

4

?

special3

E58

structure

3.97

35

32

0.91

building

2

F

house

2

F

architecture

2

F

59

theory

6.00

53

42

0.79

science5Fphilosophy

2D

thinking

2

E

practice

3

60

vary

4.56

41

23

0.56

color

2

F

many

2

F

change10Dvariety2

Average

4.89

43.22

28.62

0.69

413

2

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Appendix B (Sublist 10) *=non-wordYadjacent
albeitassemblecollapsecolleaguecompileconceive
convince
depress
encounterenormous
forthcoming
inclineintegrity
intrinsic
invokelevy
likewise
nonethelessnotwithstanding
odd
ongoing
panel
persistpose
reluctanceso-called
straightforward
undergo

F
1.81
1.74
5.26
5.81
5.33
2.73
5.96
6.59
5.63
6.3
6.26
2.63
5.15
3.56
2.56
2.48
2.04
3.85
5.56
3.04
6.04
3.41
4.44
6.19
5.59
4.59
4.59
3.04
5.33

X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29

16
9
31
35
37
6
31
33
28
50
42
8
25
15
15
17
9
22
36
21
41
19
19
35
35
21
21
20
31

7
8
17
27
28
6
28
25
19
31
19
8
17
12
15
14
6
14
19
15
27
16
18
18
22
11
17
19
23

Z
1
N
0.44
* adjast 6
0.89
work
2
0.55 resemble 5
0.77
break
5
0.76
friend
7
1.00
0.90
think
3
0.76 persuade 6
0.68
impress 5
0.62
meet
10
0.45
big
8
1.00
0.68
decline60.80 integrate 2
1.00
0.82
involve
4
0.67
envy
4
0.64 othrewise 6
0.53 nevertheless 8
0.71 withstand 4
0.66
strange80.84 continue 3
0.95
board
2
0.51
insist
10
0.63
stop
9
0.52 reluctant 5
0.81
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3
0.95
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2
0.74 experience 730

whereby

3.67

13

10

0.77

Average

4.37

24.70

17.20

0.73

where

2

3

N

like
down

3
2

D suddenly 2
D
think
2
A discourage 2
D
come
4
E
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7

?
? understandD
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2
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F
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tend
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2
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thoughstandstupid

2
4
2
2

B
D
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however

3

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ugly

2

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say
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* relux
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B withstanding 3
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picture3
C unwilling 4?
called2?
D undertake 3D

B * therefor 2

A

414

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

A Study of the Effectiveness of the CALL Program, ‘Adjective
Sommelier’, as a Leaning Tool to Improve Learners’ Analytical Approachto the Polysemous Senses of TL Adjectives
Noriko Aotani1, Taichi Kameyama2, Naoki Sugino3 and Yuko Amaya4

1

Tokai Gakuen University, 2Gifu National College of Technology,
3

Ritsumeikan University, 4Tokai Gakuen University

aotani@tokaigakuen-u.ac.jp, kame@gifu-nct.ac.jp
gwisno@is.ritsumei.ac.jp, amaya@tokaigakuen-u.ac.jp
languages. Ringbom (2007) defines the relationof distant languages as a zero relation, whichmeans that items and patterns in the TL at an
early stage of learning appear to have little or noperceptible relation to the L1 or any otherlanguage the learner knows. Aotani (2003, 2004,
2007) investigated the results of the languagetransferability tests regarding pair adjectives as‘omoi’ (heavy) or ‘karui’ (light), ‘fukai’ (deep)or ‘asai’ (shallow), ‘hiroi’ (wide) or ‘semai’(narrow), among others, administered toJapanese high school students and university
students. The results showed that themetaphorical expansion of word senses in their
TL mental lexicon did not occur properly, even
if they continued studying English throughuniversity level. They judged the transferability
as acceptable only within the basic sense of theword, and most of the metaphorical expansion
was related to language-oriented expressions.
The zero relation, however, does notmean there is nothing relevant between two
languages, since there are always some linguistic
universals common to all languages. In theworld of meanings that involves the way humans
perceive the world, most words especiallyadjectives and verbs are polysemous in all
languages. Their meanings have been
metaphorically expanding throughout their long
history. Some expansions are culturally oriented,
and others are more general, having underlying
concepts that are universal. As Ringbom (2007)
suggested, universal similarities need to be
pointed out to the learner in an explicit way
since the level of abstraction in those universals
is too high to notice. Without any appropriate
guidance, learners have to make trial and error

Abstract
This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of
the CALL program ‘Adjective Sommelier’,
which we have developed for Japanese learnersof English to experience an analytical, inquiring
approach to expanding the polysemous senses ofadjectives (Aotani & Kameyama, 2008). The
program was developed to help encouragelearners who are suspicious of transferability to
notice underlying cross-linguistic similarities
between L1 and TL, to develop the necessaryconfidence to decide when it is appropriate totransfer the word senses and when it is not, andto develop learner autonomy over their
metaphorical thinking process.
The effectiveness of the program was
examined using data from 182 Japanese college
and university students by analyzing changes intheir learning strategies after using this program.
The scale of learning strategies consists of threesubscales: analogical strategy, consideration
strategy, and working strategy (Mori, 2004).
Results indicated the scores of the post
survey on consideration strategy and working
strategy were significantly higher than the presurvey scores regardless of learners’ English
proficiency level. The effectiveness of‘Adjective Sommelier’ was discussed in relation
to the findings.

Keywords
language transferability, polysemous adjectives,
learning strategies

Introduction
Japanese and English are regarded as distant415

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

in TL, whether similar to or different from their
L1’s.
At the second stage, the stage of deeper
processing, learners are given ten English
sentences one by one with the target adjective
blanked out. A Japanese translation of thesentences is also given. They are instructed tochoose the correct adjective. When a question
shows up on the screen, a direct translation
adjective is already given in the answer box as adefault answer. If a learner thinks the directtranslation is the right answer, he or she can justclick the ‘OK’ button to proceed to the nextquestions. If he or she thinks the directtranslation is not appropriate, he or she canchoose the correct adjective among the threechoices. After finishing all questions, thelearner’s result and also a professional
sommelier’s example answer are shown next toeach other to let the learner compare his or her
results with the professional’s. The ultimate aimat this stage is to encourage learners toexperience a hypothesis-making process, whichmakes them deeply involved in the world of
metaphorical expressions. This stage is also
aiming to let learners develop confidence in the
production of the TL. If they can start noticing
underlying common schema of the meaning, thedistance they perceive to exist between Japaneseand English will be shortened.
The aim of this study is to analyze theeffectiveness of these two stages byinvestigating if any changes in their learning
strategies take place after experiencing these twostages of AS.

continuously, which is not the most productive
approach to language learning.

1. The aim of the program
Figure 1 illustrates the world of meaning in L1
and TL, and their relations. Expressions which
are peculiar to L1-speaking people arecategorized in Area A. Expressions which are
peculiar to TL-speaking people are categorizedin Area C. Area B is a cross-linguistic area, andexpressions which are common in L1 and TL arecategorized in this area. As described above,
Area B for Japanese average learners of English
is unnecessarily small.

TL

L1
A

B

C

Figure 1: A model of the L1-TL relations
The program, ‘Adjective Sommelier(hereafter AS)’, consists of ten units each ofwhich consists of three stages; the stage ofperceiving, the stage of deeper processing, andthe stage of new association. The first two stages
aim to expand a learner’s Area B, which
simultaneously shrinks his/her Area A, and thethird stage aims to expand a learner’s Area C,
which means perceiving the difference (Aotani& Kameyama, 2008).
At the first stage, the stage of perceiving,learners are given, one by one at random order,
15 Japanese phrases that contain an adjective
such as ‘omoi’ and are instructed to make a
judgment as to whether the English equivalent
adjective (i.e. in the case of ‘omoi’, heavy is anequivalent adjective) could be transferable as atranslation. Some of the given phrases are
literal (core) usage of the adjective such as‘omoi nimotsu’ (heavy luggage), and others aremetaphorical usage such as ‘omoi sekinin’(heavy responsibility). Some phrases aretransferable, and others are nontransferable.
When learners finish the analogical judgment for
all the given phrases, the results of theiranalogical judgments are shown. The ultimate
aim at this stage is to give learners theopportunity to acknowledge that there is a
metaphorical expansion of the meaning in L1,
and there may also be a metaphorical expansion

2. Method
2.1 Subjects
Subjects were 182 Japanese college anduniversity students. Ages ranged from 17 to 22
years old. They were not English majors, andthey were enrolled in compulsory English
classes.
The subjects were required to take theMeasures of English Grammar Test (Shimizu, etal., 2006) to assess their English proficiency
level before the experiment.
2.2 Procedure
The on-line surveys were administered toregular English classes during class hours. The
subjects were assessed at two points: at the firstweek before experiencing AS (S1), and at the
fifth week after finishing all units of AS (S2). A
questionnaire was given in Japanese.

416Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

2.3 Materials and variables
The scale of learning strategies that wasconstructed by Kubo (1999) was used. It is a
22-item scale and consists of three subscales:
analogical strategy, consideration strategy, andworking strategy (Mori, 2004). The analogicalstrategy consists of seven items, such as When I
do not understand the sentences I read or hearin English, I guess the meanings from the context,
To understand unfamiliar words, I make guess,
When I talk in English or read English, I try to
grasp the general meaning instead of sticking todetails, and I find the meaning of an English
word by dividing it into parts that I understand.
The consideration strategy consists of four
items: I consider the reason why I cannot
understand, I try to notice my language errors
and find out the reasons for them, I make clear
what I understand and what I do not, and I do
not leave the questions half-done. The working
strategy consists of six items, such as I classify
words based on their meanings, I create
associations between items I learned, I use theEnglish words I know in different ways, and I
classify words based on their forms.
Responses were scored on a six-point
scale from 1 (never use) to 6 (always use). This
scale was administered at two different points,
S1 and S2.

20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
low score grouphigh score group

4
2
0
S1

S2

Figure3:
Each group of Mean for theworking strategy
of MEG (M=11.0, SD=3.6). The data for time
was the repeated condition.
A two (the score of MEG) x two (time)
ANOVA was carried out on the learning strategy
scales. The analogical strategy (α=.74) indicatedno significant main effects of time and the scoreof MEG.
The consideration strategy (α=.77)
revealed significant main effects of time(F(1,180)=12.67, p<.001) and the score of MEG(F(1,180)=10.05, p<.01, Figure 2). Theinteraction between time and the score of MEG
was non-significant.
The working strategy (α=.80) revealed
significant main effects of time (F(1,180)=54.01,
p<.001) and the score of MEG (F(1,180)=6.99,
p<.01, Figure 3). The interaction between time
and the score of MEG was non-significant.

3. Result
The design was two levels of the score of MEG(the high/low score group of MEG), and twolevel of time (S1/S2). The data of MEG was
divided into “high score group (N=76)” and“low score group (N=106)” based on the means

4. Discussion

15.5

The aim of the first two stages of AS was to givelearners the opportunity to consciously engage
in the psychological process of noticing
metaphorical uses of the languages. From thisstudy we found some evidence that the learners
began noticing the universal similarities in
metaphorical expansions of the meaning
between L1 and TL, and tried to find out theunderlying schema as a clue to the solution.
Learning strategies are steps taken by
students to enhance their own learning. The
consideration strategy is considered to beaffected when learners recognize carefulconsideration is effective in the face of solving
problems. Changes in this strategy after using
AS imply the program gave the learners the
chance to psychologically involve in the world

15
14.5
14
13.5
13
12.5
12

low score grouphigh score group

11.5
11
S1

S2

Figure2:
Each group of Mean for theconsideration strategy

417

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

of meanings more deeply and carefully than
before. The working strategy is considered to be
stimulated when learners recognize information
they get is worth classifying for future use.
Changes in this strategy imply during the lessonsof AS the learners try to work out the strategy toclassify the meanings of words, to detect
similarities between L1 and TL meanings.
This study also gave evidence that AS
was effective to all the subjects regardless of
their English proficiency level from a viewpointof changes in their learning strategies. When thecharacteristic of the task whose achievementlevel largely depends on the learners’ English
abilities, post-task impressions of the lower-level
learners are usually different from ones of thehigher-level learners. In case of AS as a task,
however, its aim was not to test the learners’
English abilities, but to stimulate the learners’
cognitive process, regardless of their English
proficiency level.
Although the surveys were conducted ina short term, the learners’ learning strategies
were still affected significantly. When we
consider, however, the fact that the changes inlearning strategies usually need a certain periodof learning experience to be firmly established,
the continuous lessons are considered to be more
effective. Danesi (1992) stated the importance ofincluding the study of metaphorical expansion of
meanings on the agenda of second language
acquisition in the classroom environment.
However, if we look at the learning situation in
Japan, it might be difficult to spare time for thiskind of activity. As a result, the typicalclassroom Japanese learners of English havevirtually no access to the metaphoricalexpansion of the TL even after six years of study
at junior and senior high school.
We believe using the program such as AS
in the everyday classroom environment can
provide a learner-led learning environment forlearning metaphorical expansion in the TL, andhelp construct their learning strategies regarding
vocabulary acquisition.
The effectiveness of AS should be assessed
further by different scales, such as learners’
motivation, self-esteem, self-evaluation, or
enjoyment of learning.

References
Aotani, N. (2003). A psycholinguistic analysis of
the expansion of semantic network of
ESL learners: A questionnaire survey of
the Japanese adjective omoi. The
Bulletin of Chubu English Language
Education Society, 33, 9-16.
Aotani, N. (2004). An analysis on the analogicalsemantic network of the Japanese
adjective omoi. The Bulletin of Tokai
Gakuen University, 9-2, 67-80.
Aotani, N. (2007). A comparative study oftransferability
between‘measure’
adjective pairs, omoi and karui. The
Bulletin of Tokai Gakuen University,
12-2, 1-12.
Aotani, N. and Kameyama, T. (2008).
Development of a CALL program to
improve learner’s analytical approach tothe polysemous senses of L2 adjectives.
Proceedings of WorldCALL 2008.
(http://www.j-let.org/~wcf/modules/tinyd12/)
Danesi, M. (1992). Metaphorical competence insecond language acquisition and second
language teaching: The neglecteddimension. In J.E. Alatis (ed.) Language
Communication and Social Meaning (pp.
489-500). Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Round Table on Languages
and Linguistics.
Kubo, N. (1999). Orientation-appraisal modelfor Japanese university students’learning of English: Relation among
learning motive, cognitive appraisal,
learning behavior, and performance.
Japanese Journal of Educational
Psychology, 47, 511-520.
Mori, Y. (2004). Relationships between
self-efficacy and learning strategies ofEnglish in college students. Japan
Journal of Educational Technology, 28,
45-48.
Ringbom, H. (2007). Cross-linguistic similarity
inforeignlanguagelearning.
Multilingual Matters Ltd
Shimizu, Y., Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Ohba,
H., and Nakano, M. (2006). Developinga sample-free grammatical proficiency
test for SLA research. Proceedings ofthe 10th Conference of Pan-Pacific
Association of Applied Linguistics,
227-236

Acknowledgments
This work was supported by KAKENHI(Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C); No.
20520535).

418

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Learning Strategies: A Theoretical Assumption
Wakako Kobayashi
Faculty of Commerce, Chuo University
wakakoba@mbh.nifty.com

Abstract

learning, especially in listening and reading

Of the four language skills, listening is often

ability (Rost 2001). Although Krashen does notconsidered to be the most crucial for the language

refer to strategic adjustments, which learners

learning since listening is a highly interactive

makes in understanding the new information, I

skill

have

believe his assertion – in spite of the endlessdemonstrated its significant role on language

controversy for the reliability and validity, which

acquisition (Vandergrift, 1996). The appropriate

implies that the notion of i + 1 is vague andand effective use of listening strategies can help

inaccurate – has implies many second language

learners to facilitate the language process. Oxford

acquisition (SLA) researchers into learning(1989) states that there is the interaction between

strategies researchers, at least to some extent.

and

many

SLA

researchers

learner’s variables and the choice of language
learning strategies (LLSs). Therefore, the use of1

appropriate

metacognitive

Here, this study investigate the effects ofstrategies hold a key to improve and advancelanguage learning strategies, especially listening

learners’ listening proficiency as their language

strategies. I hypothesize that 1)implementation oflevels rise.

teaching learning strategies is effective for

LLSs,

especiallyHypothesis

learners to improve their listening proficiency, 2)

Keywords

students can use more metacognitive strategies

Listening strategies, language learning strategies

than cognitive and socio-affective strategies as(LLSs),

their levels of comprehension increase. After themetacognitive

strategies,

teacherliterature reviews, this study concludes that

education

fostering the acquisition of the appropriate

Introduction

listening strategies, particularly metacognitive

Krashen (1982) asserted that comprehensible

strategies, hold the key of enhancing success in

input is a necessary and indispensable condition

listening comprehension (O’Malley & Chamot,

for language learning when considering the1990, Vandergrift, 1996, Rost, 2001).

relationship between input and adjustments andKrashen (1985) states that if the learners can2
Background of the study inlistening strategies

comprehend the language that contains linguistic

As for the definition of the listening strategies,

items (lexis, syntax, morphology) at a slightly

Rost (2001) notes that they are conscious plans toabove the learner’s current level (i + 1) , then,deal with incoming speech, especially when thes/he can achieve the further development inlistener tries to compensate for the incomplete

message comprehension. In his input hypothesis,419

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

representative researchers in this, the following

3
Training of learners in using
appropriate strategies

three are to be picked up: 1) Rost &Ross 1991;2)

As far as I have discussed, the use of appropriate

Kasper, 1984 and 3) Vandergrift, 1996.

LLSs, especially metacognitive strategies hold a

input

or

partialunderstanding.

For

the

1)Rost &Ross (1991)discuss that more

key to improve and advance learner’s listening

proficient listeners tend to use more hypotheticalproficiency

as

their

languagelevelsrise

testing (asking about information about the story),(O’Malley&

Chamot,1990,

Ellis,

1994,

rather than lexical push down (asking about the

Vandergrift, 1996), because I think with thisword’s meaning) and global reprises (asking foreffective use of the skills and strategies, learners

repetition). They also report that if listeners

could have more comprehensible input for SLA

follow the training sessions, they could ask more

(Krashen, 1985), learners could lessen their

hypothesis questions. 2)Kasper (1984) assert thatanxiety in listening (Durey, Burt and Krashen,in think aloud protocols study that L2 listeners

1982) and could even increase their motivation

tend to form an initial interpretation of a topic ( aby having stronger confidence (Anderson &frame 9 and them stick to it, trying to fir

Lynch, 1988). Therefore, here I consider how

incoming words and propositions into that frame.

teachers could teach those kind of strategies

3) Vandergrift (1990)classifies the strategies

effectively to learners by reviewing related

which consists of metacognitive, cognitive andarticles. First, Rubin (1994) and many othersocio-affective strategies. He finds that the higher

researchers (Mendelson, 1998) assert that thethe learners levels are, the more they use theimportance of listening strategies training in themetacognitive strategies. Then, based on theclassroom teaching. Furthermore, Mendelson

findings, Vandergrift proposes a pedagogic plan(1998) notes that the materials have increasingly

for encouraging the use of metacognitive

come to include the strategy training, particularly

strategies at all proficiency levels in order tothe significance of the schemata, prior to listening,

increase the learner’s comprehension.

which leads pre-, while- and post-listening phases

Of the four language skills, listening is often(Underwood, 1989). Then Rost (1994) presents a

considered to be the most crucial for language

framework for incorporating five types oflearning since listening is a highly interactive

listening strategies into classroom instruction,

skill and many SLA have demonstrated its

which consists of 1)predicting, 2) monitoring, 3)

significant

acquisition

inferencing 4)clarifying, and 5) responding. As(Vandergrift, 1996). Rost (2001) notes thatfor the way of the strategy training itself, perhaps,

listening involves both bottom-up processing andwe can pick up three ways: 1) explicit training,

top-down processing, which takes places at

direct training , 2) embedded strategy training, 3)variousorganization:

combined strategy training.

lexicaland[Note: Though Bialistock (1985) express his

propositional. Listening strategies, therefore, aredoubt, restricting their effects, that LLSs training

the most beneficial for teacher to nurtureis effective only under specific condition and(Vandergrift, 1996). I think the appropriate andteachers should employ teaching strategies that

effective use of the listening strategies can help

are incongruous with useful experiences. I

learners to facilitate the language process.

understand that it does not mean he completely

role

level

phonological,

inoflanguagecognitive

grammatical,

420

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

rejects the effect of teaching LLSs. Training is

Duley, J.B. & Krashen, S. (1982). Language two.

effective only under specific condition andOxford: Oxford University Press.

teachers should employ teaching strategies that

Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language

are incongruous with useful experience. However,acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University

it is somewhat surprising that there have been few

Press.

empirical quantitative studies that have attempted

Kasper, G. (1984). Pragmatic comprehension into evaluate the success of the strategies training,learner – native speaker discourse.

as Ellis (1994) and Larsen &Freeman (1991)

Language Learning, 34..1-20.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice innote. ]

second language acquisition. New York:

4
Summary and implications forteachers

Pergamon.
Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: issues
and implication. London: Longman.

As far as I have discussed and reviewed LLSs

Larsen-Freeman, D. &Long, M. (1991). An

related articles, it is clear that teaching learning
strategies will receive an increasing attention in

introduction

teacher education, since the SLA researchers haveacquisition research. London: Longman.

not yet developed this academic field (Ellis,

Mendelson, D. (1998). Teaching listening. In W.

1994). Empowering learners by having themGrabe (Ed). Foundation of second

develop LLSs might help them to not only cope

languagewith classroom tasks, but also continue to learn,

Cambridge University Press.

tosecondteaching:

language

Cambridge:

O’Malley, M. & Chamot, A. (1990). Learningwhich is to promote self- autonomous learning.
Moreover, learners variables, such as age, gender

strategies

insecondlanguage

proficiency, cultural and educational background,

acquisition.

Cambridge:

Cambridge

etc. and situational factors such as task difficulty,

University Press.

informal and formal setting and goals, etc.

Oxford, R. (1989). Use of language learning

inevitably influence and interact with the choicestrategies: A synthesis of studies withof LLSs. Therefore, teachers should pay attention

implication for teacher training. System

to them in teaching strategies. Lastly, the right

17:235-247.

and appropriate choice of LLSs may determine

Rost, M. & Ross, S. (1991). Learner use of

the rate and level of the achievement as wellstrategies in interaction: typology andwhich is considered to be significant for bothteachability. Language Learning 41.

teachers and learners.

235-273.
Rost, M. (2001). Listening. In R. Carter &5

References

D.Nunan (Eds). The Cambridge guide toteaching English speakers of otherAndrson, A. & Lynch, T. (1988). Gradeddevelopmentoflistening.

language.

Listening

Cambridge:

Cambridge

University Press.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rubin, J. (1994). A review of second language

Bialystock, E. (1985). The compatibility ofteaching and learning strategies. Applied

listening

Linguistics 6: 255-262

Modern Language Journal, 78. 199-221.

421

comprehension

research.

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Underwood, M. (1989). Teaching listening.
London: Longman.
Vandergrift,L.

(1996).The

listening

comprehension strategies of core Frenchhigh school students. The CanadianModern Language Review, 52.200-223.

422

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The Development and Implementation of Task-based Writing
Performance Assessment for Japanese Learners of English: (1) A
Pilot Experiment
Yoshihito Sugita1 and Michiko Nakano2

1

Faculty of Nursing, Yamanashi Prefectural University, 2 School of Education, Waseda University
sugita@yamanashi-ken.ac.jp, nakanom@waseda.jp
address the issue of how much importance we placeon the ability of our students to write. For example,
the construct of TOEFL Test of Written English(TWE) is an applicant’s ability to compose
academic English. The TWE is holistically scored,
using a criterion-referenced scale to provide
information about an examinee’s ability to generate
and organize ideas on paper, to support those ideas
with evidence or examples and to use theconventions of standard written English (ETS,1996).
The constructs of the task-based writing
performance test developed for this pre-testing areassumed to be accuracy and communicability.
Accuracy is comprised of organizational skills andlinguistic accuracy. Organizational skills can be
defined as the ability to organize logical structure
which enables the content to be accurately acquired,and linguistic accuracy concerns errors of
vocabulary, spelling, punctuation or grammar.
Communicability is comprised of communicative
quality and effect. Communicative quality refers to
the ability to communicate without causing thereader any difficulty, and communicative effectconcerns the quantity of ideas necessary to develop
the response as well as the relevance of the content
to the proposed task (Sugita, 2008).
The present writing test contains two tasks aselicitation devices. Those tasks are designed to reify
the underlying constructs based on the dual-mode
system proposed by Skehan (2001). Since the taskthat elicits accuracy places more emphasis on
writing accurately in adequate time, the rule-based
system can be accessed. The task that elicits
communicability emphasizes the importance of
conveying a message in very limited time, so that amemory-based system will be appropriate.
Specialized rating scales for the constructs werealso developed, each accompanied by descriptors of
the accuracy and communicability, respectively. By
conforming one construct closely to the definitionof its rating scale, it is fair to say that raters would

Abstract
This article describes a pilot study conducted to
explore the development of task-based writing
assessment for Japanese learners of English. The
main purpose of the research is 1) to establish aframework for the test development and theconstructs of writing performance test, 2) toconduct a pilot test of a developed writing
performance assessment, and 3) to examine thedegree of reliability of the assessment tasks andrating scales. We found that there is considerable
validity in the integration of construct-based task
development and task implementation based on theoperation of the processing factors and theinfluence of the processing conditions, and thus theconstruct-based processing approach to testing
resulted in a comprehensive framework for our testdevelopment. The constructs of our task-based
writing test developed for this study were
determined to be accuracy and communicability,
and the test development proceeded according to
the three stages. The pre-testing was intended as an
examination into the assessment tasks and rating
scales, and the analyses were done using FACETS.
The results showed that 1) the students’ writing
ability was effectively measured, 2) the difficulty ofthe two assessment tasks were equivalent, and 3)
rating scales for accuracy and communicability
need to be optimized.

Keywords
writing performance,
FACETStask-based

assessment,

Introduction
As Bachman and Palmer mentioned (1996), theprimary purpose of a language test is to makeinferences about language ability. The ability that
we want to test is defined as a construct, anddescribing the construct is one of the mostfundamental concerns in test development. Whenassessing writing, it is therefore necessary to423Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

use the scale appropriately and consistently,
ensuring the reliability and validity of assessing
writing.

then to rate the 15 scripts of Task 2. Finally, they
were asked to holistically rate each of theparticipants’ writing proficiency at six levels, 1-6.

2. The Study
2.1 Purposes and research questions
The purpose of this study is to conduct a pilot testof the TBWT. The pre-testing is intended as an
examination into the degree of reliability ofassessment tasks and rating scales. The following
research questions were addressed:
1) Is student ability effectively measured?
2) Are teacher-raters equally severe?
3) How much do tasks that are designed to beequivalent actually differ in difficulty?
4) How well scales conform to expectations about
their use? Do raters use all parts of them, and use
them consistently?

2.4 Data analysis
Tables 1, 2 and 3 show the descriptive statistics forthe scores of the two test tasks and theimpressionistic scoring. Since the average of theinter-rater coefficients for each scoring is relatively
high (0.75, 0.79, 0.80), the five raters appear to beof acceptable reliability.
Table 1: Descriptive statistics of scoring Task 1
Rater
Mean
SD
Min.
Max.

1
3.53
1.35
1.0
6.0

2
4.07
1.48
1.0
6.0

3
3.73
1.09
2.0
6.0

4
3.13
1.40
1.0
6.0

5
3.13
1.64
1.0
6.0

Table 2: Descriptive statistics of scoring Task 2

2.2 Test participants and materials
The data for this study were 30 scripts (15 scripts
on each of two tasks) collected from 15
undergraduate students of a Japanese University (6males and 9 females) who took a task-based writing
performance test on the first day of the basic
English course in the fall semester, 2006. The
subjects were mostly freshmen (93.3%) whose
majors varied. All of the subjects were native
speakers of Japanese with the intermediate level ofEnglish language proficiency.
The writing performance test developed for the
pre-testing contained two elicitation tasks: 20
minutes for Task 1 and 10 minutes for Task 2. The
features of the two tasks are described below:
・ Task 1 － Writing a 100-120 word letter
introducing oneself to a host family, focusing
on accuracy.
・ Task 2－Making notes about a discussion topic,“Why do you study English?” focusing on
communicability.

Rater
Mean
SD
Min.
Max.

1
3.86
1.64
1.0
6.0

2
4.13
1.40
2.0
6.0

3
3.46
1.06
2.0
6.0

4
3.86
2.40
2.0
6.0

5
3.40
2.97
1.0
6.0

Table 3: Descriptive statistics of impression
Rater
Mean
SD
Min.
Max.

1
3.86
1.35
1.0
6.0

2
4.13
2.55
1.0
6.0

3
3.60
0.98
2.0
6.0

4
3.66
1.34
2.0
6.0

5
3.06
1.57
1.0
6.0

Table 4: Descriptive statistics of different scoring
Mean
SD
Min.
Max.

Task
1
3.52
1.40
1.0
6.0

Task
2
3.74
1.48
1.0
6.0

Impression
3.66
1.39
1.0
6.0

Table 4 reports results for each test task andthe impressionistic scoring, including its mean andstandard deviation. It can be seen that the meanscores for all variables are very close, ranging from
3.52 to 3.74. The alpha coefficients for the test
tasks and the holistic scoring were calculated.
Davies (1990) recommended the cut-off point (.90)
as an acceptable level of internal consistency on ahigh-stakes test. Each Cronbach’s α would meet the
point: .9349, .9466 and .9443 for Task 1, Task 2
and impressionistic scoring, respectively.
The correlation coefficients between the scoresprovide a preliminary estimate of the parallel-form
reliability of each test task. As seen in Table 5, thecorrelation coefficients between each task and theimpressionistic score fall in a range of .846 to .913,
which are all significant at the 0.01 level. The
correlation between the two test tasks (.701) is,

2.3 Scoring procedure
Each of the thirty scripts was scored by five raters,
who were all experienced Japanese high school
teachers of English. They were all native speakers
of Japanese, and they shared similar backgrounds interms of qualifications of ten or more years ofteaching experience. Since rating sessions were
held separately in each location, a task-based
writing test guide (TBWT Guide) was developed toprovide a full explanation for assessment tasks,
procedures and rating scales. Both scripts and the
TBWT Guide were given to the teacher raters bymail at the end of December, 2007. Each of the fiveraters rated the entire set of thirty scripts and sent
them back by the end of January, 2008. They were
instructed to rate the 15 scripts of Task 1 first, and424

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

however, lower than the established estimate ofreliability (.80). There is a possibility that it can be
influenced by errors of measurement resulting fromvariation in rater severity and test tasks, as well as
by the nature of the rating scale used and by therange of ability of the subjects who are being
assessed. Therefore, it was necessary to use
statistical models which take into account all of thefactors that might affect a student’s final score.

-------------------------------------------------------------|Measure|+Raters|+Subjects|+Tasks| S.1 | S.2 | S.3 |-------------------------------------------------------------+ 3++ 11 12 ++ (6) + (6) + (6) +
|
|
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+ 2+
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| --- | --- ||||| Communicability ||||* 0*3 4 ** Impression
*
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+ 2 +
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| --- | --- |+ -5 ++8++ (1) + (1) + (1) +-------------------------------------------------------------|Measure|+Raters|+Subjects|+Tasks| S.1 | S.2 | S.3 |--------------------------------------------------------------

Table 5: Pearson correlation coefficients
Task 1
Task 2
Task 2.701**
Impression .913**.846**
Note: **all correlations significant at 0.01 level.

The analyses for the present study were doneusing FACETS, version 3.63 (Linacre, 2008). To
examine the measurement characteristics of the
pre-testing, the data was specified as having three
facets, namely, the ability of subjects, the difficultyof tasks and the severity of raters. The partial-credit
model was chosen because the scoring criteria forthe rating scales were qualitatively different.
3. Results
3.1 FACETS summary
Figure 1 shows a graphical summary of all facets
and their elements. They are positioned on acommon logit scale which appears in the firstcolumn labeled “measure.” The second column
shows the severity variation among raters. The most
severe rater (ID: 2) is at the top, and the least severe
rater (ID: 5) is at the bottom. The third column
shows the ability variation among the 15 subjects.
The subjects are ranked with high ability at the top(IDs 11 and 12) and low ability at the bottom (ID:8). The fourth column shows the difficulty variation
among tasks. The most severely scored task
(Communicability) is at the top and the least
severely scored task (Accuracy) is at the bottom.
The last three columns graphically describe thethree rating scales. Each of the two tasks and total
impression has its own scale. The most likely scalescore for each ability level is shown.

Figure 1

FACETS summary2) Are teacher-raters equally severe?
Table 6 provides information on the characteristicsof raters. From the left, each column shows rater
IDs, fair average scores, rater severity, error and fit
mean square value. The second column indicatesthat the severity span between the most severe raterand the most lenient rater was 1.79 and thedifference, based on fair average scores in the firstcolumn, is 1.13 of one grade in the scale. The
reliability of separation index (which indicates thelikelihood to which raters consistently differ fromone another in overall severity) was high (.89). The
chi-square of 37.4 with 4 df was significant at p<.00
and, therefore, the null hypothesis that all raters
were equally severe must be rejected. There was asignificant difference in severity among raters. On
the other hand, the Infit Mean Square column
indicates that no raters were identified as misfitting:all raters fall within the range of two standard
deviations around the mean (M-2SD<Infit<M+2SD).

3.2 FACETS analysis
1) Is student ability effectively measured?
As shown in Figure 1, subject ability estimates
range from a high of 3 logits to a low of －5 logits,
indicating a spread of 8 logits in terms of students’ability. Subject separation value was 4.61, meaningthat populations like these students in this study canbe spread into about five levels. The reliability
index was .95, which demonstrates it is possible toachieve reliable ability scores.

425

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 8: Rating scale statistics for Accuracy

In other words, all raters are considered to behave
consistently in scoring.

Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5
6

Table 6: FACETS analysis of rater characteristics
Rater

Fair-Maverage
3.43
3.90
3.23
3.18
2.77
3.30
.41

Severity(logits)
.35
1.03
.05
-.03
-.76
.13
.65

Error

Infit (meansquare
.94
.73
.83
.77
1.44
.94
.29

1
.21
2
.21
3
.21
4
.21
5
.22
.21
Mean
.00
SD
Note: Reliability of separation index=.89; fixed (allCategory
Score
1
2
3
4
5
6

3) How much do tasks that are designed to beequivalent actually differ in difficulty?
The analysis of the two test tasks and holistic
scoring in Table 7 shows that no significant
variation in difficulty exists among them. Raters are
considered to be self-consistent in scoring and thetasks do not appear to separate the subjects to asignificant degree, meaning that the difficulty of thetwo tasks and the total impression of the tasks canbe considered equivalent.

Step
Difficulty
-4.48
-1.36
.83
2.26
2.74

Average
Measure
-3.11
-2.08
-.03
1.12
2.13
2.05*

Infit (meansquare
.1.9
.8
1.3
.8
.9
1.5

Step
Difficulty
-4.74
-.66
.52
1.22
3.66

Table 9 shows the rating scale statistics forcommunicability. The average measure for category
6 is also slightly less than for category 5. All outfit
mean-squares are less than 2.0, which meet (2).
Step difficulties between 3 and 4 rose by 1.18,
which is less than 1.4. The spread between 4 and 5
is .70, which does not meet (3).

Table 7: Descriptive statistics on the different
scoring
Error

Infit (meansquare
.4
.9
1.0
1.2
.6
1.4

Table 9: Rating scale statistics for Communicabilitysame) chi-square: 37.4, df:4; significance: p=.00

Difficulty(logits)
-.18
.14
.04
.00
.16

Average
Measure
-5.02
-1.76
-.07
.92
2.31
2.29*

Table 10: Rating scale statistics for Impression
Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5
6

Infit (meansquare
1.01
1.10
.68
.93
.22

Task 1.16
Task 2.16
Impression
.17
.16
Mean
.00
SD
Note: Reliability of separation index=.00; fixed (allsame) chi-square: 2.0, df:2; significance: p=.36

Average
Measure
-3.11
-2.08
-.03
1.12
2.13
2.05*

Infit (meansquare
.1.9
.8
1.3
.8
.9
1.5

Step
Difficulty
-4.74
-.66
.52
1.22
3.66

Table 10 shows the rating scale statistics for
Impression.
Averagemeasuresadvancedmonotonically with each category. All outfit
mean-squares are less than 2.0. All step difficultyincreases fall within 1.4 and 5.0, which does meet(3). In sum, the rating scale for impression
conformed to the best of expectations about its use.

4) How well do scales conform to expectations
about their use? Do raters use all parts of them,and use them consistently?
Linacre (1997) has proposed guidelines for a rating
scale: (1) average category measures should
advance monotonically with each category, (2)outfit mean-squares should be less than 2.0, and (3)the step difficulty of each scale should advance byat least 1.4 logits and by no more than 5.0 logits.
Table 8 shows the rating scale statistics for
accuracy. Since higher category scores are intended
to reflect higher measures, the average category
measures are expected to rise. The average measure
for category 6 is, however, slightly less than for
category 5. All outfit mean-squares are less than 2.0
meaning that each of the six categories has expected
randomness in choosing categories. Step difficulties
between 5 and 6 rose by .48, which does not meet
(3).

4. Discussion
4.1 Implications for scoring procedure
The five raters in this study were all experienced
Japanese high school teachers of English and sharedsimilar backgrounds in terms of qualifications often or more years of teaching experience. The
results of the pre-testing, however, indicate an
influence by errors of measurement resulting fromvariation in rater severity. Related to the previous
studies on rater variation, the importance and effectof rater training have begun to be recognized(Shohamy, Gordon and Kraemer, 1992; Weigle,
1994). The implication is that the function of426

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

task-based writing performance assessment forJapanese learners of English. We found that there isconsiderable validity in the integration of
construct-based task development and task
implementation based on the operation of theprocessing factors and the influences of theprocessing conditions. As a result, the TBWT wasdeveloped on the basis of this construct-based
processing approach to testing and was pilot-tested.
The pre-testing provided us with the following
findings: 1) the students’ ability was effectively
measured using the developed assessment tasks andfive teacher raters; 2) all raters displayed acceptablelevels of consistency with themselves, but there
were significant differences among raters in termsof severity as was indicated in the previous studies;3) although the correlation between the two test
tasks was lower than the established estimate ofreliability, the FACETS analysis showed that thedifficulty of the two tasks and the impressionistic
scoring were considered equivalent; 4) theequivalence of task difficulty may indicate that thetest tasks measure the unified writing ability to be
assumed as a construct; and 5) the FACETS
analysis also showed that both rating scales need to
be optimized. In further research it would be betterto establish the 5-point scales based on the results,
and to see if the modified scales can be a morereliable tool in determining the estimate of subjects’
writing ability.

training is not to force raters into agreement witheach other, but rather to train raters to be
self-consistent. This internal consistency will makethe subjects’ measurement of ability more accurate,and differences in rater severity will becompensated for mathematically (Lunz, Wright and
Linacre, 1990; Weigle, 1998). Therefore, as inthis pre-testing, if the raters displayed acceptablelevels of consistency, a thorough understanding of adefinition of the ability being measured by the test
may be a central aspect of the training process. Thisview of the function of training addresses theconcern that the TBWT Guide needs to be revisedin order to give raters a shared understanding ofeach construct. The scoring guide which gives
clearer understanding of the constructs and rating
scales may effectively reduce the differences orbiases caused by variation among raters.
4.2 Implications for the development of rating
scalesMany large-scale tests of writing such as the
TOEFL and FCE use a six point scale. Bachman
and Palmer (1996) recommend using more scorepoints than there are decisions to be made in termsof reliability. Pollitt (1990) also points out that the
number of points on a writing rating scale can beverified as reliable among five scale points or more.
Subsequently, the rating scales for this pre-testing
are determined to have six levels.
The correlational analysis showed that the fiveteacher raters appeared to be of acceptablereliability with each rating scale. The results of the
FACETS analysis, however, suggested that rating
scales for task 1 and 2 should be optimized. It
would be necessary to examine the step difficulties
of modified scales utilizing FACETS in order toconstruct sufficient discernable distance between
steps in the scale (Linacre, 2002). As for the scale
for task 1, it would be reasonable to combine
category 5 and 6 so that a modified 5-point scale
would be established. For the developmental scale
for task 2, there are probably some options to
combine adjacent categories such as 3 and 4, 4 and
5, or 5 and 6. In this way, the modified scales for
the TBWT may be determined to have five levels.
Since Japanese teachers are familiar with giving
students a score from 1 to 5, most teachers would
accept that a five point scale is more suitable to thegrading system at Japanese schools. Further
research is recommended to see if these modified
5-point scales can be a more reliable tool indetermining the estimate of subjects’ writing
ability.

References
Alderson, J.C., Clapham, C. and Wall, D.
(1995). Language test construction andevaluation.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press.
Bachman, L.F. and Palmer, A.S. (1996). Language
testing in practice: designing and developing
useful language tests. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Bachman, L.F. (2002). Some reflections on
task-based language performance assessment.
Language Testing 19, 453-76.
Brown, J.D. (1996). Testing in language
programs. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall Regents.
Connor, U. and Carrell, P. (1993). Theinterpretation of tasks by writers andreaders in holistically rated direct
assessment of writing. In J.G. Carson & I.
Leki (Eds.), Reading in the composition
classroom (pp. 141-160). Boston, MA:
Heinle and Heinle.
Cumming, A. (1989). Writing expertise and second
language proficiency. Language Learning
39, 81-141.
Cumming, A. (1990). Expertise in evaluating

5. Conclusion
This research was conducted in order to develop a427

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

second language composition. Language
Testing 7, 31-51.
Davies, A. (1990). A Principles of language
testing. Basil Blackwell.
Hyland, K. (2003). Second language writing.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Linacre, J. (2002). Guidelines for rating scales.
Mesa Research Note 2 (Online). Available
at http://www.rasch.org/rn2.htm (accessed
18 March 2008).
Linacre, J. (2008). Facets, version no. 3.63.
Computer program. Chicago, IL: MESA
Press.
Lunz, M., Wright, B. and Linacre, J. (1990).
Measuring the impact of judge severity on
examination scores. Applied Measurement in
Education 3, 331-45.
Pollitt, A. (1990). Response to Charles Alderson’s
paper: ‘Bands and scores.’ Alderson, J. C.
(1991). In J. C. Alderson and B. North (Eds.),
Language Testing in the 1990s. (pp.
87-91). London: Macmillan.
Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach tolanguage learning. Oxford University Press.
Shohamy, E., Gordon, C. and Kraemer, R. (1992).
The effect of raters’ background and training
on the reliability of direct writing tests.
Modern Language Journal 76, 27-33.
Sugita, Y. (2008). Task-based performanceassessment of Japanese second language
writing, Paper presented at 42nd International
Annual IATEFL Conference, Exeter, the UK,
April.
Weigle, S. (1994). Effects of training on raters of
ESL compositions. Language Testing 11,
197-223.
Weigle, S. (1998). Using FACETS to model rater
training effects. Language Testing 15,
263-87.
Weigle, S. (2002). Assessing writing. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

paragraphing (ESL: Linguistic accuracy )B+(5)An essay at this level is between A and B[Communicability]
A(6) An essay at this level・displays consistent facility in use of language(TWE: Communicative quality )・contains well-chosen vocabulary to express theideas and to carry out the intentions(M:Communicative quality )・effectively addresses the writing task (TWE:
Communicative effect )・has a very positive effect on the target reader
with adequately organized relevant ideas (FCE:Communicative effect )B+(5)An essay at this level is between A and B----------------------------------------------------------------TWE: TOEFL writing scoring guide (ETS, 2000)
FCE: FCE scoring rubrics (UCLES, 1997)
M: Michigan writing assessment scoring guide(Hamp-Lyons, 1990)
ESL: ESL composition profile (Jacobs et al.’s, 1981)

Appendix A: Rating scales for pre-testing[Accuracy]
A(6) An essay at this level・is well organized and well developed (TWE:
Organizational skills)
・shows strong rhetorical control and is wellmanaged (M: Organizational skills)
・demonstrates clear organization with a variety oflinking devices (FCE: Organizational skills )・demonstrates appropriate word choice though it
may have occasional errors (TWE: Linguistic
accuracy)・has few errors of agreement, tense, number, word
order/function, articles pronouns, prepositions
spelling, punctuation, capitalization,428

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The Development and Implementation of Task-based Writing
Performance Assessment for Japanese Learners of English: (2) How
to improve rating scales
Yoshihito Sugita1 and Michiko Nakano2

1

Faculty of Nursing, Yamanashi Prefectural University, 2 School of Education, Waseda University
sugita@yamanashi-ken.ac.jp, nakanom@waseda.jp

student is going to stay with a host family in
Britain, and is suggested to write a letter, so thatstudents can focus on writing accuracy. On thecontrary,
communicability
tasks
need
form-oriented support and meaning-focused
stakes in order to write with a focus on meaning.
A discussion task was designed because it
encourages students to write their opinions orideas about the topic, and it lays emphasis on
meaning-focused response.
Five raters, who were all experienced Japanesehigh school teachers of English, scored each of thethirty scripts collected from 15 undergraduate
students of a Japanese University. They were
instructed to rate the 15 scripts of Task 1 first andthen to rate the 15 scripts of Task 2. Finally, they
were asked to rate each of the participants’ writing
proficiency based on the total impression at six
levels, 1-6. The correlative analysis of the testing
showed that the five teacher raters appeared to be ofacceptable reliability with each rating scale. The
results of the FACETS analysis, however,suggested that rating scales for task 1 and 2 shouldbe optimized. This article discusses how rating
scales can be developed and improved based on
the results of the pre-testing.

Abstract
This research describes a part of thedevelopment process of a task-based writing
performance assessment for Japanese learners ofEnglish. In the pilot experiment, two assessment
tasks to elicit the underlying constructs and rating
scales were developed. The pre-testing was
conducted on the 15 university students and fiveexperienced teacher raters, who provided scores fortwo sets of 15 texts. The correlational analysis
showed that the teacher raters could produce
relatively high scores with each rating scale. The
results of FACETS analysis, however, suggested
that rating scales for the tasks should be optimized.
In this research, we explored how rating scales canbe developed and improved based on the resultsof the pre-testing. First, we optimized the rating
scales on the basis of the criteria that Linacre(2002) proposed. Then, the scoring guide wasrevised in each section. As a result, the new rating
scales are comprised of clearer descriptions of eachconstruct and of 5-point Likert scales. The
descriptors of each category are also provided withwritten samples as an explanatory part of the scalein order to give raters a shared understanding of theconstructs and to make them more self-consistent inscoring.

1. The study
Keywords

1.1 FACETS analysis of the rating scales forpre-testing
Linacre (2002) has proposed the guidelines for arating scale: (1) average category measures should
rise monotonically with category, (2) outfit
mean-squares should be less than 2.0, and (3) stepdifficulty advances should be larger than 1.4 logits
and smaller than 5.0 logits. Table 1 shows the rating
scale statistics for accuracy. Since higher categories
are intended to reflect higher measures, the averagecategory measures are expected to increase.
Average measure for category 6 is, however,slightly less than for category 5. All outfit
mean-squares are less than 2.0 meaning that each ofwriting performance, task-based assessment, rating
scalesIntroduction
The main purpose of this research is to modify
and improve the rating scales that were pilot-tested
in The Development and Implementation of
Task-based Writing Performance Assessment:(1) A Pilot Experiment, so that it can conform to
expectations about their use. In the pre-testing, anelicitation task (writing a letter) was chosen, andspecific topics of self-introduction were given in
the task. A situation is supposed in which the429Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

first section is the background of the TBWT. The
second section is the explanation of assessment
tasks. The third section is the implementation
method of the testing. The fourth section is theevaluation criteria and written samples of eachscore. In terms of modifying rating scales, thefourth section needs to be carefully revised. There
are four possible steps for revising the section. The
first step is to describe the constructs (i.e. accuracy
and communicability) more clearly by indicatingeach sub-skill: organizational ability and linguistic
accuracy for accuracy and communicative quality
and effect for communicability. The second step isto choose the most appropriate written sample foreach category on the basis of the specified
constructs and the modified score points at fivelevels. The third step is to construct a new 5-point
Likert scale and to provide the descriptors of eachcategory with the selected five written samples as
an explanatory part of the rating scales.

the six categories has expected randomness inchoosing categories. Step difficulties between 5 and6 rise by .48, which does not meet (3).
Table 1: Rating scale statistics for Accuracy
Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5
6

Average
Measure
-5.02
-1.76
-.07
.92
2.31
2.29*

Infit (meansquare
.4
.9
1.0
1.2
.6
1.4

Step
Difficulty
-4.48
-1.36
.83
2.26
2.74

Table 2 shows the rating scale statistics forcommunicability. Average measure for category 6
is also slightly less than for category 5. All outfit
mean-squares are less than 2.0, which meet (2).
Step difficulties between 3 and 4 rise by 1.18,
which is smaller than 1.4. The spread between 4
and 5 was .70, which does not meet (3).

1.3 Developing rating scales
1.3.1 Combining categories 5 and 6 (accuracy), and
3 and 4 (communicability)
Table 3 shows the rating scale statistics for
accuracy. “Average measure” values advance withcategory, so that higher measures correspond tohigher category scores. All outfit mean-squares areless than 2.0 meaning each of the five categories
has expected randomness in choosing categories.
Most step difficulty increases fall within 1.4 and
5.0, but step difficulties between 4 and 5 rose by
1.03, which does not meet (3) of Linacre’s
guidelines for rating scales.
The scale structure probability curves areshown in Figure 1. Starting from the left, category 1
is most likely to be observed for low-measurescripts. Then as script measures increase, theprobability of observing category 2 increases. With
increasing measure, category 3 becomes mostprobable, then 4, and finally 5. According to
Linacre (1999), if the modeled category probability
curves depict a succession of “hills”, the stepdifficulties successively increase with category
scores, meaning that each category in turn is most
likely to be chosen. Tyndall and Kenyon (1995)
mentioned that the obvious peaks and divisions
between the categories indicate that the scales
conform to the expectations regarding their use. In
Figure 1, one peak (category 4) is not like theexpected succession of hills and the division
between 4 and 5 is not obvious. This is because thestep difficulties are smaller than 1.4 logits, which
implies that the rating scale can not be completely
decomposed into five categories.

Table 2: Rating scale statistics for Communicability
Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5
6

Average
Measure
-3.11
-2.08
-.03
1.12
2.13
2.05*

Infit (meansquare
.1.9
.8
1.3
.8
.9
1.5

Step
Difficulty
-4.74
-.66
.52
1.22
3.66

The results of the pre-testing indicated that it
was relatively difficult for raters to share
understanding of B＋category with 5 points whoselevel is between A and B. Therefore, it may be best
to combine adjacent categories such as 5 and 6 forthe scale of task 1, and 4 and 5 for the scale of task
2 because the spread between these categories isnarrow. As for the scale of task 2, there is anotheroption to combine 3 and 4, and thus we examine theboth options utilizing FACETS.
1.2 Developmental procedures
The first stage is to combine the two scores fromcategory 5 and 6 of the scale for task 1 (accuracy).
The second stage is to combine the two scores fromcategory 3 and 4, or 4 and 5 of the scale for task 2(communicability). The third stage is to conduct a
FACETS analysis on each data set. The final stage
is to check the results based on Linacre’s rating
scale guidelines. In this way, the modified 5-point
scales are verified utilizing FACETS. The stepdifficulties of modified scales are examined in order
to construct a sufficient discernable distance
between steps in the scale.
After optimizing the rating scales, the TBWT
scoring guide should be revised in each section. The

Table 3: Rating scale statistics for Accuracy
430

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5

Average
Measure
-3.96
-1.09
0.66
1.71
2.97

Infit (meansquare
.4
.8
1.0
1.2
0.9

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Figure 2

1.3.2. Combining categories 5 and 6 (accuracy), 4
and 5 (communicability)
Table 5: Rating scale statistics for Accuracy
Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5

Probability Curves for Accuracy

Table 4: Rating scale statistics for Communicability
Average
Measure
-3.00
-2.03
0.73
2.06
2.23

Infit (meansquare
1.5
.7
.9
.8
1.6

Average
Measure
-4.10
-1.16
0.63
1.80
3.11

Infit (meansquare
.4
.9
.9
1.2
.8

Step
Difficulty
-3.66
-0.74
1.65
2.75

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-4.0
-2.0
0.0
2.0
4.0
6.0
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Table 4 shows the rating scale statistics forcommunicability. Average measures advanced
monotonically with each category. All outfit
mean-squares are less than 2.0, which meet (2). All
step difficulty increases fall within 1.4 and 5.0,
which does meet (3). As a result, Figure 2 showsthat the modeled category probability curves depict
the expected succession of hills. In sum, whencombining categories 5 and 6 of the accuracy scale,and 3 and 4 of communicability scale, the modified
scale for accuracy did not conform completely tothe expectations regarding their use, but themodified scale for communicability worked asintended.

Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5

Probability Curves for Communicability

Step
Difficulty
-4.42
- .99
1.80
3.61

Figure 3

Probability Curves for Accuracy

Table 5 shows the rating scale statistics for
accuracy.
Averagemeasuresadvancemonotonically with each category, which does meet(1). All outfit mean-squares are less than 2.0,

-6.0
-4.0
-2.0
0.0
2.0
4.0
6.0
++----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------++
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555|

431

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

As shown in the Tables 3-6 and in Figures 1-4,
when combining categories 5 and 6 of the accuracy
scale, and 3 and 4 of communicability scale, stepdifficulties between 4 and 5 on the modified scale
for accuracy do not completely meet the criteria.
However, the modified scale for communicability
does meet the criteria. On the other hand, whencombining categories 5 and 6 of the accuracy scale,and 4 and 5 of the communicability scale, the rating
scales did not work properly. Therefore, theprevious scales are further utilized in this study.

meaning that each of the five categories has
expected randomness in choosing categories. Most
step difficulty increases fall within 1.4 and 5.0, but
step difficulties between 4 and 5 rose by 1.10,
which does not meet (3). Figure 3 presents the scale
structure probability curves. Since the stepdifficulties are smaller than the criteria, one peak(category 4) is not like the range of hill and thedivision between 4 and 5 is not obvious as shown in
Figure 1.
Table 6: Rating scale statistics for Communicability
Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5

Average
Measure
-2.90
-1.88
0.52
2.04
2.51

Infit (meansquare
1.5
.6
1.1
.7
1.2

1.4. Improving rating scales
1.4.1. Rating scale reconstruction
In terms of improving rating scales, the fourth
section of the TBWT scoring guide needs to becarefully revised. As I mentioned in thedevelopmental procedures, the first step is todescribe the constructs (i.e. accuracy andcommunicability) more clearly by indicating eachsubcomponent.
As we have seen, accuracy is defined by fivedescriptors, which were used as a part of the rating
scale for task 1 in the pre-testing. In the constructdefinition, I pointed out that accuracy is comprisedof organizational skills and linguistic accuracy.
Organizational skills develop from ‘textualcompetence’ whose subcomponents are ‘cohesion’and ‘rhetorical organization.’ The skills can be
defined as the ability to organize logical structure
which enables the content to be accurately acquired.
Linguistic accuracy stems from ‘grammaticalcompetence’
whose
subcomponents
are‘vocabulary,’ ‘syntax’ and ‘morphology.’ Theability concerns errors of vocabulary, spelling,
punctuation or grammar.
Communicability is also defined by four
descriptors, which were used as a part of the rating
scale for task 2 in the pre-testing. I have alreadypointed out that communicability consists ofcommunicative quality and effect. Communicative
quality develops from ‘sociolinguistic competence’
whose subcomponents are ‘sensitivity to register’and ‘sensitivity to naturalness.’ It refers to theability to communicate without causing the reader
any difficulty. Communicative effect stems from‘functional competence’ whose subcomponents are‘ideational function,’ ‘manipulative functions,’‘heuristic functions’ and ‘imaginative functions.’ It
concerns the quantity of ideas necessary to develop
the response as well as the relevance of the content
to the proposed task.
In order to construct a new scale, a 5-point
Likert scale was adopted:
A (5) I strongly agree to assign the above criteria
B+(4) I partially agree to assign the above criteria
B (3) I agree to assign the above criteria

Step
Difficulty
-4.30
- .39
0.34
4.36

-6.0
-4.0
-2.0
0.0
2.0
4.0
6.0
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-6.0
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0.0
2.0
4.0
6.0

Figure 4

Probability Curves for Communicability

Table 6 shows the rating scale statistics forcommunicability. Average measures advanced
monotonically with each category. All outfit
mean-squares are less than 2.0, which meet (2).
Most step difficulty increases fall within 1.4 and
5.0, but step difficulties between 3 and 4 rose by
0.73, which does not meet (3). Figure 4 indicatesthat neither the hill top of category 3 nor thedivision between 2 and 3, and 3 and 4 is obvious,
meaning that the rating scale did not work properly.
In sum, the modified rating scales for accuracy did
not conform completely to the expectations about
their use, and the modified scale forcommunicability hardly presents proof against its
use.

432

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics
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|
| 2 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
+ -3 +
+
+
+
+
+
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| --- |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
+ -4 +
+
+
+
+
+
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| --- |
|
|
| 8
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
+ -5 ++++ (1) + (1) +------------------------------------------------------|Measure|+Raters|+Subjects|+Tasks| S.1 | S.2 |-------------------------------------------------------

B-(2) I disagree with assigning the above criteria
C (1) I strongly disagree with assigning the above
criteria
In the pre-testing, the rating scale was drafted
mainly with three categories: Grade A with 6
points, Grade B with 4 points and Grade C with 2
points. Then, Grade B＋with 5 points whose levelis between A and B, Grade B－with 4 points whoselevel is between B and C, and Grade D with 1 point
whose level is below C are added respectively since
it is thought that it would help teachers distinguisheach level easily. However, the results of the
pre-testing indicated that it was relatively difficult
for raters to share understanding of B＋category
with 5 points whose level is between A and B.
According to Alderson et al. (1995), raters should
understand the principles behind the particularrating scales they must work with, and be able tointerpret their descriptors consistently. Therefore,
the new rating scales are comprised of clearer
descriptions of each construct as shown in Tables 5
and 6, and of 5-point Likert scales in Figure 5. The
descriptors of each category are also provided withthe selected five written samples as an explanatory
part of the scale in order that busy school teacherswith limited training on writing performanceassessment can understand the descriptors and workwith them consistently.
1.4.2. Analyzing written samples
The next step is to choose the most appropriate
written sample for each category on the basis of themodified score points at five levels. By referring to‘The analytical process’ shown in Figure 5 adaptedfrom Hyland (2003, p.265), it is possible to provide
a basis for action.

Figure 6 FACETS summary
According to the modified accuracy scorepoints in Figure 6, there were 2 samples (IDs: 11,12) for category 5, 4 samples (IDs: 2, 3, 5, 7) for
category 4, 4 samples (IDs: 6, 13, 14, 15) for
category 3, 4 samples (IDs: 1, 4, 9, 10) for category
2 and 1 sample (ID: 8) for category 1 as raw
information, respectively.
In order to examine and select the mostsuitable sample for each category, the following
four questions were asked:
1) Is the written text clearly organized as a letter?
2) Is the written text well developed?
3) Is the word choice in the written text
appropriate?
4) How many errors does the written text have?
These questions are closely concerned with thesubcomponents of accuracy: organizational ability
and linguistic accuracy.
The modified communicability score indicatesthat there were 2 samples (IDs: 11, 12) for category
5, 2 samples (IDs: 2, 7) for category 4, 6 forcategory 3 samples (IDs: 3, 5, 6, 13, 14, 15), 4

Collecting data: raw information gathered↓
Examining data: material examined to determine
the events and experiences they represent↓
Selecting data: important factors distinguished,similarities grouped, complexities simplified↓
Presenting data: selected data represented in aneasily understood form (outline, table, etc.)↓
Interpreting data: relationships explained and atheory developed to fit the situation

Figure 5 The analytical process (taken from
Hyland, 2003)------------------------------------------------------|Measure|+Raters|+Subjects|+Tasks| S.1 | S.2 |------------------------------------------------------+
3 +
+ 11
+
+ (5) + (5) +433

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

samples (IDs: 1, 4, 9, 10) for category 2 and 1
sample (ID: 8) for category 1 as raw information,
respectively. In order to examine and select themost suitable sample for each category, thefollowing four questions were asked:
5) Does the written text display consistent facility
in use of the language?
6) Is the vocabulary well-chosen to express theideas?
7) Does the written text effectively address thetask?
8) How many relevant ideas does the written text
have?
These questions are also concerned with thesubcomponents of communicability: communicative
quality and effect. Finally, in order to present thefive written samples which were chosen from themodified score points at each level, the description
for each sample was provided as an explanatory
part of the rating scales.

reconsidered, and the rating instrument which
includes clearer descriptions of each construct and a
5-point Likert scale was developed anew. Then, themost appropriate written samples for each category
were chosen on the basis of the modified scorepoints at five levels. Referring to Hyland’s
analytical process, eight questions related to thesubcomponents of the constructs were asked to
examine and select the most suitable written
samples for each category. These samples alongwith their descriptions were used as an explanatory
segment of the new modified rating scales.
In further research, the second task-based
writing performance tests will be conducted to see
if these modified 5-point scales can be a morereliable and valid tool in determining the best
estimate of subjects’ writing ability. The effects of
the revised TBWT scoring guide on raters’ sharedunderstanding of the constructs will also be
examined.

2. Conclusion
The results of the FACETS analysis for the
pre-testing suggest that rating scales for task 1 and2 should be optimized. As for the scale for task 1,
by combining categories 5 and 6, a modified
5-point scale was established. For thedevelopmental scale for task 2, there were some
options to combine adjacent categories. In order toconstruct a sufficient discernable distance between
steps in the scale, categories 3 and 4 wereselectively combined to construct its modified
scale. Although the modified scale for accuracy did
not completely meet the criteria, the scale forcommunicability met all the criteria. Therefore,
those scales were determined to be utilized insubsequent studies.
In order to improve the rating scales, the
TBWT scoring guide also needs to be revised. The
five raters in pre-testing were all experienced
Japanese high school teachers of English and sharedsimilar backgrounds in terms of qualifications often or more years of teaching experience. The
results of the pre-testing, however, indicated an
influence by errors of measurement resulting fromvariations in rater severity.
Although theelimination of rater differences in severity is an
unachievable goal as shown in the previous studies(Lumley & McNamara, 1995; Weigle, 1994), it isdesperately important for raters to be self-consistentin scoring. This internal consistency will make thesubjects’ measurement of ability more reliable andvalid. Therefore, the TBWT scoring guide needs tobe revised in order to give raters a sharedunderstanding of the construct of writing ability andto make them more self-consistent in scoring. First,
the relationship among subcomponents was

References
Alderson, J.C., Clapham, C. and Wall, D.
(1995). Language test construction andevaluation.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press.
Hyland, K. (2003). Second language writing.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Linacre, J. (1999). Category disordering vs. step
disordering,
Rasch
Measurement
Transactions, 13, (Online). Available at
http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt131a.htm(accessed 18 March 2008).
Linacre, J. (2002). Guidelines for rating scales.
Mesa Research Note 2 (Online). Available
at http://www.rasch.org/rn2.htm (accessed
18 March 2008).
Linacre, J. (2007). A User’s guide to FACETS:
Rasch-model computer program. . Chicago,
IL: MESA Press.
Linacre, J. (2008). Facets, version no. 3.63.
Computer program. Chicago, IL: MESA
Press.
Lumley, T. & McNamara, T. F. (1995). Ratercharacteristics and rater bias: implications fortraining. Language Testing 12, 54-71.
Weigle, S. (1994). Effects of training on raters of
ESL compositions. Language Testing 11,
197-223.

434

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The Development and Implementation of Task-based Writing
Performance Assessment for Japanese Learners of English: (4) Main
Experiment 2
Yoshihito Sugita

Faculty of Nursing, Yamanashi Prefectural University
sugita@yamanashi-ken.ac.jp

processing approach could be reliable and valid toestimate students’ writing ability. The modified
scales associated with the five rating categories andtheir specific written samples were shown to bemostly comprehensible and usable by raters, anddemonstrated acceptable fit. However, there is stillroom for argument about the reliability and validityof assessment tasks and rating scales. In addition,
the question of whether new teacher raters are
self-consistent in scoring the same writing samples
with the rating scales must be observed andconfirmed in further research. This research
examines the main data of the third task-based
writing performance test in which the five juniorhigh school teachers participated as a novice rater.

Abstract
The research examines the main data of the thirdtask-based writing performance test in which thefive junior high school teachers participated as a
novice rater. In order to examine the degree of
reliability and validity of the task-based writing
performance test, the following are focused on,
based on the second testing: raters’ severity,interactions with writers’ abilities and tasks
difficulties, the reliability of elicitation tasks andrating scales and the measure’s validity. The resultsof the five novice raters in this study indicated that
all raters displayed acceptable levels of consistency
with themselves, and that the students’ ability waseffectively measured using these tasks and rating
scales. The FACETS analysis showed that thedifficulty of the two tasks and the impressionistic
scoring were considered equivalent, which provided
reasonable fit to the Rasch model. There were,
however, relatively small but significant differences
between raters in terms of severity. The bias
analyses of this study indicated all of the five raters
were significantly biased towards certain types ofsubjects, while three of the five raters were biased
in the second testing. These findings suggest that
the TBWT Guide for scoring may have contributed
to the reduction of biased interactions, but training
for certain raters with his/her unique bias patterns
might still be required.

1. The Study
1.1 Purposes and research questions
In order to examine the degree of reliability andvalidity of the task-based writing performance test,
the following are focused on: raters’ severity,interactions with writers’ abilities and taskdifficulties, the reliability of elicitation tasks andrating scales, and the measure’s validity.
The specific research questions are as follows:
1) Is student ability effectively measured?
2) Are teacher-raters equally severe?
3) How much do tasks that are designed to beequivalent actually differ in difficulty?
4) How well do scales conform to expectations
about their use? Do raters use all parts of them, anduse them consistently?
5) Do individual raters score a particular group of
subjects more harshly or more leniently? If so, what
are the sub-patterns of ratings in terms ofrater-subject interaction for each rater?
6) Do the raters score particular tasks more harshly
or more leniently than others? If so, what are thesub-patterns of ratings in terms of rater-task
interaction for each rater?
7) To what extent, statistically, is the task-based
writing test a reliable and valid measure?

Keywords
writing performance,scoring guidetask-based

assessment,

Introduction
The FACETS analysis for the second task-based
writing performance test (Main Experiment 1)
showed that the difficulty of the two tasks and theimpressionistic scoring were considered equivalent,
which provided reasonable fit to the Rasch model.
The equivalence of task difficulty may indicate thattask development based on the construct-based435

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

tasks and the impressionistic scoring were
calculated. Using Davies’ cut-off (.90) as an
acceptable level of internal consistency on ahigh-stakes test, each Cronbach’s α would meetthe point: .9434, .9432 and .9480 for Task 1, Task 2
and impressionistic scoring, respectively.

The purpose of this study is to conduct a pilot testof the TBWT.
2.2 Procedures
Each of the forty identical scripts used in Main
Experiment 1 was scored by five raters, who were
all experienced Japanese junior high school teachersof English. They were all native speakers ofJapanese, and they shared similar backgrounds interms of qualifications of ten or more years ofteaching experience. The rating scales and scoring
guidelines are also the same as used in Main
Experiment 1. Both scripts and scoring guidelines
were given to the raters by mail at the beginning ofAugust, 2008. Each of the five raters rated theentire set of forty scripts and sent them back by theend of August, 2008. They were instructed to ratethe 20 scripts of Task 1 first and then to rate the 20
scripts of Task 2. Finally, they were asked to rateeach of the participants’ writing proficiency basedon the total impression at five levels, 1-5. A
questionnaire was also enclosed and sent back withthe materials.

Table 4: Descriptive statistics of different scoring
N
Mean
SD
Min.
Max.

2
3.35
1.10
2.0
5.0

3
3.00
1.14
1.0
5.0

4
3.00
0.70
2.0
4.0

1
3.25
1.08
1.0
5.0

2
3.20
0.92
2.0
5.0

3
2.80
1.24
1.0
5.0

4
3.20
1.16
1.0
5.0

Task 2
Impression

There is a possibility that the test data can be
influenced by errors of measurement resulting fromvariation in rater harshness and test tasks, as well as
by the nature of the rating scale used and by therange of ability of the subjects who are being
assessed. Therefore, it was necessary to use
statistical models which take into account all of thefactors that might affect a student’s final score.
The analyses for the present study were doneusing FACETS version 3.63 (Linacre, 2008). To
examine the measurement characteristics of thistesting, the data was specified as having three
facets, namely, the ability of the subjects, thedifficulty of tasks and the severity of raters. The
partial-credit model was chosen because the scoring
criteria for the rating scales were qualitatively
different.

5
3.35
0.97
2.0
5.0

Table 3: Descriptive statistics of impression
Rater
Mean
SD
Min.
Max.

1
3.25
0.88
2.0
5.0

2
3.35
1.01
2.0
5.0

3
3.05
1.16
1.0
5.0

4
3.15
0.85
2.0
5.0

100
2.98
1.14
1.0
5.0

Criterion
TWE
20
2.40
0.94
1.0
4.0

Task 1
Task 2 Impression.797**.924**.884**
Criterion.710**.678**.734**
Note: **all correlations significant at 0.01 level.

5
3.25
0.88
2.0
5.0

Table 2: Descriptive statistics of scoring Task 2
Rater
Mean
SD
Min.
Max.

Impression

Table 5: Pearson correlation coefficients

Table 1: Descriptive statistics of scoring Task 1
1
3.20
0.92
2.0
5.0

Task
2
100
2.92
1.16
1.0
5.0

The correlation coefficients between the scoresprovide a preliminary estimate of the parallel-form
reliability of each test task. As seen in Table 5, thecorrelation coefficients between each task and theimpressionistic score fall in a range of .797 to .924,
which are all significant at the 0.01 level. The
correlation between the two test tasks (.797) is,
however, slightly lower than the establishedestimate of reliability (.80). Table 5 also shows thatthe two tasks and impressionistic scoring correlate
positively with the scores of Criterion (p<.01). The
highest correlation is between the Criterion scoreand Impression (r=.734), followed by that between
the Criterion score and Task l (r=.710) and finally,
between the Criterion score and Task 2 (r=.678).

2.4 Data analysis
Tables 1, 2 and 3 show the descriptive statistics forthe scores of the two test tasks and theimpressionistic scoring. Since the average of theinter-rater coefficients for each scoring is relatively
high (0.78, 0.77, 0.79), the five raters appear to beof acceptable reliability.

Rater
Mean
SD
Min.
Max.

Task
1
100
3.01
1.12
1.0
5.0

5
3.35
0.90
2.0
5.0

Table 4 reports results for each test task, theimpressionistic scoring and the scores of Criterion,
including its mean and standard deviation. The
mean scores for all variables are very close, ranging
from 3.16 to 3.23. The alpha coefficients for the test436

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

students’ ability. Subject separation value was 6.54,
meaning that populations like the students in thisstudy can be spread into about seven levels. The
reliability index was .98, which demonstrates it ispossible to achieve reliable ability scores.

3. Results
3.1 FACETS summary----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|Measure|+Raters|+Subjects|+Tasks| S.1 | S.2 | S.3 |----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 7++9++ (5) + (5) + (5) +| |||| | | |
| |||| --- | | --- |+ 6++++ + + +
| |||| | | |
| || 18|
| | | |
+ 5+++
+ + --- + +| |||| | | |
| |||| 4 | | 4 |
+ 4+
+6
+
+ + + +
| || 12|
| | 4 | || |||
| | | |
+ 3+++
+ + + +
| || 14|
| | | |
| ||7|
| --- | | --- |+ 2++++ + --- + +| | 5 | 13|
| | | |
| |2 ||| | | |
+ 1 + 1 + 19+
+ + + +
| |4 |2|| | | |
| || 1 10 || 3 | 3 | 3 |* 0 * 3 * 17
* Accuracy
Communicability Impression* * * *
| |||| | | |
| || 15|
| | | |
+ -1 ++++ + + +
| ||8|
| --- | | || ||3|| | --- | --- |+ -2 ++++ + + +
| |||| | | |
| |||| | | |
+ -3 ++++ + + +
| || 20|
| | | |
| |||| | 2 | |+ -4 ++++ + + +
| |||| 2 | | 2 || || 16 5 || | | |
+ -5 ++++ + + +
| |||| | | |
| |||| | --- | |+ -6 ++4++ + + +
| || 11|
| | | |
| |||| | | --- |+ -7 ++++ (1) + (1) + (1) +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|Measure|+Raters|+Subjects|+Tasks| S.1 | S.2 | S.3 |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2) Are teacher-raters equally severe?
The severity span between the most severe rater andthe most lenient rater was 1.79 and the difference,
based on fair average scores, is 0.44 of one grade in
the scale. The reliability of the separation index(which indicates the likelihood to which raters
consistently differ from one another in overall
severity) was high (.82). The chi-square of 27.8
with 4 df was significant at p<.00 and, therefore,
the null hypothesis that all raters were equally
severe must be rejected. There was a significant
difference in severity among raters. On the other
hand, no raters were identified as misfitting: fit
values for all raters were within the range of two
standard deviations around the mean (0.93±[0.20× 2]). In other words, all raters behaved
consistently in the scoring.
3) How much do tasks that are designed to beequivalent actually differ in difficulty?
The analysis of the two test tasks andimpressionistic scoring shows that no significant
variation in difficulty exists among them. Raters are
considered to be self-consistent in scoring, and thetasks do not appear to separate the subjects to asignificant degree meaning that the difficulty of thetwo tasks and the total impression of the tasks canbe considered equivalent. An estimate of the item
discrimination was computed according to the“Generalized Partial Credit Model” approach. 1.0 is
the expected value, but discriminations in the range
0.5 to 1.5 provide a reasonable fit with the Raschmodel (Linacre, 2007, p.132).

Figure 1 FACETS summary

Figure 1 shows a summary of all facets andtheir elements. They are positioned on a common
logit scale, which appears as “measure” in the firstcolumn. The second column shows the severity
variation among raters. The most severe rater (ID:5) is at the top, and the least severe rater (ID: 3) isat the bottom. The third column shows the ability
variation among the 20 subjects. The subjects areranked with high ability at the top (ID: 9) and low
ability at the bottom (ID: 11) as in Study 1. The
fourth column shows equivalence of the difficulty
variation among tasks. The last three columns
graphically describe the three rating scales. Each of
the two tasks and total impression has their own
scale. The most likely scale score for each ability
level is shown.

4) How well do scales conform to expectations
about their use? Do raters use all parts of them,and use them consistently?
Linacre (1997) has proposed guidelines for a rating
scale: (1) average category measures should
advance monotonically with each category, (2)outfit mean-squares should be less than 2.0, and (3)the step difficulty of each scale should advance byat least 1.4 logits and by no more than 5.0 logits.
Table 6 shows the rating scale statistics for
accuracy. Since higher category scores are intended
to reflect higher measures, the average category
measures are expected to rise. All outfit
mean-squares are less than 2.0, meaning that eachof the five categories has expected randomness inchoosing categories. All increases in step difficulty
fall within 1.4 and 5.0, which does meet (3).

3.2 FACETS analysis
1) Is student ability effectively measured?
As shown in Figure 1, subject ability estimates
range from a high of 6.96 logits to a low of －6.27
logits, indicating a spread of 13 logits in terms of437

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

3 leniently scored one subject. The total number ofrater-subject bias interaction was three, which was
75% of the total number of subjects within thisrange (3/4=0.75). There were eleven subjects whose
ability estimate was between -2.99 and 2.99. Rater
4 harshly scored two subjects and Rater 1 and 2
leniently scored one subject for each. The total
number of rater-subject bias interactions was four,which was 36% of the total number of subjects
within this range (4/11=0.36). In the range of 3.00
or lower, there were five subjects, and Rater 5leniently scored one subject. This is the only
one-rater-subject bias interaction, which was 20%of the total number of subjects within this range(1/5=0.20).

Table 6: Rating scale statistics for Accuracy
Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5

Average
Measure
-6.26
-3.24
.58
3.76
6.16

Outfit (meansquare
.4
.9
1.1
.8
1.6

Step
Difficulty
-7.07
-1.42
2.28
6.22

Table 7: Rating scale statistics for Communicability
Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5

Average
Measure
-5.57
-2.99
.66
3.05
5.88

Outfit (meansquare
.6
1.1
1.3
.6
1.3

Step
Difficulty
-5.54
-1.61
2.26
4.90

Table 9: Frequency of rater-subject bias interaction
Ability

Table 7 shows the rating scale statistics forcommunicability. All outfit mean-squares are lessthan 2.0, which meet (2). All step difficultyincreases fall within 1.4 and 5.0, which does meet
(3).
Table 8: Rating scale statistics for Impression
Category
Score
1
2
3
4
5

Average
Measure
-6.02
-3.57
.76
3.65
6.61

Outfit (meansquare
.4
.6
.6
.9
1.0

N
1

3.00
higher
-2.99～
2.99
-3.00
lower

Step
Difficulty4
115Harsh (Raters)
2
3
4
5
1

1

Lenient (Raters)
2
3
4
5

1
2

1
1

1
1

Each rater had the following uniquerater-subject bias pattern.
・Rater 1: There was a more leniently scored subject
than expected for Rater 1. The leniently scoredsubject was of middle range ability (between-2.99 and 2.99).
・ Rater 2: There were both more harshly andleniently scored subjects than expected for Rater
2. The harshly scored subject was a high ability
subject (3.00 or higher) and the leniently scoredsubject was of middle range ability.
・Rater 3: As in the case of Rater 1, there was amore leniently scored subject than expected for
Rater 3. Unlike Rater 1, the leniently scoredsubject was one with high ability.
・Rater 4: There were more harshly scored subjects
than expected for Rater 4. The harshly scoredsubjects included one subject with high ability
and two subjects with middle range ability.
・Rater 5: As in the case of Rater 1 and Rater 3,
there was a more leniently scored subject than
expected for Rater 5. Unlike the two raters, theleniently scored subject had low ability.

-6.81
-1.66
2.23
6.23

Table 8 shows the rating scale statistics for
Impression.
Averagemeasuresadvancemonotonically with each category. All outfit
mean-squares are less than 2.0. All step difficultyincreases fall within 1.4 and 5.0, which does meet(3). While the step difficulty between 2 and 3 of theaccuracy scale (5.56) was slightly larger than 5.0,
the rating scales for communicability and total
impression conformed to expectations about its use.
In sum, these modified 5-point scales could be areliable tool for novice raters in determining theestimate of subjects’ writing ability.
5) Do individual raters score a particular group of
subjects more harshly or more leniently? If so, what
are the sub-patterns of ratings in terms ofrater-subject interaction for each rater?
There were a total of nine significantly biased
interactions among all raters. Table 9 summarizes
the frequencies of rater-subject interactions that
displayed a significant bias for each rater at various
levels of the ability range. In Table 9, the firstcolumn shows the ability estimate range, and thesecond column shows the number of subjects within
the particular range of ability estimate. In the rangeof 3.00 or higher, there were four subjects. Rater 2
and 4 harshly scored one subject for each, and Rater

6) Do the raters score particular tasks moreharshly or more leniently than others? If so, what
are the sub-patterns of ratings in terms of rater-task
interaction for each rater?
The results of the bias analysis in terms of theinteraction between raters and tasks indicate that noraters show significantly biased rater-task
interactions. The infit mean value by Rater 4 on438

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics‘communicability’ indicates that Rater 4 did notconsistently evaluate the task in the identified
patterns of bias across all subjects.

themselves. There were, however, significant
differences between raters in terms of severity as
we have seen in the pre-testing and the second
testing. The bias analyses indicated that all raters
were significantly biased towards certain types ofsubjects, and their bias patterns were unique.
Moreover, it must be said that one rater-subject
interaction and one rater-task interaction wereidentified as misfitting, so these raters were notconsistent in the identified patterns of bias acrossthe subjects or tasks. The FACETS analysis also
showed that the difficulty of the two tasks and theimpressionistic scoring were equivalent, indicatingthat the test tasks did not separate the subjects to asignificant degree and thus the tasks measured theunified writing ability to be assumed as a construct.
Since the 5-point scales demonstrated acceptable
fit, the five categories and their specific written
samples were mostly comprehensible and usable byraters. Therefore, it is quite likely that theassessment tasks and rating scales were reliable indetermining an estimate of students’ writing ability.
The findings of this study suggest that thesecond edition of the TBWT Guide used in Main
Experiment 1 may have effectively given novice
raters a shared understanding of the construct ofwriting ability defined by the test writer and may
have contributed to the consistency in scoring andthe reduction in the biased interactions with tasks. It
is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that the TBWTGuide for scoring may possibly reduce thedifferences or biases caused by variation amongraters. In order to confirm this, a questionnaire wasalso administered to the five teacher-raters. The
results of the questionnaire show that the fiveteacher-raters felt that the TBWT Guide was fairly
useful. Whereas there seems to be an admission of
improvement in the scale of accuracy and definitionof communicability, the guidelines are supposed tolead the raters to self-consistency and reduction of
biased interactions with tasks.
This present study, however, indicates that
there were significant biased interactions withsubjects’ ability among all five raters. Each rater
was found to be self-consistent in scoring 20
subjects’ writing performances, but all of the raters
had a unique bias pattern toward a certain type ofsubject. In the second testing, on the contrary, thenumber of the raters with a significant bias wasthree of the five (60%). In considering thisdifference, it must be assumed that the raters in thesecond testing were the same participants as in the
pre-testing. The raters are, therefore, assumed toincrease their internal consistency in assigning
ratings as they gained experience. This point leads
us to the comparative study of the second and thethird testing, which suggests whether there are7) To what extent, statistically, is the task-based
writing test a reliable and valid measure?
(1) Reliability
All raters displayed acceptable levels of consistency
with themselves, but there were significant
differences among raters in terms of severity. The
difference, based on fair average scores, is 0.44 of
one grade in the scale, suggesting that there would
be no impact on scores awarded in an operationalsetting. The analyses of the two tasks and theimpressionistic scoring show that no significant
difference occurs between the tasks and theimpressionistic scoring. The scoring forms do notappear to separate the subjects to a significant
degree. This means that in normal operations thethree scoring forms can be considered equivalent.
(2) Validity
An estimate of the item discrimination wascomputed according to a “Generalized Partial
Credit Model” approach. 1.0 is the expected value,
but discriminations in the range 0.5 to 1.5 provide a
reasonable fit to the Rasch model (Linacre, 2007,
p.132). All the estimates fall in this range (1.04,
1.00, 1.24), which indicates that the randomness inthe three sets of data fit the Rasch model. The twotasks and the impressionistic scoring were,
therefore, of relevance to dependent dataacquisition. There is also evidence that detracts
from the measure’s validity. Table 10 shows theresulting correlation coefficients for the relationshipbetween each of three raters’ scores and theCriterion score, and they were statisticallysignificant (p<.01) for Task 1, Task 2 andimpressionistic scoring. This result supports thevalidity of the task-based writing test includingthese three scores.
Table 10 Inter-rater correlation coefficients between
raters’ scores and the Criterion score
Rater
1
2
3
4
5
Avg.
T1
.67
.74
.78
.72
.68
.72
T2
.79
.67
.67
.64
.70
.70
IS
.68
.75
.81
.68
.76
.74
Note. T1=task1; T2=task 2; IS=impressionistic scoring

4. Discussion
The five junior high school teachers in this study
were all novice raters in this task-based writing
assessment. The interrater correlation coefficients
between pairs of raters were relatively high, and thefive raters appeared to be of acceptable reliability.
The FACETS analysis showed that the raters
displayed acceptable levels of consistency with439

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Language Testing 19, 453-76.
Brown, J.D. (1996). Testing in language
programs. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall Regents.
Connor, U. and Carrell, P. (1993). Theinterpretation of tasks by writers andreaders in holistically rated direct
assessment of writing. In J.G. Carson & I.
Leki (Eds.), Reading in the composition
classroom (pp. 141-160). Boston, MA:
Heinle and Heinle.
Cumming, A. (1989). Writing expertise and second
language proficiency. Language Learning
39, 81-141.
Cumming, A. (1990). Expertise in evaluating
second language composition. Language
Testing 7, 31-51.
Davies, A. (1990). A Principles of language
testing. Basil Blackwell.
Hyland, K. (2003). Second language writing.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Linacre, J. (2002). Guidelines for rating scales.
Mesa Research Note 2 (Online). Available
at http://www.rasch.org/rn2.htm (accessed
18 March 2008).
Linacre, J. (2008). Facets, version no. 3.63.
Computer program. Chicago, IL: MESA
Press.
Lunz, M., Wright, B. and Linacre, J. (1990).
Measuring the impact of judge severity on
examination scores. Applied Measurement in
Education 3, 331-45.
Pollitt, A. (1990). Response to Charles Alderson’s
paper: ‘Bands and scores.’ Alderson, J. C.
(1991). In J. C. Alderson and B. North (Eds.),
Language Testing in the 1990s. (pp.
87-91). London: Macmillan.
Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach tolanguage learning. Oxford University Press.
Shohamy, E., Gordon, C. and Kraemer, R. (1992).
The effect of raters’ background and training
on the reliability of direct writing tests.
Modern Language Journal 76, 27-33.
Sugita, Y. (2008). Task-based performanceassessment of Japanese second language
writing, Paper presented at 42nd International
Annual IATEFL Conference, Exeter, the UK,
April.
Weigle, S. (1994). Effects of training on raters of
ESL compositions. Language Testing 11,
197-223.
Weigle, S. (1998). Using FACETS to model rater
training effects. Language Testing 15,
263-87.
Weigle, S. (2002). Assessing writing. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

significant differences between experienced teacher
raters and novice teacher raters in scoring the samewriting samples with the rating scales.
5. Conclusion
The results of the five novice raters in this study
indicated that all raters displayed acceptable levelsof consistency with themselves, and that thestudents’ ability was effectively measured using
these tasks and rating scales. The FACETS analysis
showed that the difficulty of the two tasks and theimpressionistic scoring were considered equivalent,
which provided reasonable fit to the Rasch model.
The modified scales associated with the five rating
categories and their specific written samples wereshown to be mostly comprehensible and usable byraters, and demonstrated acceptable fit. This isbecause the TBWT Guide for scoring has given
novice raters a shared understanding of theconstruct of writing ability, and has contributed tothe consistency in scoring as seen in the responses
to the questionnaire.
There were, however, relatively small but
significant differences between raters in terms ofseverity. The bias analyses of this study indicated
all of the five raters were significantly biased
towards certain types of subjects, while three of thefive raters were biased in the second testing. Whenconsidering this difference, it must be assumed thatthe raters in the second testing were the same
participants as in the pre-testing. The raters are,therefore, assumed to increase their internalconsistency in assigning ratings as they gained
experience. These findings suggest that the TBWTGuide for scoring may have contributed to the
reduction of biased interactions, but training for
certain raters with his/her unique bias patterns
might still be required. This point leads us to thecomparative study of the second and the third
testing, which suggests there are significant
differences between experienced teacher raters andnovice teacher raters in scoring the same writing
samples with the rating scales. This issue will be
examined further in the comparison of the twomain experiments
References
Alderson, J.C., Clapham, C. and Wall, D.
(1995). Language test construction andevaluation.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press.
Bachman, L.F. and Palmer, A.S. (1996). Language
testing in practice: designing and developing
useful language tests. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Bachman, L.F. (2002). Some reflections on
task-based language performance assessment.
440

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The Development and Implementation of Task-based Writing
Performance Assessment for Japanese Learners of English: (5)Comparison of Two Main Experiments
Yoshihito Sugita

Faculty of Nursing, Yamanashi Prefectural University
sugita@yamanashi-ken.ac.jp
difference in raters’ severity, consistency andbiased interactions between experienced andinexperienced raters. There were two reasons forcomparing these two groups. First, the groups
represent the two major backgrounds of typicalteacher-raters in Japanese secondary schools, andthus constitute a sample that is representative of the
population about which the study is intended togeneralize. The second reason is to investigate any
differences between inexperienced and experienced
raters in terms of how they approach the ratings ofeach elicitation task.

Abstract
This study describes the analysis of composite
ratings given by five high school teachers in Main
Experiment 1 (OLD raters) and by five junior highschool teachers in Main Experiment 2 (NEWraters). The purpose of this comparative study is toinvestigate the degree of difference in raters’
severity, consistency and biased interactions
between experienced and inexperienced raters. The
analysis of comparative data reveals that all raters
as a group differ significantly from one another interms of severity, and most of the NEW raters weremore severe than the OLD raters. Despite having
previous experience with the TBWT, all raters
displayed acceptable levels of consistency withthemselves. The NEW raters are supposed to be lessconsistent, but a clear distinction between OLD and
NEW raters can not be made as a group. According
to the bias analyses, there was no difference in thenumber of rater-subject bias interactions between
OLD and NEW rater groups, which shows thebiases are caused by variation among raters, notby variation between the groups of the OLD and
NEW raters. These findings suggest that the TBWT
scoring guide significantly succeeded in giving
raters a shared understanding of a definition of theability being measured by the test, so that a
distinction between OLD and NEW raters was notmade despite the group difference in the rating
experience.

2. The Study
2.1 Purposes and research questions
The purpose of this comparative study is toinvestigate the degree of difference in raters’
severity, consistency and biased interactions
between experienced and inexperienced raters. The
following research questions were addressed:
1) To what extent do experienced andinexperienced raters differ in the spread of rater
severity?
2) To what extent do experienced andinexperienced raters differ in consistency in their
judgment?
3) Are experienced and inexperienced raters biased
differently with respect to rater-subject interaction?

4) Are experienced and inexperienced raters
biased differently with respect to rater-task
interaction?

Keywordstask-based assessment, rating experience, groupdifference

2.2 Participants
The participants in the research consisted of 10
Japanese teachers of English, 5 from each of thefollowing groups:
1 Experienced (Old) raters
Raters who had rated TBWT using accuracy andcommunicability rating scales in the pre-testing(Pilot Experiment) had prior experience with therating scales and the elicitation tasks (hereinafterreferred to as OLD). This group consisted of five

Introduction
The study described in this article involves theanalysis of composite ratings given by five highschool teachers in Main Experiment 1 (OLD raters)
and by five junior high school teachers in Main
Experiment 2 (NEW raters). The purpose of thiscomparative study is to investigate the degree of441

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

comparative data, three facets were used: Subjects(n=20), Raters (five OLD, five NEW) and Tasks(accuracy, communicability and impression). The
partial-credit model was chosen as well as in Main
Experiments 1 and 2.

high school teachers, all of whom shared similar
backgrounds in terms of qualifications of ten or
more years of teaching experience. They had also
displayed acceptable levels of consistency withthemselves in the pre-testing. Four of these raters
were male and one was female. All were native
speakers of Japanese.
2 Inexperienced (New) raters
Raters who had never rated TBWT, and thus had
never been exposed to the rating scales and theelicitation tasks (hereinafter referred to as NEW)consisted of five junior high school teachers, all ofwhom shared similar backgrounds in terms of
qualifications of ten or more years of teachingexperience. Four of these raters were female and
one was male. All were native speakers of Japanese.

3. Results
3.1 FACETS summary--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|Measure|+Raters|+Subjects |+Tasks| S.1 | S.2 | S.3 |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 7++++ (5) + (5) + (5) +| |||| | | |
| ||9|
| | | |
+ 6+++
+ + + +
| |||| | | |
| |||| --- | | --- |+ 5++++ + + +
| || 18|
| | --- | || |||| | | |+ 4+
+ 12+
+ + + +
| ||6|
| 4 | | 4 || |||| | 4 | |+ 3+++
+ + + +
| |||| | | |
| || 14 7 || | | |
+ 2+++
+ --- + --- + --- +
| |
| 13
|
| | | |
| | NEW5||| | | |
+ 1 + NEW1 NEW2 OLD3 + 2++ + + +
| | OLD2| 1 19 || | | |
| | NEW4 OLD1
| 10|
| 3 | 3 | 3 |* 0 * NEW3*
* Accuracy
Communicability Impression * * * *
| |
| 17
|
| | | |
| | OLD4| 15|| | | |
+ -1 ++++ + + +
| | OLD5|8|| | | |
| |||| --- | --- | --- |+ -2 ++3++ + + +
| |||| | | |
| || 20|
| | | |
+ -3 ++++ + + +
| |||| | 2 | || |||| 2 | | 2 |+ -4 ++5++ + + +
| |||| | | |
| |||| | | |
+ -5 ++ 16++ + --- + +| ||4|| | | |
| || 11|
| --- | | --- |+ -6 ++++ (1) + (1) + (1) +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|Measure|+Raters|+Subjects |+Tasks| S.1 | S.2 | S.3 |---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.3 Data analysis
Weigle (1998) conducted a study using FACETS tomodel rater training effects. She exploreddifferences in rater severity and consistency among
inexperienced and experienced raters both before
and after rater training in an administration of
UCLA’s English as a Second Language Placement
Examination (ESLPE). The FACETS analysis forthe pre- and post-data were performed separately. In
each analysis, four facets were used: examinee,
raters, prompts, and scales. Although the purpose ofher research is different from this comparative
study, her analytical method is seen to be of greatuse for us in estimating the differences between
experienced and inexperienced raters. Therefore,
ratings in this study were also analyzed using
FACETS,
which
providescomparative
characteristic.
First, rater behavior both in Main Experiment
1 and Main Experiment 2 was modeled using
FACETS, which provides estimates of the ability of
20 subjects, the difficulty of tasks and the severityof 10 raters on a common logit scale. In addition toproviding logit estimates of the ability, severity, ordifficulty of each element of each facet, FACETS
also provides statistics indicating the relative spreadof these estimates within each facet. In other words,
the analysis provides information about thesignificance of any differences that may exist
among elements of a facet, for example, differences
in severity among raters or ability among subjects.
Another important feature of the FACETS
analysis is that it provides fit statistics for eachelement, which provide an indication of the degree
to which each element is behaving in a way that ispredicted by the model. In the case of raters, the fit
statistics are indicators of rater consistency. Thus, adetailed picture of the behavior of each rater interms of both severity and consistency can beformed. In the FACETS analysis for the

Figure 1 FACETS summary
Figure 1 shows a summary of all facets andtheir elements. They are positioned on a common
logit scale which appears as “measure” in the firstcolumn. The second column shows the severity
variation among raters. The most severe rater (ID:
NEW5) is at the top, and the least severe rater (ID:
OLD5) is at the bottom. The third column shows
the ability variation among the 20 subjects. The
subjects are ranked with high ability at the top (ID:9) and low ability at the bottom (ID: 11). The fourthcolumn shows that the difficulty variation among
the tasks was equivalent. The last three columns
graphically describe the three rating scales. Each of
the two tasks and total impression has their own
scale. The most likely scale score for each ability
level is shown.
As the figure indicates, subject estimates range
from a high of about 6 logits to a low of －6 logits,442

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

also reflected in the mean severity estimates (.77
logits for NEW raters, -.05 logits for old raters).
The FACETS analysis provides a number ofindications of the differences in severity amongraters. These are the Separation Index, Reliability,
and the Fixed (all identical) chi-square. The
Separation Index of Table 1 is the ratio of the true
standard deviation of raters to the root mean-square
standard error. If the raters are equally severe, thestandard deviation of the rater difficulty estimatesshould be equal to or smaller than the mean
estimation error of the entire data set. However, theRater Separation Index for the entire sample ofraters is 3.29, indicating that the variance amongraters is about three times as large as the error of
estimates.
The Reliability statistics provided by the
FACETS analysis indicate the degree to which theanalysis reliably distinguishes between different
levels of difficulty or severity among the different
raters. For raters, low reliability is desirable, sinceideally the different raters would be equally severe.
In this case, however, the reliability is .92 for all
raters, indicating that the analysis is fairly reliably
separating raters into different levels of severity.
Finally, the Fixed chi-square tests the null
hypothesis that all the elements of the facet are
equal. The chi-square of 115.7 with 9 d.f. issignificant at p=.00, indicating that the null
hypothesis must be rejected; in other words, theraters are not equally severe.
Comparing the range of severities for the twogroups of raters, Table 1 makes clear the fact that
the OLD raters as a group vary much more inseverity than the NEW raters, with a standard
deviation of .90 logits, compared with .54 for the
NEW raters. This variability is also reflected in the
Separation Indices for the two groups: 3.50 for the
OLD raters, and 1.96 for the NEW raters. It should
be noted that the NEW raters are more similar inseverity despite their inexperience in using therating scales and the elicitation tasks, indicating that
the TBWT has the potential for reducing the spreadof rater severity estimates among experienced andinexperienced raters, although both OLD and NEW
raters differ significantly in their severity.

indicating a spread of 12 logits in terms of students’ability. Subject separation value was 9.44, meaningthat populations like these students in this study canbe spread throughout about 9 levels.
Thereliability index was .99, which demonstrates it ispossible to achieve reliable ability scores.
The column for raters shows that the NEW
raters tend to cluster around the mean (0), and two
OLD raters are more lenient than the rest. Thus, thefigure indicates that the raters are not at the samelevel of severity.
3.2 FACETS analysis
1) To what extent do experienced and inexperienced
raters differ in the spread of rater severity?
Table 1: FACETS analysis of rater characteristics
Rater
NEW5
NEW2
OLD3
NEW1
OLD2
NEW4
OLD1
NEW3
OLD4
OLD5
Mean-AllSD
Mean-OLD

SD
Mean-NEW

Fair-Maverage

Severity(logits)

Error

3.34
3.25
3.21
3.18
3.09
3.07
3.04
2.92
2.76
2.55
3.30
.23
2.93
.24
3.15
.14

1.45
1.14
1.02
.90
.54
.48
.36
-.11
-.71
-1.45
.36
.85
-.05
.90
.77
.54

.25
.25
.25
.25
.25
.25
.25
.25
.25
.25
.25
.00
.25
.00
.25
.00

Infit
(mean
square
.84
.86
.96
.55
1.05
1.22
.88
.72
.82
1.18
.91
.19
.98
.13
.84
.22

SD
All raters: Separation: 3.29 Reliability=.92; fixed(all same) chi-square: 115.7, df: 9; significance: .00
OLD raters: Separation: 3.50 Reliability=.92; fixed(all same) chi-square: 65.4, df: 4; significance: .00
NEW raters: Separation: 1.96 Reliability=.79; fixed(all same) chi-square: 24.1, df: 4; significance: .00
Table 1 provides information on the characteristicsof raters. From the left, each column shows rater
IDs, fair average scores, rater severity, error andinfit mean square values. Raters are presented indescending order of severity. The severity span
between the most severe rater (ID: NEW5) and themost lenient rater (ID: OLD5) was 2.90; thedifference, based on fair average scores in the firstcolumn, is 0.79 of one grade in the scale. Summary
statistics for the entire sample of raters as well as
for the two groups of raters (OLD and NEW) arealso provided. In Table 1, the NEW raters are foundto be more severe than the OLD raters. Thissuggests that the NEW raters tend to apply stricter
standards overall to the written samples than the
OLD raters. This tendency of the NEW raters is2) To what extent do experienced and inexperienced
raters differ in rater consistency in theirjudgement?
The FACETS analysis also provides two measuresof fit, or consistency: the infit and the outfit. The
infit is the weighted mean-squared residual which issensitive to unexpected responses near the point
where decisions are being made, while the outfit is
the unweighted mean-squared residual and issensitive to extreme scores. For the purpose of this443

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The OLD raters leniently scored the subjects infive cases, which was 83% of the six rater-subject
bias interactions (5/6=0.83). On the contrary, theNEW raters harshly scored the subjects in fourcases, which was 67% of the six rater-subject bias
interactions (4/6=0.67). These results indicate that
there was no difference in the number ofrater-subject bias interactions between OLD and
NEW rater groups, but NEW raters might be morebiased with the various types of subjects than the
OLD raters, which show the NEW raters’
inconsistency in scoring. Another finding is that the
OLD raters were more lenient, and the NEW raters
were more severe, as some previous research has
shown the tendency of many of the NEW raters tojudge more severely than the OLD raters (Weigle,
1994, 1998).

study, only the infit statistics will be reported. Fit
statistics of M+2SD or greater indicate too much
unpredictability in raters’ scores, while a value of
M-2SD or less indicate overfit, or not enoughvariation in scores. Applying these standards toTable 1, all raters fall within the range of two
standard deviations around the mean (0.91±[2×0.19]), indicating that no raters were identified as
misfitting. In other words, both OLD and NEW
raters behaved consistently in scoring.
In terms of consistency, the infit statistics also
show slight group differences. The standardized
infit has an expected mean of 0 and a SD of 1. As
for the OLD raters, its mean is .98 and the SD
is .13, while these figures for the NEW raters
are .84 and .22, respectively. Thus the NEW raters
are supposed to be less consistent, but a clear
distinction between OLD and NEW raters can not
be made as a group.

4) Are experienced and inexperienced raters biased
differently with respect to rater-task interaction?
The results of the bias analysis in terms of theinteraction between raters and tasks show that there
were thirty rater-task interactions (10 raters × 3
tasks) in all, but only two interactions among OLD
raters were significantly biased, OLD5 ×
Communicability and OLD3 × Accuracy. The
bias analysis indicates that the two raters tended toaward lenient ratings to all the subjects on eachtask. This may be a consequence of the tendency ofmany of the OLD raters to judge more leniently
than the NEW raters, and thus have ended up
consistently evaluating the task in the identified
patterns of bias across all subjects. The value by
NEW4 on ‘communicability’ and the values by
OLD2 and OLD5 on ‘accuracy’ indicate that theseraters were not consistent in evaluating the tasks in
the identified patterns of bias across all subjects.

3) Are experienced and inexperienced raters biased
differently with respect to rater-subject interaction?
According to the results of the bias analysis interms of interaction between rater severity andsubject ability, there were six significantly biased
interactions among OLD and NEW raters,
respectively. Table 2 summarizes the frequencies ofrater-subject interactions that displayed a significant
bias for each rater group at various levels of theability range.
Table 2: Frequency of rater-subject bias interaction
Ability
3.00
higher
-2.99
～2.99
-3.00
lower

N
4
11
5

Harsh (Raters)
OLD
NEW
1

Lenient (Raters)
OLD
NEW

2

2

2

2

2

1

4. Discussion
4.1 Implications for judging severity
The ten raters in this study were all experienced
Japanese secondary school teachers of English andshared similar backgrounds in terms of
qualifications of ten or more years of teachingexperience. The results of the present study,
however, indicate an influence by errors ofmeasurement resulting from variation in rater
severity. According to McNamara (1996), “raters
typically show highly reliable differences inseverity, indicating that elimination of rater
differences in severity is an unachievable goal”(p.140). This statement is supported by previous
empirical studies that have shown that relative
severity of individual raters could not be reduced toacceptable levels even after rigorous rater training
or among thoroughly trained raters (Luntz et al.,
1990; Weigle, 1998). These findings justify the use

In Table 2, the first column shows the ability
estimate range and the second column shows thenumber of subjects within the particular range ofability estimate. In the range of 3.00 or higher, thetotal number of subjects was four, but five biased
interactions were observed. Four of the interactions
were biased with the same subject. One OLD raterand two NEW raters harshly scored the subject, but
two OLD raters leniently scored the subject. In therange between -2.99 and 2.99, there were six biased
interactions. Two OLD and NEW raters leniently
scored the subjects, respectively. Two NEW raters
also harshly scored the subjects. One thing to be
noticed is that one NEW rater (NEW4) was
significantly biased with the three subjects in thisrange. In the range of -3.00 or lower, there was only
one biased interaction among OLD raters, who
harshly scored Subject 4.
444

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

level.
These somewhat inconclusive results suggestthat further exploration is warranted, although the
expectation is higher that these findings will be
confirmed rather than the discovery of majordifferences. This study offers further evidence thattask development based on the construct-based
processing approach could be a reasonably solid
basis to estimate students’ writing ability, and thosetasks may draw valid inferences to their writing
performance.

of FACETS analysis, which assumes, makes use ofand compensates for inter-rater differences.
The rater-subject bias analysis shows
particular raters’ tendency toward excessive
severity or leniency towards particular subjects. The
OLD raters exhibited a tendency towards leniency,
while the NEW raters awarded unexpectedly severe
ratings to the most subjects. The one NEW andthree OLD raters strongly disagreed on Subject 12.
One NEW rater had three biased interactions withthe subjects in the range between -2.99 and 2.99.
These results suggest that the acceptable overall fit
values for both OLD and NEW raters (Table 1),
despite the possibly problematic rater behavior
suggested by bias analysis, are plausible results asbias analysis looks at individual raters, not thedifferences between the groups of the OLD and
NEW raters. Therefore, as confirmed in theprevious testing (Main Experiments 1 and 2), if theraters behave consistently, the TBWT scoring guidesignificantly succeeds in giving raters a clear
understanding of a definition of the ability being
measured by the test. Although the scoring guide
may have limitations in reducing the differences orbiases caused by variation among raters, this viewof the function of the scoring guide addresses theconcern that a shared understanding of the constructof writing ability could effectively be promoted by
the scoring guide.

5. Conclusion
The analysis of comparative data reveals that all
raters as a group differ significantly from one
another in terms of severity, and most of the NEW
raters were more severe than the OLD raters.
Despite having previous experience with the
TBWT, all raters displayed acceptable levels of
consistency with themselves. The NEW raters aresupposed to be less consistent, but a clear
distinction between OLD and NEW raters can not
be made as a group. According to the bias analyses,
there was no difference in the number ofrater-subject bias interactions between OLD and
NEW rater groups, which shows the biases arecaused by variation among raters, not by variation
between the groups of the OLD and NEW raters.
These findings suggest that the TBWT scoring
guide significantly succeeded in giving raters ashared understanding of a definition of the ability
being measured by the test, so that a distinction
between OLD and NEW raters was not madedespite the group difference in the rating
experience.
Tasks in the form of five rating categories
were found to show acceptable fit to the Raschmodel, and the scales associated with the five rating
categories were shown to be mostly comprehensible
and usable by raters. However, it must be said thatrater and scale reliability deserves a statisticaltreatment reflecting the extended observation.
Given the limited amount of data available in thisstudy, it is difficult to speculate about what may
occur in a given situation. Many more similar
analyses will be necessary to see what is likely tooccur.

4.2 Implications for task difficulty
A task was one source of score variance in the
TBWT, but the variance was negligible in terms ofdifficulty. This finding was supported by goodevidence of fit to the Rasch model for all elementsof this facet. Tasks in the form of five rating
categories were found to show acceptable fit, andthe scales associated with the five rating categories
were shown to be mostly comprehensible andusable by raters. However, it must be said that raterand scale reliability deserve a statistical treatment
reflecting the extended observation. Given thelimited amount of data available in this study, it isdifficult to speculate about what may occur in agiven situation. Many more similar analyses will benecessary to see what is likely to occur.
Of the two instances of biased rater-task
interactions, one occurred with Task 2(Communicability), which was scored by OLD5.
As it was observed in Main Experiment 1, OLD5(Rater 5) was the only rater that displayed a biased
interaction with the tasks and tended to become
more lenient when the script displayed adequate
communicative effect. This suggests that the effectis insufficiently reliable to indicate systematic biasof tasks, but that tasks are more likely to affectindividual raters differently, rather than at the group

References
Alderson, J.C., Clapham, C. and Wall, D.
(1995). Language test construction andevaluation.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press.
Bachman, L.F. and Palmer, A.S. (1996). Language
testing in practice: designing and developing
useful language tests. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Cambridge University Press.

Bachman, L.F. (2002). Some reflections on
task-based language performance assessment.
Language Testing 19, 453-76.
Brown, J.D. (1996). Testing in language
programs. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall Regents.
Connor, U. and Carrell, P. (1993). Theinterpretation of tasks by writers andreaders in holistically rated direct
assessment of writing. In J.G. Carson & I.
Leki (Eds.), Reading in the composition
classroom (pp. 141-160). Boston, MA:
Heinle and Heinle.
Cumming, A. (1989). Writing expertise and second
language proficiency. Language Learning
39, 81-141.
Cumming, A. (1990). Expertise in evaluating
second language composition. Language
Testing 7, 31-51.
Davies, A. (1990). A Principles of language
testing. Basil Blackwell.
Hyland, K. (2003). Second language writing.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Linacre, J. (2002). Guidelines for rating scales.
Mesa Research Note 2 (Online). Available
at http://www.rasch.org/rn2.htm (accessed
18 March 2008).
Linacre, J. (2008). Facets, version no. 3.63.
Computer program. Chicago, IL: MESA
Press.
Lunz, M., Wright, B. and Linacre, J. (1990).
Measuring the impact of judge severity on
examination scores. Applied Measurement in
Education 3, 331-45.
Pollitt, A. (1990). Response to Charles Alderson’s
paper: ‘Bands and scores.’ Alderson, J. C.
(1991). In J. C. Alderson and B. North (Eds.),
Language Testing in the 1990s. (pp.
87-91). London: Macmillan.
Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach tolanguage learning. Oxford University Press.
Shohamy, E., Gordon, C. and Kraemer, R. (1992).
The effect of raters’ background and training
on the reliability of direct writing tests.
Modern Language Journal 76, 27-33.
Sugita, Y. (2008). Task-based performanceassessment of Japanese second language
writing, Paper presented at 42nd International
Annual IATEFL Conference, Exeter, the UK,
April.
Weigle, S. (1994). Effects of training on raters of
ESL compositions. Language Testing 11,
197-223.
Weigle, S. (1998). Using FACETS to model rater
training effects. Language Testing 15,
263-87.
Weigle, S. (2002). Assessing writing. Cambridge:
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A Qualitative Look at Japanese and Native Speaker Teachers’
Views on the University EFL Classroom
Richard Silver, Satoko Ito, and William Baber

Language Education Center (BKC), Ritsumeikan University
richinwit@hotmail.com, s-ito@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp, willbaber@yahoo.com

beliefs with them. Through interviews withJapanese non-native speaking (NNS) and native
speaking (NS) teachers of EFL in Japanese
universities, this research attempts to capture thepresent moment in Japan.
Given that teacher beliefs and behaviors in
the classroom often differ, particular attention
was given to the interplay of beliefs and actions.
Further attention is directed to the experiences
and training of the educator in Japan and abroad.
The comments generated will lead to a survey
aiming to tease out detail regarding particularsystems or practices teachers adopt in the EFL
classroom in order to produce their desiredteaching goals and manage classroom behavior.

Abstract
In this paper we undertake to provide a snapshotof current beliefs of native speaking andnon-native speaking teachers of English as aforeign language in universities in Japan. Thisqualitative study provides a current look into thisweb of issues. The study material is based oninterviews gathered by the research team,transcribed, summarized, and coded according tothemes developed from current literature onteacher beliefs, knowledge and cognition.
Nineteen interviews, eight of Japanese speaking
and eleven of English speaking teachers, form abody from which themes are identified anddeveloped. Particular attention is given toteacher roles, teacher perceptions of institutions
and learners, and the impact of teacher
experience on their views and actions. Findings
include the attunement of teachers to student
in-class needs, the perceived importance of theteacher as motivator, sophistication aboutteacher roles vis-a-vis institutions and students,
and a high level of cultural sensitivity towards
the student experience and context from
non-Japanese teachers.

1
1.1

Background and literature review

Teacher classroom behaviors andbeliefs, knowledge, and cognition
There has been a general understanding that“what teachers do is a reflection of what theyknow and believe, and that teacher knowledgeand ‘teacher thinking’ provide the underlying
framework or schema which guides the teacher’sclassroom actions” (Richards & Lockhart, 1996:
29). Further, the links between the teachers’classroom behaviors and their beliefs andassumptions about learners and teaching havebeen investigated by many preceding research
efforts. Due to the complexity of constituentsthat form a teacher’s mental constructs, researchin this field has been adopting increasingly
holistic perspectives when looking at teachers’
mental constructs. Accordingly, numerous terms
such as teacher beliefs or teacher knowledge
have been used with different definitions
describing similar concepts, inevitably bringing
about a certain amount of confusion in the
research field.
Reviewing and outlining the developmentsof a wide range of teacher cognition research inthe past several decades, S. Borg writes that “thepredominant focus today is on understanding

Keywords
Classroom management; teacher roles; culture;teacher beliefs; TEFL; EFL; Japan; Higher
education; teacher beliefs; teacher cognition;acculturation

Introduction
The ongoing debate within Second Language
Acquisition over the roles of the teacher inEnglish as a Foreign Language (EFL)
classrooms has resulted in considerable researchinternationally, though little has been conductedin Japan.
This research recognizes that EFL teachingis a continually evolving process, as new
generations of teachers enter the profession
bringing new or rediscovered techniques and447

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teacher knowledge (used as an umbrella term fora range of psychological constructs), its growthand use” (S. Borg, 2006: 35), and adopts acollective term teacher cognition instead ofteacher beliefs or teacher knowledge to refer to aconcept that embraces various mental constructsof teachers, which can be “characterized as anoften tacit, personally-held, practical system ofmental constructs held by teachers and which are
dynamic – i.e., defined and refined on the basisof educational and professional experiences
throughout teachers’ lives” (S. Borg, 2006: 35).
Although efforts have been made to distinguishthe concept of belief and that of knowledge, 1
given that any clear distinction between the two
is very delicate, the current study follows S.
Borg’s concept of teacher cognition to discuss
the various mental constituents labeled asteacher beliefs or teacher knowledge.

expectations of Japanese EFL learners, andfurther their actual and assumed teacher roles in
the classroom (Richards & Lockhart, 1996:
107-108; Scharle & Szabó, 2000: 5-7).
1.3
Teacher roles
To investigate the influence of teacher cognition
on classroom management, the current study
looks into the links between actual or assumed
teacher roles and the systems teachers employed
to manage and control their classrooms based on
the framework provided by Richards andLockhart (1996). They argue that teachers’
assumptions about their teacher roles in theclassrooms influence how they respond to:classroom management and organization;teacher control; curriculum, content, andplanning; instructional strategies; motivational
techniques; assessment philosophy (Richards &Lockhart, 1996: 106). Considering factors inthese dimensions, they set eight different typesof general teacher roles as examples:
Planner: The teacher sees planning andstructuring of learning activities asfundamental to success in teaching andlearning.
Manager: The teacher’s role is to organize
and manage the classroom environment andstudent behavior in a way that will maximize
learning.
Quality controller: A central task for theteacher is to maintain the quality of language
use in the classroom. Correct language use
should be reinforced and incorrect use
discouraged.
Group organizer: The teacher’s role is todevelop an environment in which students
work cooperatively on group tasks.
Facilitator: The teacher’s role is to help
students discover their own ways of learningand to work independently.
Empowerer: The teacher tries to take as little
control or direction over the lesson as
possible and lets the students make decisions
about what they want to learn and how theywant to learn it.
Motivator: The teacher seeks to improvestudents’ confidence and interest in learningand to build a classroom climate that will
motivate students.
Team member: The teacher and all thestudents in the class constitute a team andshould interact like members of a team.
(Richards & Lockhart, 1996: 105-106)
These eight roles do not represent a complete

1.2
Socio-cultural factors
Among the constituents that affect teachers’
cognition, the current study has given special
attention to socio-cultural factors due to its
investigation into the Japanese university
context. A variety of research seems to agree thatJapanese linguistically and culturally is distantfrom English and English-speaking culture: “Inaddition to the difficulties posed by great
grammatical, lexical, and phonetic disparity,
Japanese speakers’ attitudes to language in
general are heavily coloured by aspects of theirown language.…Given these striking differences
between Japanese and English attitudes tolanguage, it takes the student a good while totunein”(Thompson,
2001:
296-97).
Sociolinguists approach this phenomenon by
employing the dominant frameworks provided
by Hofstede (1986) or Hall (1966), most ofwhich agree that Japanese and Japanese culture
stand at almost opposite positions from English
and English speaking culture in the dimensions
provided such as individualism vs. collectivism,masculine culture vs. feminine culture, thedegrees and extent to accept power distance, andthose of uncertainty avoidance (Brown, 2000:
176-200). Given that teaching contexts have an
important influence on teachers’ decisions about
their classroom management, the current study
considers NS and NNS teacher’s experiences ofacculturation and their attitudes toward and1

M. Borg (2001), for example, distinguishes belief
and knowledge as the latter being justified as true insome external sense.

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list of teacher roles that emerge in actualclassrooms and this study. Although these roles
are expected to overlap with each otherdepending on the shifting situations and contexts
of any given classroom, the current study
considers teacher responses to each role tocapture some general views of the roles andbackground factors that may affect the choicesof teachers.
This research attempts to characterize thefollowing broad question with consideration ofculture, acculturation, teaching experience, andlearning experience, and teacher roles: What are
NNS and NS teacher views of issues and actors
in university EFL classrooms?

2

2.4
Procedure
Richards and Lockhart’s framework forteacher’s roles (Richards & Lockhart, 1996) wasused in the interviews as a comparison withestablished research. The questions were agreed
upon and tested among the researchers before
the first interview. While the same instrument(English and Japanese versions) was used by allinterviewers, interviewers used the responses ofpast interviewees to gain a fuller general pictureof teacher’s views through follow-up andclarification questions. In addition, the views of
the other interviewees were put to newinterviewees to try to identify general andunique themes. While this study cannot claim to
be a full grounded theory study, it does approach
the subject of investigation using many of thetools and techniques as described by Strauss andCorbin (1998), and Senior (2006). The researchquestion and supporting questions were posed
without a hypothesis and interviews weresemi-open ended though focused on the areasthat the researchers sought to examine.
Moreover, while a grounded theory study aims
to create theory from data, when accepting thetime limits on this preliminary study, theresearchers hoped to generate further avenues
for investigation within the context of theJapanese university classroom and teacher’s
beliefs. During discussions of the data,
researchers compared their experiences of theinterviews, their interpretations of answers andtheir knowledge of the subjects to examine andcross examine the possibilities presented therein.
During the process the codes were pared down
and possible follow-up questions were
formulated in the event of second interviews.

Methodology

2.1
Participants
In total, nineteen university English instructors
were interviewed. Interviews lasted from about
forty-five minutes up to an hour and a half. The
researchers sought to interview a broad range ofteachers, thus the participants consisted of both
NS and NNS teachers of English. Ages ranged
from 28 to 60 and length of experience teachingin Japan from 4 to over 30 years. The teachersinterviewed were at the time working at
numerous universities in Kansai and held
positions as part-time teachers, contract teachersand full time faculty members, some inmanagement roles.
2.2
EthicsAll participants were informed as to the natureand purpose of the research and gave theirexpress permission to be recorded. None of theteachers approached refused. Anonymity was
assured for all participants except among theinvestigators where it was necessary to avoid
approaching the same person. No names wereattached to any of the recordings, notes, ortranscripts.

3

Analyses and discussion

3.1
Classroom roles
3.1.1
Teacher classroom roles accepted
Generally the interviewees accepted several
overlapping roles in the classroom. Among allteachers the most commonly cited role was thatof motivator. The general outlook was ofmotivator as a role they felt was a leading,though not a sole role. Commonly selectedsupporting roles included planner, manager, andfacilitator, though some NNS teachers
particularly downplayed the role of planner.
Some interviewees also expressed a desire to bean empowerer, though others rejected it. Somechose facilitator with caution, one saying, “Wish2.3
Data collection and analysis
All interviews were recorded using a portable
digital device that was visible to the participants
throughout the interview. NS teachers wererecorded in English and NNS teachers inJapanese. The recordings were then transcribedor summarized and coded. All coded material
was shared and reviewed by the researchers. In
addition, English summaries of the Japaneseinterviews were prepared and shared among the
researchers.

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I could be more.” Another would have chosen
quality controller if the level of their students
were higher.

balance between institutional guidelines andspace for maneuver in the classroom aspreferable.

3.1.2
Teacher classroom roles rejected
Commonly rejected roles included lecturer, teammember, “Sounds nice…not here!”, and quality
controller, “That sounds a bit heavy-handed tome.” The reasons cited were that these roles
were inapplicable or even undesirable in theJapanese university classroom.

3.2
Teacher roles beyond the classroom
3.2.1
Textbook choosers
Interviewees not in management roles liked the
textbook to be chosen by someone withknowledge of the students, but repeated criticism
surfaced of inappropriate textbooks, “If you’re
given a textbook obviously the negative is …if
it’s not very good you’re stuck with it. I would… unambiguously like to choose the textbook
for the second semester.”

3.1.3

Teacher as a representative of theuniversity
Teachers in general appear to accept theirposition as being part of a greater institution. For
example, comments such as “I cannot be
demotivatingly tough” and “I must respect thatthe university needs happy students and parents”
were found.

3.2.2
Curriculum designers
Managers were accepting of curriculum design,
despite some caution about criteria imposedfrom above. Meanwhile teachers not inmanagement roles adapted to the curriculum
situations presented to them. Nonetheless there
were desires evident for varying degrees of
freedom (See 3.1.4).

3.1.4
Teacher as a negotiator of curriculum
In dealing with the curriculum mostinterviewees accepted the need for an overall
structure to their classes to be imposed fromabove both for students and for teachers. While
not unhappy, most found it necessary to adjustthat curriculum. Many posited the curriculum asnecessarily being a flexible space in which theinstitution must leave enough room for teachers
to express their character. Most teachers inmanagerial roles commented that the system
must leave room for teachers to makeadjustments for assessment and in the class.
In general teachers felt that standardization
was appropriate. However, more recent teachers
commonly expressed a desire to take more
control over their classes once they had
discovered the level of their students, but withguidance from a department. While older
teachers cited the lack of unity in the past, inparticular with teachers choosing their own
textbooks, younger teachers who may only haveexperienced choices being made for them, wereless satisfied with uniformity in the curriculum
or institution but still recognized the need forbalance. (See 3.2.1)
There appeared to be a generational divide
among NS teachers with older teachers
comfortable with curricular uniformity appliedby the institution whereas younger NS teachers
were less so. Among NNS teachers, younger
ones were somewhat less accepting ofinstitutional uniformity, though all ages saw a

3.2.3
Goal creators
Some but not all generally rejected the need totake on the role of setting goals for students
beyond the immediate classroom.
3.2.4
Content decision maker
Often teachers indicated a desire for less control
in their first years at an institution, with more
control coming thereafter. Additionally, manyteachers did not want complete responsibility, as
one interviewee, related another teacher’s
experience of being told, “Do what you want,”
and responding, “Well, I don’t want that!”
Others specifically wanted to build experience
with the student body, as indicated here, “[In]my first year, I am…testing how students
respond…my experiences in my firstsemester…will be a great influence in terms of
how I structure things in the next semester.”
3.3

Views on current Japanese university
education
3.3.1
View of students as customers
While teachers did not reject the term outright,
in general they did not view students as retailcustomers but as “a type” of customer in varying
respects. However, some teachers are aware offees, so the teacher tries to satisfy the distantparental customer while representing the450

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

knowledge about their students’ majors. With
these caveats, general criticisms included:
critical thinking and deep understanding notfostered by institutions; too much academic
freedom; and “downright lax.” Another NS said,“Clearly there are some deeply entrenchedproblems…in my opinion they are hard to fix.”
However this teacher continued, preferring thatdaigaku and universities not be held equal oreven compared, but that daigaku be understoodin their own context.
Similarly, NNS teachers commented on the
low expectations of university from society.
These teachers were able to understand theJapanese university experience within thecontext of Japan. Their comments included:
expectations set on students are lower than the
expectations that may be placed on western
universities by western societies; therefore it isdifficult for Japanese students and universities tochange.

institution. This awareness caused some teachers
to feel a professional responsibility or
accountability toward private or publicly funded
institutions or students. Comments included:“They are paying for it,” “Their parents arepaying for it,” and “They are paying foropportunity.”
3.3.2

View of students’ academic ability andattitudeSome NNS in comparison to their own
experience described current students as lacking
passion, or don’yokusa ( 貪 欲 さ ). However,others suggested that learners had not
fundamentally changed from past decades.
All NS made it clear that there was a strong
difference in the experience of Japanese students
and their experience as students in the “west”
regarding academic rigor and behavior.
Nonetheless, NS teachers saw this disparity in amore complex cultural context which allows
them to integrate prevailing student attitudes. To
paraphrase one, “a lot of people (NS) say it’s apassive atmosphere, but…not passive, adifferent approach.”
NS teachers generally found students weakin critical thinking and their learning superficial.
The interviews did not reflect high opinions ofundergraduate ability, focus, and output.
Nonetheless, NS teacher views of students were
not negative, but sympathetic and often based onsome understanding of the cultural experience ofstudents in Japan.

3.4Interplay of beliefs and actions
3.4.1
The classroom space
Teachers view the classroom as a space whereinteachers and students interact on a human level.
(See 3.1.1)
3.4.2
Teacher boundaries
Teachers see a line between acceptable teachingof behavior (in terms of those skills related tolanguage learning) and unacceptable teaching(doing things that are outside of their mandate).
However the line was different for different
teachers. Both NS teachers and NNS teachers
appear unwilling to take a commanding role interms of students’ development or a peer role(team member) beyond the scope of theirteaching mandate. NS teachers avoided theseroles due to uncertainty about Japanese culture.

3.3.3

View of students as well rounded
individuals
Though keen not to overstep the boundaries of
their teacher roles, teachers did perceive students
as developing characters. Some teachers
acknowledged the changing circumstances of
their students, for example living alone andgreater freedom, and could respond to thatchange in their classes by incorporating moregroup work and communicative activities.
Generally, teachers take actions in class toengage and support students on a humane level.

3.4.3
Students as stimulus for action
For all teachers interviewed, interaction withstudents in class is the main influence on action
and adjustments by teachers. (See 3.5.1)
3.5
Educational training and experience
3.5.1
Influence of experience
The most often cited influence for changing theway a class was taught was students in theclassroom. (See also 3.4.3)

3.3.4
View of institution
NS teachers in general were unwilling to
criticize institutions outright and commented on
the difficulty of making comparisons with theirown experiences as students. (See 3.3.2) Somealso cited language barriers and a lack of

3.5.2

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institutional or curriculum level uniformity andguidance.
4. Teachers see motivation as a primary issue,
one that they, not the institution, must resolve inthe classroom.
5. Teachers generally have systems that they
employ in the classroom.
6. Teachers adjust their actions and approaches
based most of all upon the students in any givenclass.
7. Some teachers rejected the role of setting
goals for students beyond the immediateclassroom. On the other hand, others felt thatstudents could and should learn skills andbehaviors applicable to post-university life.

experience
The interviews revealed that NS teachers
generally felt influenced by their own learning
experience and sought to incorporate theirexperiences in classes. As one said, “I recall
what worked or did not work for me and I use or
avoid accordingly.” Quite the opposite, many
NNS teachers said their own learning experience
was not very helpful in their current teaching
because “curriculum and environment were very
different then compared to now” or because“English classes I had were for English (orrelevant) majors.”
3.5.3
Influence of teaching theory
Teachers said they referred to teaching theory
but that it was not in the foreground of theirthoughts when they taught. Some specificallysaid it influenced them not day to day but
semester to semester/over longer periods.
Nonetheless, most teachers identified easily withthe teacher roles presented in the interview
instrument. Thus it appears that theory is present
in a significant way, though not in a manner
identifiable to the interviewees.

References and bibliography
Borg, M. (2001). Teachers’ beliefs. ELT Journal.
55, 2, 186-188.
Borg, S. (2006). Teacher Cognition andLanguage Education. NY: Continuum.
Brown, H. G. (2000). Principles of Language
Learning and Teaching (4th ed.). NY:
Longman.
Hall, E. T. (1966). The Hidden Dimension. NY:
Doubleday.
Hofstede, G. (1986). Cultural differences inteaching and learning. International
Journal of Intercultural Relations. 10,
301-320.
Richards, J. & Lockhart, C. (1996). Reflective
Teaching
inSecondLanguage
Classroom. Cambridge: CUP.
Scharle, Á. & Szabó, A. (2000). Learner
Autonomy. Cambridge: CUP.
Senior, R. M. (2006). The Experience ofLanguage Teaching. Cambridge: CUP.
Strauss, A. & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics ofQualitative
Research(2nded.).
Thousand Oaks: Sage Publisher.
Thompson, I. (2001). Japanese speakers. In M.
Swan & B. Smith (Eds.), Learner
English (2nd ed.), 296-309. Cambridge:
CUP.

3.6

Influence of cultural background andlength of time in Japan
Some native speakers showed a high level ofunderstanding of Japanese students andinstitutions connected in a non-simplified
cultural context.

Conclusion
The following conclusions refer to university
level teachers of English in Japan, NS teachers,
and NNS teachers, the target of this investigation.
These conclusions are generalizations that may
have limited application to the broader
population of English teachers in Japan. The
extent to which these conclusions can begeneralized and more deeply analyzed will be
the focus of a survey to be conducted by theauthors:
1. NS teachers see students and institutions in a
culturally complex context rather than as
simplified or culturally un-integrated actors.
2. University English teachers in Japan haveclear self images as educators and about theirclassroom roles. This group is sophisticated intheir understanding of their work and behaviors.
3. Teachers prefer a certain level of freedom inthe classroom but recognize the need for452

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Consonant clusters by Japanese learners of English
Aya Kitagawa

School of Education, Waseda University
aya@fuji.waseda.jp

1.2
Possible errors by the non-natives
One of the previous studies which suggest how the
non-native speakers repair the consonant clusters
was carried out by Davidson (2006). She conducted
research on pseudo-Czech consonant clusters
spoken by native speakers of English, using theclusters whose first segment was /s/, /f/, /z/ or /v/
and whose second segment was an obstruent or anasal. In her study, she categorized the language
learners’ responses to the target consonant clusters
into the six types: correct, deletion, prothesis, vowel
insertion, segment change and others. “Others” held
the targets which were not produced, had more than
one error, or was impossible to recognize. As aresult, she found that the most frequent error wasvowel insertion and it occurred to all types of theconsonant clusters, most frequently to the initial-/v/
consonant clusters. The second largest error type
was prothesis, and the third was segment change.

Abstract
The present study aims to investigate the consonant
cluster produced by Japanese learners of English.
The speakers who had never taken formal training
in pronunciation participated in this experiment inorder to reveal which consonant clusters arenaturally acquired and which are not without
explicit instruction. The results showed that thedifficulty depended on the component of theconsonant cluster.

Keywords
consonant clusters, acoustic analysis

1

Introduction

1.1

Consonant clusters producedbyJapanese learners of English
The consonant cluster is a sequence of theconsonants within the onset or the coda, and boththe number of consonants and the component
allowed in the cluster are language-dependent. For
instance, the template of the consonant cluster inEnglish and Japanese can be shown as follows;
C03VC04 for English and C02V for Japanese.
Furthermore, the types of the consonant cluster
permitted in Japanese are only geminates andcontracted sounds, such as /katta/ (won) and/kjou/ (today), whereas English holds more variabletypes of the consonant cluster.
Due to this difference of the consonant cluster
among languages, language learners are generally
believed to have some difficulty in pronouncing thesequence of consonants which does not exist in
their native languages. The same is true of Japaneselearners of English since, as mentioned previously,
the consonants clusters allowed in Japanese are far
more limited than those in English. What is more,
many of the textbooks to instruct the English
pronunciation for the native speakers of Japanesepoint out that they tend to insert the vowels between
the consonants of the cluster on the ground that
there is a difference in the basic syllable structure
between English and Japanese. (Igarashi, 1981; Tori
& Kaneko, 1962).

1.3
Articulation of the consonant cluster
Some of the consonant clusters are articulated in aparticular way, which is different from when the
consonant is solely pronounced. They include
incomplete release, nasal release, lateral release,similitude and epenthesis. Firstly, incomplete
release is related with the plosive plus plosive
consonant cluster, whose first segment is not
audibly released. To take an example for this, “act”
is pronounced with the release of /k/ inaudible.
Secondly, nasal release happens to the /tn/ and /dn/consonant clusters, where the plosive of the first
segment is released during /n/. Thirdly, lateralrelease is observed in the production of the /tl/ and/dl/ consonant clusters and is particularly common
in British English. Similar to nasal release, theplosive is released during /l/. Fourthly, similitude is
the phenomena that the feature of one segment
influences that of the other. The example of this isthe voiceless plosive plus voiced approximantconsonant cluster, like /tr/ in “tree.” For thisarticulation, the voicing of the first segment affects
that of the second, which makes the approximant of
the second segment devoiced. Finally, epenthesis
occurs to the /ns/ consonant cluster at the end of theword, as seen in “dance.” Since /n/ is a stop and /s/453

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is homorganic to /n/, it is natural that /t/ is inserted
between /n/ and /s/ when the closure at the alveolar
ridge is released.

2.4
Data analysis
Firs of all, using the acoustic analysis software,
Praat, the segmentation was provided to eachspeech with the spectrogram and the waveform.
Next, the tested tokens were categorized into the six
types; correct, deletion, prothesis, vowel insertion,
segment change and others. Then, when the error
was identified with vowel insertion or prothesis, theduration and the F1 and F2 of the added vowels
were measured. Lastly, using SPSS, the statisticaltests, a one-way repeated-measured ANOVA and apaired samples t-test, were performed.
Several tested tokens were repeated more thanonce in the speech. In the case that the subjects
repaired these consonant clusters in a different way
as the tokens were produced, the most frequent
strategy of repairing was chosen for the analysis.
Moreover, the tokens produced correctly even once
were considered to be correct, even if the subjects
produced the tokens incorrectly in another time. It
must be also noted that the categorization of thetarget tokens was based on the consonant clusters
not on the word. Hence, the token was regarded tobe correct as long as the target consonant clusters
were produced correctly if it had no or one error at
the word level. Consequently, the token “scouts”
pronounced as Zrjntsr\, was, for example, divided
into “correct” when /sk/ was accurate.
Besides, the addition of a sound after theword-end consonant, or paragogue, happened to themany subjects, but this type of errors was notanalyzed here because this response is common to
the consonant at the end of the word, not specific tothe consonant cluster. Therefore, paragogue is not
mentioned in this paper if it is not needed.
In addition, the values of the duration and theF1 and F2 were normalized in order to make itpossible to compare the date across the subjects.
The duration of the inserted vowels was calculatedby dividing it by the duration of the word. As forthe normalization of the F1 and F2 values, thisstudy applied the formula suggested by Labanov(1971): FiN = (Fi-Mi)/σi.

1.4Research questions
The ultimate goal of this study is to develop a way
to teach English pronunciation effectively andefficiently to Japanese learners of English. Then,the present study deals with the consonant cluster,
addressing two research questions. The first iswhich types of consonant clusters are difficult forJapanese learners of English and which are easy.
The second is what acoustic characteristics theconsonant clusters produced by Japanese learners ofEnglish have.

2

Methodology

2.1
Subjects
Twenty-five high school students in the elementary
English class participated in this experiment. They
had never lived in a foreign country for a long
period of time. None of them also had received
formal training in English pronunciation.
2.2
Materials
One of the phonetically balanced passages, “Arthur
the Rat,” was used in this experiment, and theconsonant clusters were picked up from the passage.
The tested tokens were as follows; asked [1],looked [1], cooped [1], stay [3], stood [3], stamping[1], scouts [2], snug [1], joists [2], coughed [1], loft[2], rafters [2], exactly [1] and next [1]. The number
within the square brackets refers to how many times
the tokens were repeated in the passage.
The consonant clusters which accompanied
nasal release, lateral release, similitude and
epenthesis were also investigated, but are notreported in this paper. This is because Japaneselearners of English have difficulties in articulatingthese tokens more at the segmental level than at thecluster level: the confusion of /l/ and /r/ and thesubstitution of nasalized vowels for nasals in acertain context. Further study is, therefore, needed
to reveal the details of the production of these
consonant clusters. Thus, only the tokens above aredealt with in this study.

3

Results and Discussion

3.1
The error types
3.1.1
The plosive + plosive cluster
Table 1 summarizes the results of how the subjects
produced the plosive plus plosive consonant
clusters. As argued in the introduction, the native
speakers generally release the first plosive
inaudibly; therefore, the category “correct” is madeup of two subcategories: incomplete release andcomplete release. When the subjects produced thistype of the consonant clusters without errors butwith audible release, the tokens were classified into
the category “correct but complete release.”

2.3
Recording
The subjects first obtained instructions tocomprehend the vocabulary and the context of thepassage, and then were provided time, from amonth to two months, to practice reading it aloud.
The speech was recorded using a digitalrecorder, Roland R-09, and a condenser microphone,
SONY ECM-MS957. The recording was carried out
in a small room, which was not soundproof but
quiet.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 1: The plosive + plosive clusters
C

D

Pr

In

SC

approximant, “wise,” and a fricative, “his,”
respectively, one of the possible reasons why eventhe same consonant clusters changed into thedifferent segment was that the second segment of
the consonant cluster was affected by the initial
segment of the following word to some degree.

O

IR
CR
asked
0
4
0
6 (2)
11
11
1
looked
0
0
0
6
2
9 (4)
14
cooped0074
10 (2) 08ote: C, D, Pr, In, SC, O, IR and CR stand for correct,
deletion, prothesis, vowel insertion, segment change,others, incomplete release and complete releaserespectively. The number within the parenthesis shows
how many tokens paragogue happened to.

3.1.2
The /s/ + stop cluster
Table 3 presents the results of the production of the/s/ plus stop clusters. Surprisingly, this type of theconsonant clusters was not difficult for the subjects,
despite the fact that many of the pronunciation
textbooks encourage the learners to practice these
consonant clusters. Japanese learners of English
seem to be able to acquire them naturally with no
explicit instructions. The five tokens of “snug” were,
meanwhile, produced incorrectly and all of themwere pronounced as ZrtM\. In addition, a vowel
was inserted for the two tokens of “snug”, but it isprobably because the subjects produced this token
long-duration, failing to recognize this word. In
spite of this, the statistical test confirmed that thetokens did not significantly affect the correct rate of
the /s/ plus stop consonant cluster production, F(1.74, 33.14) = 1.48, p > .05. It suggests that the
subjects were able to produce all of this type of theconsonant clusters correctly, including “snug.”

As illustrated in Table 1, none of the subjects
released the plosive of the first segment inaudibly.
Although four tokens for “asked,” five for “looked”
and eight for “cooped” were produced correctly
without any critical errors, their first segments were
audibly released. Additionally, according to thestatistical test, there was no significant difference inthe correct rate among the three tokens, F (1.82,
34.55) = 1.95, p > .05.
As far as the errors are concerned, the mostfrequent way to repair the plosive plus plosive
consonant clusters was the segment change for all
the tokens, and the second was the vowel insertion.
The deletion was the third largest error type for“asked,” which occurred to the second segment for
all of the four related tokens. More noteworthy is,however, that the subjects often repaired theconsonant clusters using more than one strategy.
This is why some consonant clusters were repairedby changing a segment and inserting a vowel
between the first and second segments of theconsonant clusters at the same time, as indicated inTable 2. In contrast, deletion did not accompany
another type of errors.

Table 3: The /s/ + stop clusters
snug
stay
stood
stamping
scoutsasked
joistsTable 2: The simultaneity of the errors
InSC
SC + In
D

asked
3
3
8
4

looked0860cooped
2
3
5
0

C
18
25
25
24
25
25
24

D
0
0
0
1
0
0
0

Pr
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

In
2
0
0
0
0
0
0

SC
0
0
0
0
0
0
1

O
5
0
0
0
0
0
0

3.1.3
The fricative + fricative cluster
Similar to the /s/ plus stop clusters, the fricative
plus fricative clusters were not demanding for the
subjects regarding the tokens “loft” and “rafters,” asshown in Table 4. One token classified into
“segment change” changed the second segment to avoiceless affricate, /ts/. The statistical test,
moreover, proved that there was no significant
difference in the correct rate in producing these two
tokens, t (24) = -1.00, p > .05.
On the other hand, the result of the token“coughed” needs examining carefully. Most of thetokens which were categorized into “others” in thisexperiment were pronounced as ZjN9s\. One
possible reason is that the subjects were distracted
by the orthography of the token because they did
not recognize or know this word. However, anotherreason is that they deleted the first segment of theconsonant cluster. Although the former would be

Furthermore, there are two points to be noticed
about the segment change for these consonant
clusters. Firstly, the segment change in this type of
consonant cluster happened mostly to the second
segment. Only one token for “asked,” only two for“cooped and no tokens for “looked” changed theirfirst segments. Secondly, to what segment the target
clusters changed was dependent on the context.
While the tokens “asked” and “looked” both havethe /kt/ consonant cluster, the former was mostfrequently changed to the /k/ plus a flap; the latter
was most likely to be changed to the /k/ plus anapproximant. Taking into account that “looked” and“asked” were followed by the word starting with an455

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

more likely considering that the subjects were all inthe elementary class, it is impossible to define
precisely which category these errors should be
divided into, “deletion” or “others.” In this paper,
therefore, the word pronounced as ZjN9s\ wascategorized into “deletion” tentatively whereas theword pronounced as ZjN9e\ into “deletion.” At any
rate, there is a possibility that the recognition rate ofthis token would be much lower than that of theother two tokens, so this token “coughed” wasexcluded from the statistical test.

added after the word-final consonant. Therefore, itwould imply that the former type of the vowels had
fewer factors that affected their segmental features
than the latter type of the vowels.
2.5

1.5

0.5

-0.5

-2
-1.5
-1
-0.5

0.5

C
8
24
25

coughedloft
rafters

D
2
0
0

Pr
0
0
0

In
0
0
0

1

SC
0
1
0

1.5

O
13
0
0

Figure 1: The F1 and F2 of the inserted vowels
Table 6 shows the duration of the inserted
vowels for the five tokens above. The simple
comparison is not appropriate since the token“exactly” for the plosive plus fricative cluster has
eight segments whereas the others, four or fivesegments. Hence, this paper simply reports that theinserted vowels were approximately 100 ms long.

3.1.4
The plosive + fricative cluster
The results demonstrated in Table 5 represent thatthe plosive plus fricative consonant clusters, /gz/
and /ks/, were not easy for the Japanese learners ofEnglish. Furthermore, the statistical test showed thetwo tokens were not significantly affected by thevoicing, t (21) = -1.56, p > .05.
Most of the subjects changed the first segment
into either a fricative or an approximant. Regarding“exactly,” /g/ was changed to the voiced fricative
for the four tokens and to the approximant for theeleven tokens. Concerning “next,” /k/ was changed
to the voiceless fricative for the eleven tokens andto the approximant for the two tokens. In otherwords, the subjects reduced the stricture to produce
this type of the consonant clusters. The reason why/g/ tended to be produced by reducing the stricture
up to the degree of the approximant, compared with/k/, would be that voiced fricatives require moreenergy than voiceless ones because of the vocal foldvibration, which promoted the learners to change
the manner of /g/ more radically for producing it.

Table 6: The duration of the inserted vowels
Plo+Plo
Plo+Fri
Mean
0.136
0.076
S.D.
0.091
0.035
ote: Plo stands for plosive and Fri for fricative.

4

C
4
9

D
0
1

Pr
0
0

In
4
2

Pa
0
0

SC
15
13

Conclusion

To conclude, this study revealed not all types of theconsonant clusters were difficult to Japaneselearners of English. In the present study, it was
obvious that the /s/ plus stop and fricative plus
fricative clusters were produced accurately without
vowel insertion or critical segment change; theconsonant clusters containing the plosive were
problematic, though the difficulty slightly varies
from token to token. Taking these findings into
account, the effective and efficient instruction of theconsonant cluster is hoped to be provided.

Table 5: The plosive + fricative clusters
exactlynext-2.5

cooped incooped paraexactly
next

0Table 4: The fricative + fricative clusters-1.5

asked inasked para
looked inlooked para

-2.5

O
3
0

References
Davidson, L. (2006). Phonology, phonetics, or
frequency: Influences on the production of
non-native sequences. Journal of Phonetics,
34, 104-137.
Igarashi, S. (1981). English - Its vocal expression.
Tokyo: Nanundo
Lobanov, B. M. (1971). Classification of Russianvowels spoken by different speakers.
Journal of the acoustical society of America,
49, 606-608.
Tori, T. & Kaneko, N. (1962). The pronunciation ofEnglish. Tokyo: Taishukan.

3.2
The acoustic features
In Figure 1, the values of F1 and F2 are plotted on
the y axis and the x axis respectively. These values
are from the inserted vowels for “asked,” “looked,”“cooped,” “exactly” and “next. As a reference, theF1 and F2 values of vowels added to the word end,
paragogue, are also plotted in the same figure. As
far as the visual observation goes, there appears a
general tendency that the quality of the vowels
inserted between the first and second segment wasless variable, compared with that of the vowels

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Using, not knowing traditional Chinese characters affect Kanji recognition by Japanese:
A MEG case study
Yoko Okita
International Exchange Center, Tokyo Medical and Dental University
yokita.isc@tmd.ac.jp
window 100-300ms post-stimulus. This example
replicated what Pylkkaen and Marant (2003)
found in English word recognition. M100 was
not found in all participants, whereas M170 was
found in all participants. Therefore, the ratiosof M170 in magnitude of M170 were comparedin this paper.
M100 M170 M250

Abstract
We scanned brain activities while Japanese,
Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean native speakers
passively watched the five types of charactersusingmagneoonchpalography(MEG).
Participants graduate or undergraduate students
living in the Tokyo are. The MEG wave
pattern of a female Japanese participant who haslearned Chinese and had lived in Taiwan for two
years was different from that of other Japaneseparticipants who have not studied Chinese. The
MEG wave patterns of the female participant ofcomplex Japanese Kanji and traditional Chinesecharacters are the almost same, while those ofother Japanese participants are different. The
female participant with a history of living in
Taiwan for two years recognized the traditional
Chinese characters and the complex Japanesecharacters in the same way, while Japaneseparticipants without a history of living Taiwan
recognized differently.
Using Chinesecharacters does affect recognition pattern, but
not knowing Chinese characters. This result
presents a neurological evidence to show theimportance of using, not knowing of language,
in language processing and learning.

Figure 1: A representative MEG from a male
Chinese native speaker who saw Kanji stimuli.
Although, in East Asian regions, Japan, China,
Taiwan and Korea, Chinese characters have been
the main writing system for long time, Chinesecharacters have been simplified and used very
differently in each region in the past 60 years.
In terms of simplification, traditional characters
are used in Taiwan and Korea. Japan and China
use different simplified characters. For example,
廣 広 广 are the same one Chinese character
which means “wide”. 廣 is the traditional
character used in Taiwan and Korea. 広 is Kanjicharacter which is the Japanese simplified
version, and 广 is the simplified version in
China. The way of using Chinese characters arealso different in each region. In China andTaiwan only Chinese characters are used. In
Japan, besides Chinese characters, Japaneseoriginal syllabograms, Hiragana and Katakana
are used together. That is three different
writing systems are used simultaneously inJapanese.
In Korea, Korean characters,
Hangeul (뱌) is the main writing system.
Chinese characters are used very limited

Keywords
Learning experience, Kanji recognition, MEG

Introduction
According to previous English word recognition
studies using MEG (e.g., Pylkkaen and Marant,
2003), three magnetic fields, M100, M170, andM250 were observed when English words arepresented visually, M100 appears after around
100 ms onset. M100, M170, and M260 appear
after around 100 ms, 170ms, and 250ms onset
respectively. It has been supposed that M100
reflects primary graphic analysis of a character,
M170 reflects more complicated graphic
analysis and M250 reflects graphic tophonological analysis.
Figure 1 shows a
representative MEG when Kanji stimuli werepassively presented to a male Chinese native
speaker. The three major responses, M100,
M170, and M250 were observed around the time457

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

number of stroke order of Kanji 1 was 7.93. The
average number of stroke order of Kanji2 andtraditional Chinese were 11.3 and 10.9
respectively. Some simple Chinese characters
are the same in the three systems, simplified
Chinese (Chinese), traditional Chinese (Taiwan)
and Japanese (Kanji), such as 山（mountain）.
Kanji 1 consisted of the characters which are thesame in the three systems. Some simplified
Chinese and Kanji are the same, whereas thecounterpart in traditional characters is different.
For example, a character meaning “study” iswritten as 学 in Chinese and Kanji, whereas thesame character is written 學 in Taiwan. The
simplified character stimuli were equivalent for
the traditional character stimuli characters.
Further, there were no equivalent characters for
those stimuli in Kanji. Thus the 80 Chinese
stimuli are unique in Chinese and the 80 Taiwan
stimuli are unique in traditional Chinesecharacters. It is easily suspected that Chinesecharacter recognition processes are affected by
the number of stroke. Therefore, we made thenumbers of stroke of stimuli in Taiwan andKanji 2 almost the same.

occasions such as in personal names, in acornerstone, or in the headline of newspapers. A
Hangeul character represents one Koreansyllable. Korean people study traditional
Chinese characters up to high school. Therefore,
they know Chinese characters as knowledge,
however, they do not use Chinese characters.
Especially Korean people do not write Chinesecharacters so often in daily life. In Japan most ofJapanese learn traditional Chinese characterswhen they study Japanese and Chinese classics
in secondary schools. However, traditional
Chinese characters are not often used in daily
life in Japan. Traditional Chinese characters areoccasionally used in personal nouns, such as
family names. Japanese people mightoccasionally see traditional Chinese characters,
but they seldom write like Korean. Japaneseknow traditional Chinese characters as
knowledge; however, they do not use them daily.
This paper reports the ratios of M170
magnitude of the female Japanese participant
who had studied Chinese and had lived in
Taiwan for two years and one Taiwan-Japanesebilingual and discusses how the use of Chinesecharacters in daily life affects the pattern of kanji
recognition.

1.3 Procedure
Each stimulus (black letter with whitebackground) was presented for 100ms followedby blank (white background) for around 1
second. Each stimuli group had 80 items (total
400 items). Four hundred items were divided
into 40 blocks. Each block consists of randomly
arranged 10 stimuli. The counter traditional
character of a simplified Chinese was notincluded in the same block. Namely,处(Chinese) and 處 (Taiwanese) were not in thesame block. There was a 2 second resting time
between blocks.
The participants were
instructed to blink during the resting time.
Neuromagnetic data were recorded with Bti
Magnes 2500, a whole-head MEG system with148 channels at a sampling rate 254.31 H withhigh pass filter 1.0Hz、and bandwidth 50Hz.
After removing trials in which amplitudes
exceeded 4000ft and filtered at 50Hz, the data
were averaged by stimulus groups.

1. Method
1.1 Participants
The participants are 16 (9 male, 7 female)
Japanese university students who are native
speaker of Japanese and one female
Taiwan-Japanese bilingual university student.
The mean ages of Japanese participants were24.3(SD=2.20). The Taiwan-Japanese bilingual
participant was 23 years old at the time of theexperiment. The father and mother of
Taiwan-Japanese bilingual participant isJapanese are Taiwanese and Japanese
respectively. Although the Taiwan-Japanesebilingual participant was born, graduated fromhigh school in Taiwan and was studying at auniversity in Tokyo, she travelled back and forth
between Taiwan and Japan. All participants wereright handed and had normal or corrected normal
vision.
1.2 Stimuli
Visual stimuli consist of five groups, Kanji 1 (山,simple Chinese character in Japanese), Kanji 2(講, complex Chinese character in Japanese),
Hangeul characters 마, simplified Chinese 广,
and traditional Chinese ( 廣 ). The average

1.4. Analysis
MEG wave data were transformed to RMS (rootmean square) wave forms. And then average The
areas for M170 (around 120-200ms) werecomputed based on RMS waves. Further, theratios of Kanji2, Hanguel, Chinese and Taiwan

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

were processed differently from Kanji 1,
simplified Chinese, and Korean characters.
Kanji 2 and traditional Chinese showed clear
M170 components, whereas other groups did not.
Kanji 2 and traditional Chinese charactersrequired more energy to process Chinesecharacter forms, whereas the other groups
required little energy. It is also seemed that
Korean characters were slightly differently
processed from Kanji 1 and simplified Chinese.
The numbers of stroke of simplified Chinese andKanji 1 were not the same. Therefore, thenumber of stroke is less likely the key for
determining the difference in kanji recognition
process. It seemed that the Japanese participant
1 processed Kanji 2 and traditional Chinesecharacters in a very similar way. This result
suggests that learning and using experience oftraditional Chinese characters might affect kanji
recognition process.
Figure 4 shows the ratios of the five stimuli of
female Japanese participant 1 and the female
Taiwan-Chinese bilingual participant. Unlike
the Japanese participant 1, the Taiwan-Japanesebilingual participant processed only Kanji 2differently from the other four groups.

to Kanji 1 in M170 were calculated in eachparticipant.

2

Result and Discussion

Figure 2 shows ratios of the five stimuli in the 16
Japanese participants. It appears that individual
differences are large in the reaction to thedifferent characters.

Figure 2: Ratios of the five stimuli in the 16
Japanese participants
An interesting result was found in the Japaneseparticipant 1 who had studied Chinese and lived
in Taiwan. The Japanese participant 1 seemed toclassify the five groups into two, one groupconsists of Kanji 2 and traditional Chinese, andthe other group consists of Kanji 1, simplified
Chinese and Korean characters. Other Japaneseparticipants without the experience of learning
Chinese and living in Taiwan did not classify thegroup into two as clear as the Japaneseparticipant 1.
M170 of Kanji 2 and traditional Chinesecharacters

Figure 4: Ratios of the five stimuli of Japaneseparticipant 1 and the Taiwan-Japanese bilingual
participant.
Figure 5 shows RMS wave forms of the fivestimuli of the Taiwan-Japanese bilingual
participant. The magnitude of M170 of Kanji 2
is quite larger than the others. It is clearly
showed that only Kanji 2 was processed
differently and required much more energy toanalyze character forms compared with the otherfour groups. Although Kanji 2 and traditional
Chinese character are almost same in thenumbers of stroke, only Kanji 2 was required
much more energy to process the character

Figure 3:RMS wave forms of the five stimuliof the Japanese participant 1 from 30-310 ms
onset.
Figure 3 shows the RMS waves of the Japaneseparticipant 1. The RMS wave pattern also
showed that Kanji 2 and traditional Chinese459

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

forms. It appears that for the Taiwan-Japanesebilingual participant, only Kanji 2 were foreign
characters. Probably for the Taiwan-Japaneseparticipant, traditional Chinese characters are thefirst “character” and Japanese kanji is the second“character”. Kanji 1 might be a part of the first“character”.
Simplified Chinese characters
might be foreign to the participant. However, thestructure of simplified Chinese characters isquite simple and the numbers of stroke are also
smaller than those of traditional Chinesecharacters and Kanji 2. Therefore, the magnitudeof only Kanji 2 was predominant.

References
Pylkkänen, L., & Marantz, A. (2003). Tracking thetime course of word recognition with
MEG, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(5),187-189

M170 of Kanji 2

Figure 5: RMS wave forms of the five stimuli of
the Taiwan-Japanese bilingual participant from30 -400 ms onset
This case suggests that Kanji 2 is foreign to
Taiwanese, even if the numbers of stroke Kanji 2and traditional Chinese characters are almost thesame.

3 Conclusion
A Japanese participant, who had experience oflearning and living in Taiwan, processed
complex Kanji and traditional Chinese characterin the same way. Other Japanese participants
who have not studied Chinese and lived in
Taiwan processed Kanji 2 and traditional
Chinese characters in different ways. Most ofJapanese had learned traditional Chinesecharacters during secondary school days.
Therefore, Japanese university students know
traditional Chinese characters as a knowledge,
even if use of traditional Chinese characters are
not common. A Taiwan-Japanese bilingual
participant seemed to process Kanji 2 as foreign
characters. It appears that using, not knowing,
Chinese characters do affect kanji recognition
process.

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Investigating the Effects of English E-Tutoring in a Junior High
Afterschool Program
Hung-Hsuan Kao
Jinwen University of Science & Technology
alex@alexkao.net
Abstract
With the adevent of techonology, applying

schools. In 2006, the Ministry of Education

E-learning platforms in instruction has(MOE), Taiwan initated projects aimed at

become a trend. This study investigated theprovidingeffects of applying an E-learning platform

programs for elementary and junior highfor English tutoring in an afterschool

schools in rural areas. As students in rural

program in a junior high school in Tiawan.

areas have fewer resources for learning and

The sample of the study came from a junior

the public transportation for them to gohigh school in a rural area in northern

downtown is inconvenient. Thus, school

Taiwan. A survey method was used to gather

authorities and students view the afterschool

the data for analysis. It analyzed theprogram as a great opportunity for students

participants’ attitudes towards using a new

to improve their academic work. During thetechnology system to learn English and theirpast three years, a great number of students

learning results. The results of this study

have benefited from the online synchronous

add to the literature of applying computer

one-to-one tutoring in afterschool programs.

for assisting language learning.

More and more schools are interested inafterschool

onlinetutoring

joining the project to help their students to
Keywords

gain more education opportunities.

Computer-assisted language learningThis study reports one of the projects(CALL), E-learning platform, Joinnet

in the MOE online tutoring programs
conducted by the researcher in northern

1. Introduction
The

21st

Taiwan. It investigated the effects ofcenturyistermedone-to-one

theEnglishtutoring

inan

Information Age. As it’s coming, theafterschool program in a junior high school

information technology and Internet havein the researcher’s county by applying an

brought great influence on our life andE-learning platform, JoinNet.

education. Applying E-learning platforms in
instruction has been a trend. Recently it has

2. Theoretical framework

also been used in one-to-one tutoring inSynchronous

communication

afterschool programs, especially for rural

increasingly

incorporated

461

has

into

been
secondProceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

language instruction to expand learners’

encouraging and providing constructive

exposure to the target language throughfeedback. As an asessor, the tutor check toreal-time interaction. When learners engage

ensure that learners have achieved thein interaction, they receive input, feedback,learning objectives. The tutors in this projectand opportunities to produce modified

hopes to play the role as recommended byoutput. All of the above facilitate theShepherd (1999).

development of learners’ new language

3. The project(Long & Robinson, 1998; Swain & Lapkin,1995). Providing more opportunities forTwenty tutees participated in thislearners to practice using the new language

afterschool tutoring program. They took thishelps them achieve better learning results.

chance to learn English. Some of them

Recently,

with

the

of

volunteered to join the program, while sometechnology, E-learning platforms have beenof them were recommended by theircreated to provide not only synchronous

teachers. This means that not all of theaudio interaction but also synchronous

students fell behind or were low achievers.

face-to-faceStudents attended the class for two hours

interaction.

adventFor

example,JoinNet is the platform used widely foronce a week.

online courses. The face-to-face function

Twenty tutors were recruited from theoffers opportunities for learners to have realresearcher’s department. They had taken theinteractions to practice their English skills in

researcher’smore authentic and communicative setting.

learning in the previous semester. FourIt allows for real-time oral communictiaon

workshops on how to use the equipment andamong students and between students andthe platform, how to provide assistance fortutors (Hampel & Hauck, 2004).

English learners, how to deliver English

computer-assisted

language

JoinNet has been used in Taiwan forlessons with supplementary materials, andonline tutoring afterschool programs inguidelines for dealing with frustrating

elementary schools and junior high schools

teaching experiences were arranged. Besides,

in rural areas. What are the online tutoring

parties for getting to know about each otherskills? According to Shepherd (1999), there

were arranged, one at the tutors’ school andare many potential roles for the tutor. Threeof the most important are as a subject expert,

one at the tutees’ scool.
As this is a one-to-one synchronousa coach, and an assessor. As a subject expert,

tutoring program. One tutor and one tutee

the tutor is to supplement self-study

are in a party. The equipment for the person

materials, which can fill in any gaps, clarify

in each side includes a computer, a

any misunderstandings, and point learners toheadphone, a microphone, a webcam, and asources of information. As a coach, the tutor

sketch pad. Both the school systems need tois responsible for helping the learner toprovide the Internet connection. Figure 1

achieve their learning goals by challenging,shows the diagram of the equipment needed462

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguisticsof the tutee’s English midterm and final

in this project.

exams were collected for analysis.

4. The results
4.1 Student demongraphics
The students’ demomgraphics are presented
in Table 1. Eight male students and twelve
Figure 1: The Equipment for thefemal students participated in this project.

One-to-One Tutoring Afterschool Program

They are eighth graders, the second year in
the junior high school. One student isthirteen years old, thirteen are fourteen years

In this project, an E-lerning platform,

old, and six are fifteen years old.

JoinNet, is used as the platform for tutors
and tutees to communicate. Figure 2 shows

Table 1:Students’ Background Information

the interface of JoinNet. The Ministry of
Education provides JoinNet platform for

Genderboth schools running and joining the project.
JoinNetisthe

HomeMeeting’s

client

Numer

%

Male

8

40

Female1260

software, connecting to the HomeMeeting

Age

Server, for video matting, white-board

13 Years old

15

presentation, synchronized web browsing,

14 Years old

13

65

desktop and application sharing, remote PC

15 Years old

630

control, and recoding file playback.
4.2 Students’ learning results
How have students performed in theiracademic work? Data were collected fromstudents’

twoschool-held

midterm

academic tests in March and May. Figure 3
shows the comparision of the two test result
scores (Spring 2009-1 and Spring 2009-2).
Spring 2009-1

Spring 2009-2

100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Figure 2: The Interface of JoinNet
The program lasted for 15 weeks in asemester. At the end of the program, aquestionnaire was administered to the tutee

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

to gain their perspectives of the effects ofStudents

the online tutoring. In addition, the results

Figure 3: Comparing Students’ Test Scores463

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Comparing the two test results, themeasuring the students’ attitudes towards

researcher finds that students have madeusing the platform for English learning,

progresses. Among the twenty students,using a 5-point Likert scale (5: strongly

thirteen students scored higher in the second

agree, 4: agree, 3: neutral, 2: disagree, 1:

time than the first time. Overall, it shows

strongly dagree). Responses to the fifteenthat students have benefited from thisitems yielded high internal consistency

tutoring program.

(Cronbach’s alpha=0.893). The means ofthirteen items are higher than 4. One item,
Item 2, has a mean of 3.9, which is close to

4.3 Students’ attitude analysis
thethe statement of agree. One item (Item 5)questionnaire are shown in Table 2. See

has the mean of 3.55. In sum, students show

Appendix

positive attitudes towards the tutoringThe

results

of

A

for

the
the

data

from

items

in

the

program.

questionnaire.

Analyzing the items, the study finds
Table2: Result of Students’ Attitudes

that first students feel excited and happy

towards E-learning Platforms.

attending this online after-school tutoring
program (see Item 8, 9 and10). Second, theonline after-school tutoring program is
helpful for students to study English andthey think their English has been improved(see Item 2, 3, and 12). Third, as to thefunctions of the tutors, one to one tutoring
can help students have more interactions
with the teacher, make them feel safe to ask
questions,

get

the

teacher’s

response

instantly, and help them understand the parts
that she/he didn’t understand. (see Item 1,
11, 13, and 14).
Fouth, about the ease of using thepaltfom, students agree that the platform iseasy to understand and use (see Item 6 and
7). Lastly, students express that they hope toparticipate in the school’s next online
after-school tutoring program again (seeItem 15). As literature indicates, whenlearners engage in interaction, they receive
The questionnaire was designed by the

input,

researcher.

produce modified output (Long & Robinson,Itconsisted

of

15

items

464

feedback,

andopportunities

toProceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

1998; Swain & Lapkin, 1995). This study

the most assistance in learning. It adds tofinds that this online tutoring program

the literature of appling computer-assisted

facilitates the development of learners new

language

language learning.

pedagogical implications for researchers andlearning.

It

hopes

to

offer

educators who are interested in researchingItems 5 did not have a mean higher

this topic.

than 4 to show participants agreed with thisstatement. This item asks, “Using JoinNet in
the tutoring program, I can hear the teacher

6. References and appendicesand see the images clearly.” The reasons

6.1 References

why this item did not achieve a higher mean

Hampel, R., & Hauck, M. (2004). Towards

is due to the technology problem—thean effective of audio conferencing incomputers at the students’ school are notdistance language courses, Language

very new and efficient, and the brandwith of

Learning & Technology,8 (1), 66-82.

Internet connection is not fast enough. The

Retrieved on June 20, 2009, form

above problems have been reported andhttp://llt.msu.edu/vol8num1/hampel/de

discussed by their school teachers and thefault.html

resercher. The junior high school needs to

Lee, L. (2008). Focus-on-form throughupdate their computer system. Thus, after

collaborative scaffolding inthis summer, the Government of Taipei

expert-to-novice online interaction.

County will update the computers for thisLamguage Learning & Technology,

school. It hopes to provide tutors and tutees

12(3), 53-72.

with better equipment for participating inLong, M. H., & Robinson, P. (1998). Focus

this program.

on form: Theory, research and practice.
In C. Doughty & J. Williams (Eds.),

5. Conclusion
This

study

improved

Focus on form in second language

finds

their

that

Englishstudents
inacquisition (pp. 15-41). Cambridge:

have

Cambridge University Press.

academic

performace and they show positive attitudes

Shepherd, C. (1999). Online tutoring skills.

toward using E-learning platforms for theirTactix. Retrieved on June 20, 2009,

tutoring. This online tutoring programfromprovides studenst in rural schools have an

http://www.fastrak-consulting.co.uk/ta

opportunity to have a scenario which is

ctix/features/tutoring/tutoring.htm

similar to a face-to-face learning contex. It

Swain, M., & Lapkin, S. (1995). Problems

also gives studenst the opportunity to havein output and the cognitive processes

interaction with able learners, the tutor.

they generate: A step towards second

This

study

has

demonstrated

language learning. Applied Linguistics,an16(3), 371–391.

approach to implement technology ineductaion to those EFL learners who need465

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

6.2 Appendices13

In the one-to-one online

Appexndix A. The Questionnaire

after-school tutoring program, I

Item Questions

feel safe to ask questions.

1

2

3

I think the instruction mode of14

one-to-one can help me have more

can help me better understand theinteractions with the teacher.

parts that I don’t understand.

I think the online after-school

15

school’s online after-school

to study English.

tutoring program again.

After participating in the online
think my English has been
improved.
I think the instruction mode of
one-to-one in the online
after-school tutoring program is
helpful for my English learning.

5

6. Using JoinNet in the tutoring
program, I can hear the teacher andsee the images clearly.

6

I think the JoinNet platform is easy
to use.

7

I think the interface of the JoinNet
platform is easy to understand.

8

When I participate in the online
after-school tutoring program, I
feel very happy.

9

When I participate in the online
after-school tutoring program, I
feel very excited.

10

When I participate in the online
after-school tutoring program, I
feel I have a lot of expectations.

11

When I use the whiteboard on theplatform, I can get the teacher’s
response instantly.

12

I hope I can participate in thetutoring program is helpful for meafter-school tutoring program, I

4My teacher in the tutoring program

I think the online after-school
tutoring program is helpful for me.

466

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The Acquisition of Restrictive Relative Clauses by Japanese and Korean
Learners of English
Hiromasa Ohba1, Kenichi Yamakawa2, Naoki Sugino3, Yuko Shimizu4, Michiko Nakano5

1

Joetsu University of Education, 2Yasuda Women’s University, 3, 4Ritsumeikan University,
5

Waseda University

hohba@jien.ac.jp, kyamakaw@yasuda-u.ac.jp, gwisno@is.ritsumei.ac.jp, yuko
s@ec.ritsumei.ac.jp, nakanom@waseda.jp

which are considered one of the most difficult
grammatical constructions for Japanese learners ofEnglish as a foreign language (EFL) to learn. Oneof the studies which investigated the acquisition of
restrictive relative clauses in English showed thatJapanese can acquire wh-movement in restrictive
relative clause formation, which is not involved inrelative clause constructions in Japanese, and besensitive to a constraint in wh-movement in English(Ohba et al., 2006). It is also said that there is no
wh-movement involved in relative clause formationin Korean.
Therefore, this study examines the acquisitionof restrictive relative clauses by Japanese andKorean EFL learners in terms of similarities anddifferences in their task performances on thesegrammatical constructions in English.

Abstract
The present study examines the acquisition ofEnglish restrictive relative clauses by Japanese andKorean learners of English. Previous studies haveshown that Japanese learners of English can acquire
wh-movement in relative clause formation, which is
not involved in relative clause formation in
Japanese, and be sensitive to a constraint in
wh-movement in English. It is also said that there is
no wh-movement involved in restrictive relative
clauses in Korean. A grammatical judgment task
was administered to university-level Japanese andKorean learners of English in order to explore theirknowledge of restrictive relative clauses. They wereasked to read the test sentences and rate theirgrammaticality on the 5-point scale indicated. Then,
34 Japanese and 34 Korean learners (intermediateand high-intermediate proficiency groups ofEnglish) were selected on the basis of the scores of
the test aiming to measure their proficiency of the
English grammar. Their task performances werecompared in terms of (1) whether there is any
difference in the grammaticality judgment on thesurface morphological properties of restrictive
relative clause constructions between Japanese andKorean learners of English, and (2) whether there isany difference in sensitivity to the Subjacency
violations in restrictive relative clause constructions
between Japanese and Korean learners of English.

1.

Theoretical background

In English, relative clause constructions areformed by a relative operator being extracted fromthe relative clause domain and being moved to theposition after the relative head which is being
modified (i.e., man), as in (1).
(1) The man [who(m)i [I saw t i yesterday]] is John.
Within the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995;
1998), overt movement is only allowed when it ismotivated by the presence of a strong formalfeature. English has the feature [+R] in
Complementizer (C), which drives relative-operator
movement, as in (1) (Takeda, 1999).
Since in the case of operator-oriented relative
clause as in English relative clause constructions,the relation between the relative head and its
associated relative clause is established by bindingof the relative pronoun by the relative head, they
are subject to the Subjacency condition, a constraint
on wh-movement, as in (2). This constraint
specifies that wh-movement cannot cross more than

Keywords
restrictive relative clauses, wh-movement, surface
morphological properties, Subjacency

Introduction
One of the research topics in the field of second
language (L2) acquisition is to explain how adultL2 learners develop their knowledge of syntax(Hawkins, 2001). The present study focuses on theacquisition of English restrictive relative clauses,

467

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

grammaticality judgment task was designed. This
test includes 32 target and 13 filler sentences. The
sentences in the task fell into the following 3
groups, as in (1) to (3) (with 10 categories) (seeAppendix).

one bounding node, where bounding nodes are
inflectional phrase (IP) and noun phrase (NP).
(2) *a gentlemen [whoi the suit [that ti is wearing] isdirty](1) The sentences involving the following 3 typesof grammatical relative clauses(a) Category 1: Relative clauses with awh-operater (7 items)(b) Category 2: Relative clauses with acomplementizer that (4 items)(c) Category 3: Relative clauses with a null
operator and a null complementizer (3 items)(2) The sentences involving the following 2 typesof ungrammatical relative clauses(a) Category 4: Relative clauses with a doublyfilled complementizer (who(m) that/whichthat) (4 items)(b) Category 5: Relative clauses with a resumptive
pronoun (4 items)(3) The sentences violating Subjacency conditionsin the following 5 relative clause construction
types(a) Category 6: Relative clauses with an extraction
from a relative clause (2 items)(b) Category 7: Relative clauses with an extraction
from a sentential subject (two items)(c) Category 8: Relative clauses with an extraction
from an adjunct island (2 items)(d) Category 9: Relative clauses with an extraction
from an embedded question (wh-island) (2items)(e) Category 10: Relative clauses with an
extraction from a complex NP (2 items)

On the other hand, in Japanese, such a relative
operator movement is not included in relative
clause constructions due to the lack of relative
operators and the relative head modified is put after
the relative clause, showing no Subjacency
condition. It is also stated that there is no
wh-movement involved in relative clauses in
Korean, indicating no Subjacency condition.

2.

The study

The aim of the present study is to investigate theacquisition of restrictive relative clauses byJapanese and Korean EFL learners. The researchquestions addressed here are as follows:(1) Is there any difference in the grammaticality
judgment on the surface morphologicalproperties of restrictive relative clause
constructions between Japanese and Korean EFL
learners?
(2) Is there any difference in sensitivity to the
Subjacency violations in restrictive relative
clause constructions between Japanese andKorean EFL learners?
2.1
Participants
Experimental participants were adult native
speakers of Japanese and Korean (university
students). On the basis of the scores of the test
called MEG (Measure of English Test) (Shimizu etal., 2003, 2006), which we developed to measurelearners’ proficiency of the English grammar, 34Japanese and 34 Korean learners were selected andclassified into 2 proficiency groups of English,
respectively (J1 and K1 are intermediate and J2 andK2 are high-intermediate groups). Details of thenumber of participants and the scores on the MEG
in each group are summarized in Table 1.

Test items were randomized, and theparticipants were asked to read the test sentences
and rate their grammaticality on a 5-point scale
indicated. They were told that 5 meant that thesentence was ‘completely grammatical’, 1 that itwas ‘completely ungrammatical’, and 2, 3, and 4
were gradations used if they thought the sentence
was more or less grammatical. Detailed instructions
were given on the use of the scale before testing,and there were initial practice items for information
before the test began.
In scoring the responses from the participants,
we calculated the ‘distance’ of a response from thecorrect answer. In other words, if there were any
discrepancy between the response and the correct
answer, that discrepancy was reduced from the full
mark of 4. For example, if a participant judged agrammatical sentence as “5”, s/he would gain 4
points. If an ungrammatical sentence was judged“5”, that response was converted to 0 points. We
believe this way of scoring would be more

Table 1: Details of Participants
J1
J2
K1
K2

N
18
16
15
19

M
16.83
25.50
17.13
25.37

SD
3.47
3.50
3.70
2.27

2.2
Materials and Procedure
In order to investigate the acquisition of restrictive
relative clause constructions, especially focusing onwhether Japanese and Korean EFL learners canacquire wh-movement or not, a written
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Interestingly, there is no statistically significant
difference between Japanese high-intermediategroup (J2) and Korean intermediate group (K1). IN
the case of Subjacency violation types, there no
statistically significant difference among them.

informative than the binary scoring.

3.

Results and discussion

The results of the grammatical relative clauses with
wh-operator (Category 1), complementizer that
(Category 2), null operator or complementizer(Category 3), the ungrammatical relative clauses
with who(m) that or which that (Category 4) andresumptive pronoun (Category 5) are presented inTables 2 and Figure 1, which compares the meanscores for the four English proficiency groups. In
both grammatical and ungrammatical relative
clauses, participants’ mean scores should approach
4 (maximum score) if they judge correctly, andtheir mean scores should approach 0 (minimumscore) if they judge incorrectly.
The results show that there are no significant
differences in mean scores between Japanese (J1)and Korean (K1) intermediate groups and between
Japanese (J2) and Korean (K2) high-intermediategroups in all the grammatical and ungrammatical
relative clauses.

Table 3: Grammaticality Judgment Scores on
Subjacency Violations
J1
J2
K1
K2

M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD

Cat. 6

Cat. 7

Cat. 8Cat. 9Cat. 10

1.88
0.63
2.12
0.86
2.35
0.76
2.86
0.71

1.82
0.54
2.34
0.70
2.22
0.89
2.75
0.69

1.84
0.64
2.30
0.62
2.27
0.83
2.88
0.54

2.16
0.70
2.61
0.64
2.47
0.83
2.97
0.49

2.02
0.75
2.37
0.71
2.32
0.76
2.69
0.55

3.50

3.00

2.50

2.00

Table 2: Grammaticality Judgment Scores on
Relative Clause Constructions
J1
J2
K1
K2

M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD

Cat. 1

Cat. 2

Cat. 3Cat. 4

Cat. 5

2.23
0.68
2.55
0.61
2.44
0.69
2.67
0.53

2.37
0.78
2.75
0.75
2.36
0.64
2.93
0.46

2.19
0.83
2.31
0.73
2.35
0.61
2.52
0.58

2.30
0.65
2.45
0.59
2.34
0.70
2.38
0.83

2.09
0.78
2.23
0.97
2.31
0.86
2.68
0.83

J1
J2
K1
K2

1.50

1.00
Category 6

Category 7

Category 8

Category 9

Category 10

Figure 2: Grammaticality Judgment Scores on
Subjacency Violations
As Korean EFL learners approach the higher
level of English proficiency, they become moresensitive to Subjacency violation than Japanese
EFL learners with equivalent English proficiency,
which means that Korean EFL learners can easilyacquire wh-movement in restrictive relative clause
constructions.

3.50

3.00

2.50

4.
2.00
J1
J2
K1
K2

1.50

1.00
Category 1

Category 2

Category 3

Category 4

Conclusion

The findings of this study are that there was aproficiency-related increase in possible correct
judgement on Subjacency violations, but there is adifference in their rating Subjacency violations
between adult Japanese and Korean EFL learners
with nearly equal proficiency of English (bothintermediate and high-intermediate groups). It calls
for further consideration.

Category 5

Figure 1: Grammaticality Judgment Scores on
Relative Clause Constructions
Table 3 and Figure 2 give the results ofSubjacency violations, which are wh-movements
out of relative clauses (Category 6), sentential
subjects (Category 7), adjunct islands (Category 8),
embedded questions (Category 9) and complex NPs(Category 10), rated by the four English proficiency
groups.
The results indicate that Korean (K2)high-intermediate proficiency group performed
better than the other three proficiency groups.

References
Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. (1998). Minimalist inquiries: The
framework. MIT occasional papers inlinguistics. No. 15.
Hawkins, R. (2001). Second language syntax: A
generative introduction. Malden, MA:
Blackwell.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

24.*This is the soup which Mary visited a restaurant which
served.

Ohba, H., Sugino, N., Nakano, M., Yamakawa, K.,
Shimizu, Y., & Kimura, S. (2006). The
Development of grammatical competenceof Japanese EFL learners: Focusing on
relative clause constructions. Journal of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics. 10, 73–87.
Shimizu, Y., Kimura, S., Sugino, N., Yamakawa, K.,
Ohba, H., & Nakano, M. (2003). Eibunpou
nouryoku tesuto no datousei, shinraisei nokenshou to shin eigo bunpou nouryoku Test
Measure of English Grammar (MEG) [Thevalidity and reliability of standardized tests
and compilation of “Measure of English
Grammar (MEG)”]. Policy Science. 10,
59–68.
Shimizu, Y., Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Ohba, H.,& Nakano, M. (2006). Developing asample-free grammatical proficiency test
for SLA research. Proceedings of the 10th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics. 227-235.
Takeda, K. (1999). Multiple headed structures.
Unpublisheddoctoraldissertation.
University of California, Irvine.

(7) Wh-movement out of a sentential subject (subject
island)25.*This is the meeting which that Bill attended shocked his
parents.
26.*This is the ghost which a picture of frightened thechildren.

(8) Wh-movement out of an adjunct island
27.*This is the homework which Ann went to school before
she did.
28.*This is the girl who(m) the bell rang while I was thinkingof.

(9) Wh-movement out of an embedded question(wh-island)
29.*This is the house which Peter knows when Tom bought.
30.*This is the story which Rebecca wondered who believed.

(10) Wh-movement out of a complex NP
31.*This is the car which we heard the news that Dick bought.
32.*This is the boy who(m) Jack described the way that Billhit.

Appendix. Sentences used in the Grammaticality
Judgement Task
(1) Grammatical relative clauses involving a wh-operator
1. The woman who helped me with my homework is Patty.
2. The man who(m) I employed as my assistant works hard.
3. The girl for whom I have bought a computer is my sister.
4. The boy to whom I talked yesterday seemed very nervous.
5. The job which I wanted to apply for was very popular.
6. The girl whose handbag was stolen is suffering fromshock.
7. The man used a word whose meaning I don’t know at all.

(2) Grammatical relative clauses involving that
8. The student that has written this letter must be crazy.
9. The car that you can see over there caused this accident.
10. The student that you gave a present to looked very happy.
11. The picture that he is looking at was painted by Picasso.

(3) Grammatical relative clauses involving a null
operator and a null complementiser
12. The house you can see on the corner was built ten yearsago.
13. The friend they lent money to bought a very big house.
14. The magazine they are always talking about is very useful.

(4) Ungrammatical relative clauses involving
who/whom/which that
15.*The woman who that is singing on the stage is my aunt.
16.*The glasses which that Judy broke were very expensive.
17.*The dogs which that I gave the milk to were very small.
18.*The woman whom that we talked with was our teacher.

(5) Ungrammatical relative clauses involving resumptive
pronouns
19.*The building that it stands near the lake is our school.
20.*The classmate that you don’t like him is very unkind.
21.*The friend that I lent the book to her studied very hard.
22.*The town that my mother came from it is far from here.

(6) Wh-movement out of a relative clause
23.*This is the book which John interviewed the man who
criticized.
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A Study on Learner Factors in Acquiring English Pronunciation
Yuko Tominaga

Graduate Student, University of Tokyo
yukotominana@yahoo.co.jp
questionnaires and the interviews for SFLL and
PFLL (Poor Foreign Language Learners),
focusing on their study history, attitudes, andindividual strategies that may have affected theirlearning. In this study, by tracing the learning
experiences of junior and senior high school
students, it is expected that significant awareness toteachers － when and how they have their eyes
opened to the autonomous learning － would besuggested for better teaching.

Abstract
The objective of this research is to detect effective
factors in English pronunciation teaching from theviewpoint of learner factors. This research isbased on the data of the Successful Pronunciation
Learners (SPL) and Poor Pronunciation Learners(PPL) selected by the raters, Japanese and native
speakers of English (NSE), in Tominaga (2005).
The participants’ learning history, learning strategy,
motivation, and so on were analyzed by thequestionnaire and interview.
The holistic
procedure was almost based on that of Tanabe andKoyama (1998), and the questions in thequestionnaire were selected based on Baba (2003).
In this paper, in order to examine whether the
results of Tominaga (2005) were a coincidence ornot, statistic analysis was conducted focusing onlearners’ factors that may be contributive to theirpronunciation learning. The results show thatsignificant factors were not found between SPL and
PPL of the junior high school , on the other hand,
between SPL and PPL of the senior high school,several significant factors were found.
This
indicates that the senior high school SPL show aremarkable contrast to other learners in suchcognitive and meta-cognitive areas of learning
English as attitude, motivation, and persistence.

2

2.1 General description
This study statistically analyzed the contributive
factors of pronunciation teaching/learning that
Tominaga (2005) suggested because such factors
may have stemmed from her intuition cultivated byher teaching experience. In Tominaga (2005), she
examined to what extent SPL and PPL exist among
the junior and senior high school students
participated in her study, and analyzed theirlearning history, learning strategy, and motivationby the questionnaire and interview. The holistic
procedure was almost based on that of Tanabe andKoyama (1998), and the questions in thequestionnaire were selected based on Baba (2003),
i.e., they were chosen under the conditions that: 1)
the questions meet the situation of the classroom
setting,and2)byreferringtothe“self-consciousness scale” by Sugawara (1984) thequestions can be factor-analyzed from theviewpoint of pronunciation learning and psychology,
especially self-consciousness. Therefore, in thispaper, in order to examine whether the results ofTominaga (2005) were a coincidence or not,statistic analysis was conducted focusing onlearners’ factors that may be contributive to theirpronunciation learning.

Keywords
Learner Factors, Learner’s Autonomy, SPL, PPL

1

MethodIntroduction

In EFL classrooms, many learners are
struggling with learning English, and also manyteachers are struggling with teaching English.
However, it is true that there still exist Successful
Foreign Language Learners (SFLL) who are
excellent in the four skills of English: reading,listening, speaking, and writing in the standardized
English qualification tests. How, then, have theyacquired such skills
and maintained the skills?
In order to detect some clues to and makesuggestions for better teaching English to learners
in EFL settings, this paper, in the perspective ofpronunciation,
attempts
toanalyzethe

2.2 Participants
The participants were junior and senior highschools students selected as SPL or PPL in the
research by Tominaga (2005). From among the
232 junior high school students (first-year 101,
second-year 60, and third-year 71), 24 SPL (10.3%)471

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 1 The results of the chi-square tests on Yes-No questions: %and 39 PPL (17%) were selected. From among the339 first-year senior high school students, 8 SPL(2.4%) and 25 PPL (7%) were selected. The
selection was based both on the students’ academic
aptitude and their performance in class activities,
which were evaluated by JTE (Japanese Teachers ofEnglish), and on the three-step evaluations of theirreading aloud by JTE and ALT (Assistant Language
Teachers). The students who had lived in the
country for more than one year where English is
spoken and the students whose parent (either
mother or father) was a native speaker of English
were excluded from the selection in advance.

* p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p = .00
When the numerical value of the chi-tests was under 0.5, it means asignificant factor. It is shown by asterisked mark.

2.3 Procedure
First, a survey by questionnaire was conducted on
the participants, both SPL and PPL.
The
questionnaire consists of 22 items (9 Yes-No
questions and 13 multiple choice questions)regarding their learning history, learning strategy,
and motivation. Next, in order to obtain a moredetailed factors for growing up to be SLL,
individual interviews (20-30 minutes) about theiranswers to the questionnaire were conducted on theSPL). The interviewees talked about their own
experiences independently following the topics theauthor gave), and each talk was tape-recorded.
Then, in order to examine which factor contributes
to the difference between the SPL and PPL in the
result of the questionnaire, two tests wereconducted: chi-square test on the Yes-No questions
and t-test on the multiple-choice questions.
Finally, regarding the items in the questionnaire thatthe two tests statistically indicated significant
correlations, the results of the interviews of the SPL
were examined in order to gain a detailed
understanding of how these factors contributed tothe ability of the SPL.

3

Table 2 indicates the results of the t-tests. No
significant item was identified among the juniorhigh school students. On the other hand, in thecomparison between the senior high school SPL and
PPL , six items are identified as to be relevant totheir motivations and their teachers’ intervention: 1)
have bad impression of JTE’s pronunciation, 2) JTE
often corrected pronunciation, 3) JTE taught stress,
intonation, and rhythm, 4) strongly want to be an
SPL, 5) be fond of reading aloud and repetition, and
6) imitate native speakers.
Table 2 The results of the t-tests on five- multiple choice questions:mean (SD)Results

Table 1 indicates the results of the chi-square tests.
Three items are identified as significant factors forthe difference between SPL and PPL among juniorand high school students respectively.
Thesignificant factors between SPL and PPL of thejunior high school are 1) received informal
instruction, 2) be fond of English learning, and 3)
have a role model. On the other hand, between
SPL and PPL of senior high school, the significant
factors are 1) be fond of English learning, 2) do
independent pronunciation practice, and 3) have arole model. Two factors (“be fond of English
learning”; “have a role model”), are common
between them. Additionally, one notable result isthat no senior high school SPL have received
informal instruction before entering junior highschool, whereas junior high school SPL received it.

* p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p = .00
When the numerical value of the t-tests was under 0.5, it means asignificant factor. It is shown by asterisked mark.

Generally, the above-mentioned items thatcan be considered to have statistically significant
difference between the SPL and the PPL arerelated to strategies, motivations, and teachers’intervention.
From the interviews, three common factors
were observed that might affect the junior highschool SPL. On the other hand, seven common
factors were identified among senior high school
SPL.

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4

Conclusion“affective”, and secondary English education is“cognitive.” Considering Japanese school systemthat includes the introduction of foreign language
activity (practically, English) to elementary schoolin 2011, it might be said that the focus of teaching
English in elementary schools is “affective”, injunior high school is “cognitive”, and in senior highschool is “meta-cognitive.” Moreover, it might beimportant that the learners soft-land between thesethree aspects. However, as many researchers
discuss it, teaching English in elementary schools
still has a number of problems. At any rate, in thelong run, without sticking to the instant results andevaluations, the integrated study from the viewpointof whole formal instruction in Japan would benecessary in order to generate more SFLL.

The results of this study clearly indicate that thesenior high school SPL show a remarkable contrast
to other learners in such cognitive andmeta-cognitive areas of learning English as attitude,
motivation, and persistence. To be more concrete,
the SPL excelled others in 'successfully' making useof elements such as choice, interest, relevance,
expectancy, and outcomes. Thus self-engaged andself-invested, the SPL appear to have heightened
their level of interest, involvement, andresponsibility in their learning, which results in theachievement that otherwise could not have easily
been produced in an EFL setting. In order toproduce more SFLL in formal education, it would
be important for teachers to set a class atmospherein which learners are encouraged and supported tolearn English autonomously.
The atmosphereshould be created by teachers when the learners
start learning English, in the case of Japan when
they enter junior high school, and should becontinuously renewed.
External stimuli such as films and music canbe considered as a strong tool for having thestudents become more interested in English
learning, since the SPL state in the interviews thatsuch stimuli encouraged them to learn English
positively. Moreover, the SPL make it clear thatthe encounter with respectable teachers is anothervery positive stimulus. In fact, it must never be
forgotten that teachers can be an external stimulus
to learners. In addition, guidance to lead learners
in finding out their original strategies should be
conducted in class. For example, appropriate
assignments by and feedback from teachers should
be continuously offered to learners.
It would be ideal that these various supports
should be given to the learners in junior highschools regardless of their school evaluations.
The evaluations should not be regarded as their real
ability of English. It might be said that junior highschool time is “in-put” period, and senior highschool time is “in-take” period. As the learners
grow up, they select and accept the appropriate
learning way, and finally they would open theireyes to their original learning way to be SFLL.
Learners tend to build their foundation to beautonomous learners at the level of senior highschool.
In conclusion, it is considered that what
controls the learning effectiveness is meta-cognitive
learning, and what supports the meta-cognitive
learning is the learners’ autonomy. Yoshijima andHasegawa (2007) mentioned about the gap of themethodology and purpose of English between
elementary education and secondary education.
He states that elementary English education is

5 References and Appendix
5.1 References
Baba, T. (Ed). (2003). Eigo Supikingu Ron[Theoretical study of English speaking].
Tokyo: Kagensha.
Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D., & Goodwin, J.
(1996). Teaching pronunciation: A reference
for teachers of English to speakers of otherlanguages. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Celce-Murcia, M. (Ed.). (2001). Teaching English
as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.).
MA: Heinle and Heinle Publishers.
Cohen, A.D.(1998). Strategies in learning andusing a second language. London: Longman.
Ellis, R. (1994). The Study of Second Language
Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University
Gallego, J. C. (1990). The intelligibility of three
nonnative
English-speaking
teaching
assistants: An analysis of student-reported
communication
breakdowns.
Applied
Linguistics, 1(2), 219-237.
Gardner, R. & Lambert, W. (1972). Attitude andmotivation in second language learning.
Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Goodwin, J. (2001). Teaching pronunciation. In M.
Celce-Murcia, (Ed.), Teaching English as asecond or foreign language (3rd ed.),(pp.
117-137). MA: Heinle and Heinle Publishers.
Hatori, H & Matsuhata, K. (1989). Gakushusha
chushin no Eigo kyouiku [ELT: A
learner-centered approach]. Tokyo: Taishukan
Shoten.
John, W. (1983). Issues In Language Testing
Research. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Maeda, T. (2002). Language learning strategies
used by Japanese high school learners andachievement.
Language
Education&
Technology, 39,137-148473

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Tanabe, Y. (2003). English pronunciation
instruction in Japan: Current state of affairs.
Senshu Daigaku Gaikokugo Kyouiku Ronshu[A Journal of the Senshu University ResearchSociety], 31, 77-101.
Tominaga, Y. (2005). An Analysis Successful
Pronunciation Learners: What They Can Tell
Us about Pronunciation Instruction. MA thesis
submitted to Waseda Univerisity.
Yoshijima, S. & Hasegawa, H. (Eds). (2007).
Gaikokugo Kyoiku Ⅳ : Sho-gakko kara
Chu-gakko e. [Foreign Language Teaching :Elementary School to Secondary School].
Tokyo: Asahi-shuppansha

Naiman, N., Frohlich, M., Stern, H., & Toedesco, A.
(1978). The good language learner. Toronto:
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
Oller, J., & Richards, J. (Eds.). (1973). Focus on thelearner. Newbury House Publishers: Rowley,MA.
Oxford, R. (1990). Language learning strategies:
What every teacher should know. Cambridge:
Newbury House.
Rubin, J. (1975). What the ‘good language learner’can teach us? TESOL Quarterly, 9: 1, 41-51.
Rubin, J. & Thompson, I. (1994). How to be a more
successful language learner. New York:
Heinle & Heinle.
Shirahata, T. (2007). Gengo Shutoku kara Mita Sho
Chu Renkei [Coordination between ES andJHS from a viewpoint of language acquisition].
In R. Matsukawa & K. Kinoshita (Eds.),
Shogakko Eigo to Chugakko Eigo wo Musubu[Linking ES and JHS English programs] (pp.
64-76). Tokyo: Koryosha.
Shirai, Y. (2004). Gaikokugo Gakusyu ni
Seikosuru-hito,
Shinai-hito.
[Successful
Foreign Language Learners and Poor Foreign
Language Learners]. Tokyo: Iwanami Science
Library.
Stern, H. (1975). What can we learn from the goodlanguagelearner?
Canadian
ModernLanguage Review, 31, 304-318.
Sugawara, K. (1984).
Ji-ishiki shakudo.
[Self-consiousness scale].
The Study ofPsychology, 55, 184-188.
Takada, T. (2003b). Learner characteristics ofearly starters and late starters of English
language learning: Anxiety, motivation, andaptitude. JALT Journal, 25, 5-30.
Takeuchi, O. (2003). Yoriyoi Gaikokugo Gakushuho
Wo Motomete. [Research on better language
learning strategies]. Tokyo: Shohakusha
Takeuchi, O. & Wakamoto, N. (2001). Language
learning strategies used by Japanese college
learners of English: A synthesis of hour
empirical studies. Language Education &Techonology, 38, 21-43.
Tanabe, Y., & Koyama, K. (1998). An experimental
study on teaching English pronunciation: from
input to intake. English Phonetics, 2, 356-376.
Tanabe, Y., Koyama, K., & Nakano, K. (1998a).
‘A Constructive Examination of English
Pronunciation Work: The Case of Junior HighSchool Textbooks.’ a paper to be presented at
LLA National Conference in August, 1998.
Tanabe, Y., Koyama, K., & Nakano, K. (1998b).
‘A Constructive Examination of English
Pronunciation Work: The Case of Senior HighSchool Textbooks.’ a paper to be presented at
Zenkoku Eigo Kyoiku Gakkai in August, 1998.

5.2 Appendix
Appendix : A Part of the Questionnaire in English
Questionnaire on learning English(This question has nothing to do with your grade.)
grade( ) class( )ID No.(
) Name()(Notice) As for the questions in bold type, choose either one and circle
it.
No. 1 Have you ever lived abroad? Yes ・ No
＊ If your answer is, "Yes"
Where have you lived?
How long did you live there?
No. 2 Do you ever have a chance to speak in English in your dailylife?
Yes ・ No＊ If your answer is, "Yes,"
How often do you speak English per week?
About（） per week
How long do you speak English at one time?
About（）minutes
No. 3 Have you had any friends talking with you in English?
Yes ・ No＊ If your answer is, "Yes,"
Where does he/she come from?
(If you have more than one friends, please write down
about all of them.)
How long have you known her/him?
No. 4 Have you had any chance to speak or practice English before youentered the junior high school?
Yes ・ No＊ If your answer is "yes", where was it?
（e.g.：cram school, English conversation school, churchand etc.）
No. 5 Have you been fond of learning English through your schoollife?
Yes ・ NoNo. 6 Do you think your previous English teachers have taught you
pronunciation and listening skills enough?
I think so. ・ I do not think so.
＊ If your answer is, " I think so"
Can you give some details ?
(procedures, techniques and etc.)＊ If your answer is, "I don't think so",Can you give some details ? ）Continued to No. 15.

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Examination of Foreign Language Anxiety Constructs between
Japanese and Korean College Students Learning English
Nami Iwaki1 and Hyun Jin Kim2

1

Nagoya University, 2Cheongju National University of Education

iwaki@ecis.nagoya-u.ac.jp, 37hjkim@hanmail.net

Abstract

1

The purpose of this study is to investigate andcompare the anxiety constructs of Japanese colleges
students and Korean college students learning
English. The first part of this study will examine
anxiety construct of Japanese and Korean students
using FLCAS (Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope, 1986).
It will examine Japanese and Korean students’anxiety levels and how they are constructed. The
second part of this study will compare the anxiety
levels of Japanese and Korean learners and see if
there are differences where and how they feelanxiety.

Research Question 1: What is the anxiety constructof Japanese students? What is the anxiety constructof Korean students?
Research Question 2: Are there anxiety differences
between Japanese and Korean students? If so,which group feels more anxiety, in what area?

2

anxiety,anxiety

Methods

2.1
Participants
The participants were 110 Japanese and 102 Koreancollege students learning English. The average age
for Japanese students was 19.1, consisting of firstyear students and Korean students consisting fromthird and fourth year, with the average of 22.2.
Japanese students’ majors were Economics,
Business and Foreign language (mix of German,
French and Spanish) and English for Korean
students.

Keywords
Foreign language
classroom English

Research Questions

construct,

Introduction
Numbers of studies show that for many students,
language courses are the most anxiety-provoking
class that they take (Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope,
1986; MacIntyre and Gardner, 1999), and thatanxiety is common among foreign language
learners (Aida, 1999). This phenomenon especiallyapplies to Asian students, whom in many studies
show that they tend to feel much anxiety whenlearning a foreign language. Iwaki’s (2007) study
compared and examined FLCAS results for Asianand Western learners who are learning English andfound that the average of FLCAS was over 100,
whereas Western students’ average were all below
100. Many studies suggest that something unique
about Asian students may play a role in explaining
the differences in English confidence levels
between Asian students and that of othernationalities. Although studies have shown that
Asian students seem anxious towards learning aforeign language, only few studies have compared
the difference within Asian students. This study will
examine the foreign language anxiety difference
between Japanese and Korean students.

2.2
Instrumentation
The FLCAS by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986)
was used in this study. The FLCAS is a self-reportmeasure of language learners’ feeling of anxiety inthe foreign language classroom, consisting from 33
statements. Participants answered on a six-point
Likert scale, ranging from (a) Strongly agree, (b)mostly agree, (c) somewhat agree to (f) strongly
disagree. For each statement, the highest degree ofanxiety was six points, and the lowest was one
point, anxiety scores ranging from 33 to 198. The
word “foreign language” in the original scale was
replaced with “English”, for example, “I keep
thinking that the other students are better at foreign
language than I am” was “I keep thinking that theother students are better at English than I am”.
2.3
Procedure
The data collection was done in April 2009. A brief
description of the present study was introduced,
along with informed consent form. The entire
survey was carried out during English class time.
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3

F24
F20
F29
Factor 2 Speaking in the classroom …
F9
F4
F16
F23
F11
F12
F15
Factor 3 Comfortableness towards…
F18
F14
F2
F8
F32
F28
F13
F22
% of variance

Results

3.1
Reliability
Cronbach’s alpha for the FLCAS for both Japaneseand Korean students wereα=.91.
3.2

FLCAS construct of Japanese andKorean students
Factor analyses for Japanese student extracted athree-factor solution as shown in Table 1, andKorean students’ FLCAS extracted a four-factor
solution as shown in Table 2. In interpreting theresults, a factor loading of .40 was employed as acutoff for inclusion of a variable. Consequently, 6
items for Japanese and 5 items for Korean students
did not load on any factor.

% of variance accounted for by the solution

.46
.45
.45

.63
.68
.60

.69
.66
.61
.46
.44
.43
.42
.40
14.2

12.2

11.2
40.1

-.11
.17
-.06
.39
.38
.36

-.16
.35
-.08
.36
.34
-.02

.29
.25
.04
.33
.16
.00

Japanese students
Items not included in factor solution
F5
F1
F6
F3
F7
F17

For Japanese students, the total variance accounted
for was 40.1%. Factor 1 consisted of 12 items, andwas labeled Self-consciousness towards English,
exemplified by “I am afraid that the other students
will laugh at me when I speak English”, and “I feelvery self-conscious about speaking English in frontof other students”. These and other statements are
related to being self-conscious in the English classsuch as being laughed at if they say something
wrong or strange in the class. Factor 2 consisted of
7 items, accounting for 12.2% of variance. Items
included “I start to panic when I have to speak
without preparation in English class”, and “I always
feel that the other students speak English better than
I do”. This factor dealt with students being overly
worried about speaking in the class. Therefore,
Factor 2 was labeled Speaking in the classroom
anxiety. The third factor accounted for 11.2% ofvariance with 8 items. These items consisted of
positive attitudes toward English class, such as “I
am usually at ease during tests in my English class”,
and “I don’t feel pressure to prepare very well for
English class”. Therefore, Factor 3 was named
Comfortableness towards English class. The Alphacoefficients were .88, .82, and .76, respectively forthree factors.

For Korean students, the total variance accounted
for was 43.0%. Factor 1 consisted of 12 items,
which included “I never feel quite sure of myself
when I am speaking in my English class” and “I
start to panic when I have to speak without
preparation in English class”. Therefore, factor 1
was named Speaking anxiety. Factor 2 consisted of
7 items, accounting for 10.5 variance. Items
included “It embarrasses me to volunteer answers in
my English class” and “I often feel like not going to
my English class”. Factor 2 was labeled English
classroom anxiety. The third factor accounted for
7.9% of variance with items such as “I get nervous
when I don’t understand what the teacher is saying
in English” and “I get upset when I don’t
understand what the English teacher is correcting”.
Therefore, it was labeled English teacher anxiety.
The fourth factor accounted for 6.4% of variancewith four items. Items included were “I am usuallyat ease during tests in my English class” (negatively
worded) and “I worry about the consequences offailing my English class” and “The more study for
an English test, the more confused I get”. Thisfactor dealt with students worrying about the test,
so it was labeled Test anxiety. The Alphacoefficients were .90 .78 .76 and .62, respectively
for four factors.

FactorF1

Factor 1 Self-consciousness towards...
F19
F27
F31
F21
F25
F30
F10
F26
F33

.68
.59
.58
.56
.55
.54
.51
.49
.47

F2

F3

.64
.60
.62
.51
.52
.61
.61
.48

Korean students

Table 1: Factor analysis for Japanese students
Factors and items

.65
.56
.72
.65
.59
.61
.51

.73
.70
.56
.51
.48
.46
.44

h2
.62
.66
.64
.49
.56
.60
.54
.70
.59

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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 2: Factor analysis for Korean students

Factors and items
Factor 1 Speaking anxiety
F1
F9
F3
F18
F33
F27
F2
F14
F20
F26
F11
F28
Factor 2 English classroom …
F13
F31
F6
F19
F17
F30
F23
Factor 3 English teacher anxiety
F29
F15
F4
F25
F22
Factor 4 Test anxiety
F8
F7
F10
F21
% of variance

F1

FactorF2
F3

Table 3: FLCAS comparison between Japanese andKorean students (total score)
F4

FLCAS
average
FLCAS
total***p<.001

.74
.74
.65
.59
.68
.71
.63
.62
.68
.67
.52
.56

.78
.73
.65
.64
.64
.63
.63
.60
.53
.51
.51
.48

.66
.50
.49
.48
10.5

7.9

6.4
43.0

Items not included in factor solution
F5
.12
F12
.37
F32
.10
F16
.36
F24
.51

.16
.31
.04
.29
.46

.12
.16
.07
.37
-.14

.00
.13
.10
.20
.11

Korea (n=102)
MSD

t (201)

3.91

.65

3.56

.61

3.93***

129.0421.41

117.6420.18

3.93***

Japan(n=139)M
SD
FLCAS 1
5.22
.94
FLCAS 3
4.55 1.34
FLCAS 44.45 1.25
FLCAS 52.92 1.60
FLCAS 63.99 1.29
FLCAS 103.96 1.43
FLCAS 124.22 1.29
FLCAS 13
4.35 1.22
FLCAS 14
4.41 1.25
FLCAS 15
3.99 1.20
FLCAS 17
3.61 1.42
FLCAS 18
4.52 1.07
FLCAS 19
3.31 1.22
FLCAS 20
4.35 3.67
FLCAS 223.42 1.37
FLCAS 24
4.35 1.27
FLCAS 25
3.21 1.34
FLCAS 26
3.72 1.49
FLCAS 28
3.35 1.33
FLCAS 31
3.35 1.27
FLCAS 32
3.99 3.13***p<.001, **p<.01, *p<.05

.67
.61
.67
.57
.57

.72
.65
.54
.47
.44

Japan (n=110)
M
SD

Table 4: FLCAS comparison between Japanese andKorean students (individual items)

.66
.78
.59
.45
.62
73
.68

.66
.62
.55
.52
.49
.48
.43

18.1

% of variance accounted for by the solution

h2

.61
.77
.43
.49

4

Korea
(n=102)
M
SD
3.94
1.14
3.77
1.33
3.32
1.26
2.44
1.23
2.49
1.01
3.53
1.18
3.30
1.15
3.30
1.18
3.86
1.29
3.25
1.14
2.49
1.41
3.99
.99
2.47
1.15
3.67
1.25
4.40
1.22
3.71
1.14
3.77
1.09
3.08
1.31
3.80
.96
2.91
1.21
3.33
1.30

t (239)8.84***
4.21***
6.49***
2.43**
9.17***
2.41*
5.46***
6.32***
3.11**
4.49***
5.76***
3.27***
5.14***
3.97***
5.52***
3.91***
3.36**
3.31**
2.87**
2.54*
3.89***

Discussion and future suggestion

In the past, many studies labeled Asian students as
one group in foreign language anxiety researchstating that they show higher anxiety than theWestern students (Truitt, 1995). However, this study
showed that there is a significant difference
between Japanese and Korean learners and that it
may be unsafe to unify students as one grouplabeled “Asian”.

3.3

FLCAS results between Japanese andKorean students
In order to examine the second research question,
an independent t-test was conducted to compare the
FLCAS scores for Japanese and Korean students(Table 3). First, the total score of FLCAS and theaverage of 33 items were compared. The results
show that there is a significant difference between
the two groups. Japanese students expressed muchhigher anxiety than Korean students. Next, in order
to examine FLCAS items individually, independentt-tests were conducted to all 33 items (Table 4). The
results found a significant difference for 21 items,
mostly Japanese students showing higher anxiety
than Korean students except for item 25.

Research Question 1: First research question foundthat Japanese and Korean students show different
constructs of English anxiety. This Factor analyses
indicated that different set of groups show different
anxiety constructs. The results suggest that there
may be a difference in constructs between Japaneseand Korean students. The series of factor analyses
showed that factors vary according to the group
investigated. Nonetheless, speaking in the foreign
language, which is the leading anxiety factor
pointed out by numerous researchers, (Burden,
2004; Kim, 2002), was also the principle anxiety
factor for students learning English for this study.
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Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Research Question 2: The results examined FLCAS
items individually, and results indicated thatJapanese students showed much higher anxiety thanthe Korean students. This result suggests that within
Asian students, there are differences to the level inwhat students feel anxiety. However, the following
must be considered before further interpretation of
the results.
Major: Where as Japanese students’ major were
Business, Economics and other foreign language,
Korean students’ major was English. This perhaps
is the best explanation thought for the anxiety
difference between the two groups. The Japanese
students in this group studies English as subsidiary
subject, where as Korean students take English as
their major subject.
Grade: Japanese students participated were all firstyear students just of out high school. On the other
hand, Korean students participated were third andfourth year. These differences also probably
affected the anxiety score.
Gender: The male-female ratio of Japanese students
was 55:55, and 19:83 for Korean students. Somestudies have indicated that female students are
better at languages.
English conversation class: Only 22.7% ofJapanese students have the experience of attending
English conversation school whereas 98% of
Korean students have. This reason also may play arole in the anxiety difference.

Iwaki, I. (2007). A study of foreign language
anxiety and its constructs of Japanese college
students learning English. Proceedings of the
12th Conference of Pan-Pacific Associationof Applied Linguistics, 284-287.
Kim, Y. (2002). Construction of a theoretical modeof foreign language anxiety and developmentof a measure of the construct: Korean
university EFL learners’ case. Unpublisheddoctoral dissertation, Indiana University at
Bloomington.
Truitt, S. (1995). Anxiety and beliefs about
language learning: A study of Korean
university students learning English.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The
University of Texas at Austin.
Appendix A. Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety
Scale (FLCAS)
1. I never feel quite sure of myself when I am speaking in my English class.
2. I don’t worry about making mistakes in English class.
3. I tremble when I know that I’m going to be called on in English class.
4. It frightens me when I don’t understand what the teacher is saying in English.
5. It wouldn’t bother me at all to take more foreign language classes.
6. During English class, I find myself thinking about things that havenothing to do with the course.
7. I keep thinking that the other students are better at English than I am.
8. I am usually at ease during tests in my English class.
9. I start to panic when I have to speak without preparation in English class.
10. I worry about the consequences of failing my English class.
11. I don’t understand why some people get so upset over English classes.
12. In English class, I can get so nervous I forget things I know.
13. It embarrasses me to volunteer answers in my English class.
14. I would not be nervous speaking the English with native speakers.
15. I get upset when I don’t understand what the English teacher is correcting.
16. Even if I am well prepared for English class, I feel anxious about it.
17. I often feel like not going to my English class.
18. I feel confident when I speak in the English class.
19. I am afraid that my English teacher is ready to correct every mistake I made.
20. I can feel my heart pounding when I’m going to be called on in English class.
21. The more I study for an English test, the more confused I get.
22. I don’t feel pressure to prepare very well for English class.
23. I always feel that the other students speak English better than I do.
24. I feel very self-conscious about speaking English in front of other students.
25. English moves so quickly I worry about getting left behind.
26. I feel more tense and nervous in my English class than in my other classes.
27. I get nervous and confused when I am speaking in my English class.
28. When I’m on my way to English class, I feel very sure and relaxed.
29. I get nervous when I don’t understand every word the English teacher says.
30. I feel overwhelmed that the other students will laugh at me when
I speak English.
31. I am afraid that the other students will laugh at me when I speak English.
32. I would probably feel comfortable around native speakers of English.
33. I get nervous when the English teacher asks questions that I haven’t
prepared in advance.

For the future research, it is important that the
subjects of the two countries have the similar
background, such as same major, same grade,balanced size of gender and so on. However,despite these different factors affecting students, theanxiety difference is still quite large between thetwo groups. Does Junior and High school education
system in both country affect the level of anxiety?
Are there any differences in teaching styles between
Japanese and Korean teachers? It is necessary tolook at such factors suggested as well in order tounderstand the differences found in this study.

5

References

Aida, Y. (1990). Examination of Horwitz, Horwitz,
and Cope’s construct of foreign language
anxiety: The case of students of Japanese.
The Modern Language Journal, 78,
155-167.
Burden, P. (2004). The teacher as facilitator:
Reducing anxiety in the EFL university
classroom. JALT Hokkaido Journal, 8,
3-18.
Horwitz, E., Horwitz, M., & Cope, J. A. (1986).
Foreign language classroom anxiety. The
Modern Language Journal 70, 125-132.
478

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Supporting and Assessing L2 Learners’ Self-Regulated Learning
Eiichiro Tsutsui1, Kazuharu Owada2, Norifumi Ueda3 and Michiko Nakano4

1

International Center, Hiroshima International University,
2

3

Tokyo College of Music

Faculty of Foreign Language Studies, Mejiro University
4

School of Education, Waseda University

tsutsui@ic.hirokoku-u.ac.jp, qwq04229@nifty.com,
uedan@mejiro.ac.jp, nakanom@waseda.ac.jp
on-line feedback system called English Course
Navigation System; and to find some ways of
supporting self-regulated learning for learners in thee-learning environment.
Since many universities are making extensive
use of information and communication technologies
for their educational purposes, L2 learners havemore opportunities to study English in thee-learning environment. One of the inevitableconsequences for this approach is that L2 learners
must study more or less independently. Many
researchers have so far claimed that the use of
e-learning can lead to learners’ independent
learning, and they focused on the importance ofself-paced learning and student-centered approaches.
However, some learners who tend to rely so muchon teachers’ guidance not ready for suchenvironmental changes. Therefore, the motivationof this study arises from the need to raise awarenessof learners’ independence in order to encourage andsupport learners’ self-regulated learning in class.
With a view to raising the awareness of
independent learning, Tsutsui et al. (2007, 2008)
created an English Course Navigation System.
Firstly, this system was designed to introduce awide variety of learning methods and learnerstrategies, because the wise use of various strategies
is indispensible for successful language learning(See also Oxford, 1989; Vandergrift, 2003).
Secondly, the system focuses on learners’ anxiety
and procrastinations. It shows us how much thelearners are influenced by these negative affects aswell as how well they are prepared to cope with
their anxiety and procrastinations. These learners’
meta-cognitive analyses are also important for their
future accomplishments (See also O’Malley andChamot, 1990). Finally, the feedback about one’s

Abstract
As information and communication technologies
evolve over the recent years, L2 learners have more
opportunities to study English in the e-learning
environment. Many schools and universities havestarted to use and apply the CMS (Course Manage
System) to the EFL (English as a Foreign
Language) context. Networking technologies haveenabled learners to use synchronous texting andoral chatting for their cross-cultural learning.
Against this background, learners need to study or
learn
Englishmore
independently
andinterdependently. However, because learners(especially, basic-level learners) tend to depend too
much on teachers’ guidance, we need to support not
only their self-regulated learning outside theclassroom but also their effective use of newlyintroduced learning methods. In doing so, Tsutsui etal. (2007, 2008) established an English Course
Navigation System. This system is designed to
introduce a wide variety of language learning
courses as well as learning methods and learnerstrategies. According to their preferences, strategy
use, anxiety, and motivational directions, thelearners are given individualized feedback and areencouraged to take some language courses thatmight suit their needs. In addition, we can adopt
some ways of encouraging learners in class toincrease their self-regulatory activities.

Keywords
Self-Regulated
Learning,
Self-assessment,
Self-reflection, Information and Communication
Technologies

1

Introduction

The purpose of this study is two-fold: to describe an479

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

created a self-checklist (See Appendix A for moredetails).
In the e-learning environment, we asked
basic-level learners to answer this self-checklist on
the scale of four, ranging from ‘1: strongly
disagree ’ to ‘4: strongly agree.’ The survey was
conducted at the end of each class. The weeklyclass lasts 90 minutes. We used the self-checklist
only during regular classes; however, we did not
use this self-checklist during the weeks before andafter the exam because the classes held in theseweeks are different from those in the other weeks.
Therefore, the data for the nine weeks’ classes are
subject to our analyses.
We obtained and factor-analyzed 232 responses.
The results are shown in Table 1. Against our initial
speculations, two factors were extracted. Factor 1
included three items; self-control, and highlighting,note-taking. Factor 2 consisted of four items;
preparation, speaking-aloud, inferencing, dictionary
use and self-reflection. Highlighting andnote-taking in English classes may be closely
related to affective regulations because somelearners have reported that these behaviors areuseful to fight off their sleepiness. However, after
obtaining more respondents, we conducted a factor
analysis again and found that only one factor was
extracted.

motivational directions and intensity is given in thissystem. The importance of self-regulation andself-determination cannot be emphasized enoughbecause learners should be motivated to learn andbe responsible for their own learning process.
To sum up, in terms of their individual
characteristics such as strategy use, anxiety, andmotivational directions, the diagnostic feedbacks
are available in this system. Thus, the system users
are given individualized feedbacks and areencouraged to take some language courses thatmight suit their needs.

2

Strategic Control Loop

The important aspect of self-regulated learningis that learners need their behavioral control as well
as affective and cognitive controls (Zimmerman andShunk, 2008). Zimmerman (1989) categorized themechanism of self-regulation into three; covert,
behavioral,
andenvironmental
regulations.
Therefore, learners need to try hard to change theirmind, behavior and environment, by using a wide
variety of strategies and obtaining positive or
negative feedback of the strategies they have used.
That is, self-regulated learners can examine whether
or not the strategy use is effective and successful inorder to achieve learning goals. Then, they adjust
the strategies or try other strategies. This ever-going
control loop can be self-regulation. In the process of
self-regulation, learners may use ‘bad’ and‘ineffective’ strategies. However, the mostimportant point here is that they should carefully
monitor their strategy use and adjust their strategies
accordingly in order to cope with various
deficiencies that they experience as well as theirown self-efficacy. The ‘loop’ of strategy use,
self-monitoring and strategy use is named “strategic
control loop” by Zimmerman (1990). He explainsthat the use of a given strategy should accompany
self-regulatory activities, such as self-observations
and self-evaluations. This may be the reason why
simply knowing and using a lot of strategies does
not necessarily lead to self-regulated learning.
Learners should be more analytic about theirstrategy use, and language teachers need toincorporate the mechanism in practical teaching.
One drawback of our English Course
Navigation System is that the system provides
one-shot feedback rather than long-term feedback,even though “the loop” is necessary for
self-regulated learning. Therefore, we created aself-checklist from the need to find a way tofacilitate the “feedback loop” in the practice ofteaching.

3

Table 1: Results of factor analysis
Components
11.Preparation
2.Speaking
4.Self-Control
5.Highlighting
6.Note-Taking
7.Inferencing
8.Dictionary use(comprehensionchecking)9.Self-Reflection

2
.554
.870

h2

.352

.411
.627
.449
.594
.750
.400

.491

.218

.575

.429

.450
.843
.869

In order to find some relations between learners’
test performance and self-regulatory behaviors inclass, we examined whether or not learners’ testscores are correlated with perceived self-regulatory
assessment scores.
82 respondents reported the scores of 4 different
standardized tests, (1) vocabulary, (2) grammar, (3)reading, (4) listening tests. All tests were
paper-based, and conducted at the end of the term.
It should be noted that none of the items arenegatively correlated with proficiency tests,
although high correlation coefficients are notyielded. Grammar and reading tests are more highly
correlated with self-regulatory behaviors in classSelf-checklist

3.1 Data Analysis 1
In order to facilitate learners’ self-regulation, we
480

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

than vocabulary and listening tests.

Table 3: Mean score movement: Group A (N=28)

Table 2: Pearson’s correlation coefficients(Checklist items vs. standardized tests)

V

r

G

r

R

r

L

r

Session

Item1

2

4

5

6

7

8

9

1

3.63

3.11

3.59

3.63

3.74

3.37

3.37

3.19

2

3.65

3.31

3.77

3.85

3.85

3.50

3.23

3.15

3

3.46

3.42

3.73

3.50

3.69

3.38

3.31

3.27

Item 1.192

Item 2.076

Item 4.035

Item 5
.191

4

3.46

3.43

3.61

3.64

3.71

3.43

3.29

3.39

**

*

.283

*

**

5

3.61

3.52

3.65

3.61

3.74

3.52

3.35

3.39

.229

*

*

6

3.68

3.60

3.80

3.44

3.84

3.52

3.16

3.36

7

3.50

3.50

3.79

3.79

3.79

3.58

3.38

3.38

8

3.44

3.40

3.52

3.36

3.56

3.44

2.88

3.52

9

3.46

3.43

3.71

3.75

3.86

3.61

3.29

3.64

.383

.265

.270

*

.132

.212

.165

Item 6.181

Item 7
*
.249

.376

**

.322

**
*

.232

V

r

G

r

R

r

L

r

.220

.21

.368

.230

.18

Item 8.109

Item 9
.140

.335

**

.108

.222

*

.293

**

.146

.143

*

.027

.094

3.2.1 RQ1
In order to investigate RQ1, Groups A and B arecompared and contrasted. Group A includes 28
learners with higher proficiency, and Group B
consists of 31 learners with lower proficiency. In
both classes, the quality of teaching is equal. That is,
the same teacher taught them based on the same
syllabus, textbooks and activities (reading-based
activities). Table 4 shows the differences ofvocabulary, grammar, reading and listening testscores as well as total scores. The results of t-tests
indicate statistical significance in all tests (p<.01).

**p<.01, *p<.05, N=82.

In our data, self-regulated behaviors might leadto higher scores in grammar and reading questions.
Across all tests, item 7 (inferrencing the phrases)
may be the most effective self-regulatory control.
The second most effective behavior is note-taking(item 6). Item 8 (dictionary use) did not show highcorrelations with any proficiency tests. Just because
they use a dictionary many times does not mean
they are self-regulated learners. The point is that
self-regulated learners can make effective use of thedictionary. Therefore, the wording of item 8 can bea little problematic. In version 2 which changed
from version 1, item 8’ asks whether or not they use
a dictionary as a means of comprehension checking.

Table 4: Test results of Groups A and B
TESTS
Total

V
G
R

3.2 Data analysis 2
The research questions of data analysis 2 are
two-fold:
RQ1: Is there any difference between two
different proficiency groups in terms ofself-regulatory behaviors?
RQ2: Is there an upward trend in perceived
self-regulation scores as the sessions go by?

Figure 1:

L

Group
A

N

M (perfect scores)

SD

28

195.3 (300)

31.3

B

31

146.2(300)

23.2

A

28

34.3(50)

6.3

B

31

28.0(50)

6.1

A

28

30.8(50)

6.1

B

31

22.8(50)

5.3

A

28

60.9(100)

15.4

B

31

45.2(100)

12.2

A

28

69.4(100)

12.4

B

31

50.1(100)

10.9

By comparing Group A (Figure 1 and Table 3)with Group B (Figure 2 and Table 5), it can benoted that high-proficiency learners tend to be more
perceptive to their own self-regulatory control in
the classroom.

Figure 2:

Mean score movement: Group A (N=28)
481

Mean score movement: Group B (N=31)

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Vandergrift, L. (2003). Orchestrating strategy use:
Toward a model of the skilled second
language listener. Language Learning, 53(3), 463-496.
Zimmerman, B.J. (1989). A social cognitive view ofself-regulated
learning.
Journalof
Educational Psychology, 88, 397-410
Zimmerman, B, J. (1990). Self-regulating Academic
Learning and Achievement: The Emergenceof a Social Cognitive Perspective.
Educational Psychology Review, 2(2), 1990
Zimmerman, B.J. & Schunk, D.H. (2008).
Motivation: An Essential Dimension of
Self-Regulated Learning. Motivation and
Self-Regulated Learning, 1-30

Table 5: Mean score movement: Group B (N=31)
Session

Item1

2

4

5

6

7

8

9

1

3.74

2.39

3.26

3.23

3.29

3.00

2.71

3.00

2

2.72

2.84

3.47

3.25

3.41

3.09

2.63

3.06

3

2.69

2.76

3.24

3.14

3.10

2.90

3.00

2.79

4

2.94

2.68

3.26

3.06

3.29

2.91

3.06

2.97

5

2.48

2.41

3.10

2.41

2.79

2.45

2.41

2.72

6

3.00

2.73

3.03

2.87

2.90

2.93

2.73

2.87

7

2.91

2.64

3.15

2.70

3.12

2.85

2.88

2.85

8

2.59

2.59

3.00

2.63

3.28

2.81

2.41

2.81

9

2.97

2.70

3.27

2.97

3.21

3.00

2.85

2.76

3.2.2 RQ2
There is a slight upward trend in inferencing andself-reflection (Items 6 and 9). However, almost all
the items fluctuate.
By turning our attention to sessions 6 and 8 inGroup A and sessions 5 and 8 in Group B, it can befound that learners forget to use strategies in class.
One thing in common among these sessions is that atime lag of and at least three weeks have occurredsince the previous session. It is noteworthy that if
they haven’t used strategies in class for a while,
their self-regulation may not work effectively.

4

Appendix A: Self-Checklist
Please answer the following questions on the scaleof one to four.
(4) I strongly agree.
(3) I agree.
(2) I disagree.
(1) I strongly disagree.
Before class,(Item 1) I did enough preparation for the class (for aquiz or homework).

Findings

Overall, our results supported Zimmerman’s claims.
(1) Self-regulated learners tend to be successful
learners and receive higher proficiency. (2)Strategic control loop (Feedback loop) is very
important. With intervening blanks, basic-level
learners tend to forget to use strategies or becomeless perceptive to one’s self-regulation. Thus we, as
language teachers, need to keep in mind thatlearners need to sustain their effort to use a wide
variety of strategies in order to achieve learning
goals.

5

During class,(Item 2) I spoke out loud in English during the class(for chorus reading and shadowing).
(Item 3) I actively participated in pair work.
(Item 4) I tried to control myself and fight off mynegative feelings. (I tried not to whisperor sleep.)(Item 5) I highlighted my textbook (underlining andusing circles).
(Item 6) I jotted down notes.
(Item 7) I inferred the meaning of unknown words
from the context.
(Item 8 I made full use of a dictionary.
(Item 8’) I used a dictionary to check mycomprehension.

References

O’Malley, J.M. & Chamot, A.U. (1990). Learning
Strategies in Second Language Acquisition.
Oxford, R.L. (1990). Language Learning
Strategies: What Every Teacher Should
Know.
Tsutsui, E. et al. (2007). Why Do We Need toTeach Communication Strategies toJapanese EFL Learners? Proceedings ofthe 13th Conference of Pan-Pacific
Association of Applied Linguistics,
192-195.
Tsutsui, E. et al. (2008). Creating an online
feedback System: L2 Learners’ Strategy
Use. Proceedings of the 13th Conference of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, 166-167.

After class,(Item 9) I tried to be self-reflective, going throughall I learned and trying to catch the gist of
the class.

482

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

An analysis of basic verbs in Japanese junior and senior high school
textbooks
Norifumi Ueda1 and Kota Wachi 2

1

School of Foreign Language, Mejiro University, 2 Shiba Junior/Senior High School
uedan@mejiro.ac.jp, rsc36319@nifty.com

Japan make use of lexical input mainly throughtextbooks.
The purpose of this study is to examine
English basic verbs in Japanese textbook, especiallyto examine (1) what kinds of syntactic and semantic
information are contained the basic verbs inJapanese textbooks and (2) what kinds of semantic
information are involved in the verbs.

Abstract
The purpose of this presentation is to examinesemantic and syntactic environments thatbasic verbs used in junior/high school English
textbooks contain to develop a vocabulary test.
In the learning process, L2 learners
should integrate the conceptual differences andseparate concepts between L1 and L2 words,
which cause difficulties in acquiring L2
vocabulary. This problem happens especiallyin the acquisition of L2 synonyms andpolysemys. It is beneficial for L2 learners to
identify what semantic information hinder
learning vocabulary.
In this study, we selected synonyms andpolysemys of English verbs, especially basic
verbs, used in Japanese junior and senior highschool textbooks. We analyzed semantic andsyntactic environments which differentiate one
word from others with similar meanings. The
results show what kinds of semantic andsyntactic information affect L2 learners’
vocabulary learning and imply what kinds ofinformation should be tested to examine L2
vocabulary knowledge.

1andMany kinds of lexical knowledge are hypothesized
such as syntax, collocation and usage in context.
(Nation 1990) Richards (1976) describedvocabulary knowledge as follows:
1. The native speaker of a language continues toexpand his vocabulary in adulthood, whereas
there is comparatively little development ofsyntax in adult life.
2. Knowing a word means knowing the degree ofprobability of encountering that word in speechor print. For many words we also know the sortof words most likely to be found associatedwith the word.
3. Knowing a word implies knowing thelimitations on the use of the word according tovariations of function and situation.
4. Knowing a word means knowing the syntactic
behaviour associated with the word.
5. Knowing a word entails knowledge of theunderlying form of a word and the derivations
that can be made from it.
6. Knowing a word entails knowledge of the
network of associations between that word andother words in the language.
7. Knowing a word means knowing a semantic
value of a word.
8. Knowing a word means knowing the different
meaning s associated with a word.

Keywords
SLA, textbook analysis, syntactic pattern

0

Vocabularyknowledge
vocabulary acquisition

Introduction

In the learning process, L2 learners should integrate
the conceptual differences and separate concepts
between L1 and L2 words, which cause difficulties
in acquiring L2 vocabulary. (Ijaz, 1986; Dong et al.,2005) This problem happens especially in theacquisition of L2 synonyms and polysemys.
Besides the acquisition of the conceptual
differences between L1 and L2, L2 learners should
also learn related information such as syntax,
collocation and usage in context in order to use
synonyms and polysemys precisely.
To acquire L2 vocabulary, L2 learners in

There are many studies on vocabulary acquisition in
the field of psycholinguistics and bilingual studies,
where lexical relations between concepts and words
483

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

basic rules of grammar of English with the basic
sentences at first, and worked on a variety of
exercises with the drills based on each rule. Afterthe exercises, students were to try the readingmaterials. Each unit of the textbooks had one
reading material which contains the grammaticalrules focused in each unit. Students tried to translate
the sentences in the material, contain thegrammatical rules focused in the unit, into Japanese
as a confirmation of their understanding.

in L1 and L2, and L2 acquisition process have been
examined. In the concept-word relation study, it issuggested that L2 learners should integrate theconceptual differences between two languages in
the process of acquiring the other vocabulary. (Dinget al., 2005; Ijaz, 1986; and Ueda, 2007)
In any case, lexical information such as syntax,
collocation and usage in context is necessary andessential in the process of acquiring L2 vocabulary.
Hence, it is worth examining what kind of lexicalinformation L2 learners get. In this study, we
examine textbooks used in a Japanese junior andsenior high school in order to examine lexicalinformation.

2

2.1.2 Textbooks used in high school
Almost the same pattern of contents was usedin the textbooks for the grammar class in 10th grade
except reading materials. In each lesson, subjects
were to learn some new grammar rules with basic
sentences and exercises based on the grammaticalrules focused in each lesson. As for theconfirmation of their understanding, students tried
not to translate English sentences in Japanese but toput some Japanese sentences into English.
As for the textbooks for the reading class inthe same grade, it consists of many readingmaterials, grammar exercises, conversation
practices, etc. However, subjects learned only thereading materials in their reading class so that they
can use the grammar rules in the reading process. In
the classroom, teachers didn’t explain the rules ofgrammar minutely, instead, focused on thetechniques to read rapidly and effectively.
Translation into Japanese was sometimes assigned
as confirmation these techniques for reading.

Textbook Analysis

2.1

Textbooks as materials
We analyzed the textbooks used a private
junior and senior high school in Tokyo. Table 1
shows the names of them.
We chose 12 basic English verbs: hear, listen,see, look, watch, gaze, stare, say, talk, speak, telland utter. This is because when learners acquire
these verbs, they should integrate the conceptual
differences and separate concepts between L1 andL2 words.

Table 1: Names of the textbooks used injunior/senior high school
Grade
7th
8th
9th
10th

Name of Textbook (Publishing Company)
Just English Is It 1, Renew (Robertson)
Just English Is It 2, Renew (Robertson)
Just English Is It 3, Renew (Robertson)<Former Half>
Reading class (English I):
CROWN English Series I, New
Edition (Sanseido)
Grammar class (Oral Communication I):
ForestExtensive
EnglishGrammar in 47 Lessons, 5th
Edition (Kirihara Shoten)

2.2

How much input the learners from the
textbooks through the classroom.
We will review how much input the students
in junior and high school get through textbooks.
In junior high school of subjects, 5 credits are
assigned to the 7th and 8th grade, 6 credits to 9th
grade. Therefore, students took at least one English
class a day when they were in junior high school.
Subjects learned 2 more classes per week thanstudents in public junior high schools (Students areto take 3 credits of English in junior high school,
following the National curriculum guideline fordefining the basic standard for education.).
In senior high school, Subjects took two
English classes; English I (mainly for reading) and
Oral Communication I (mainly for learning
grammar). Each class has 3 credits in the 10th grade,following the National curriculum guideline. In the
11th and 12th, subjects are to take two classes ineach grade; English I/Reading (4-5 credits to eachclass) and Writing (2 credits to each class).
As a whole, subjects take much more classes
of English; therefore, they have lots of<Latter Half>
Readingclass:
startedtouse
supplemental workbooks
Grammar class: Keep using the text
above

2.1.1

Textbooks used in Junior high school
In this private school, the textbooks used for7th to 9th grade students were extremely high levelin the vocabulary size and the speed of teaching thecontents, compared with the authorized textbooks
widely used in public schools in Japan. (These
textbooks were adopted by many high-level private
schools in Tokyo area.)
These textbooks were composed ofgrammar-based contents, and students learned the484Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

opportunities to get input from textbooks.

Tell +Direct Object (DO)”. The semantic structure,on the other hand, is the same in both syntactic
structures: [Agent [+human] _ Theme [-human]].

2.3
Method for analysis
We analyzed the textbooks by using a lexical
analysis software, WordSmith Ver. 5. We examinedsyntactic and semantic environment. As for thesyntactic environment, syntactic frameworks wereanalyzed, and about semantic environment,
arguments and their structures were examined. In
this study, we followed the frameworks used in
Ueda et al. (1999) 1

3

Table 4: Syntactic framework of say
framework
numbersay + (that) complement19
say + DO13
idioms2
total
48# means no word come after the word and DO, Direct
Object. Complement contains quotation in this case.

Results
Table 5:Semantic structure of say

We found that sentences for gaze, stare andutter were not available. Hence, we got thesentences of talk, say, tell, watch, look, hearand speak.

semantic structure
Agent [+human]_ (to) Receiver [+human]
Agent [+human]_ complement
Agent [+human] _Theme [-human]

3.1

Results of talk, say, speak and tellFirst, we will see the syntactic and semantic
structure of the synonyms: talk, say speak and tell.
Table 2 shows the syntactic framework of talk.
The most frequently used framework is “talk +about”, and its semantic structure is [Agent

Table 6: Syntactic framework of tellform
numbertell + (that) complement
3tell + DO + about + Noun
9tell + DO
7tell + person + to do
1tell DO + to IO
2tell + DO + IO
6
total
28
# means no word come after the word; Do, Direct
Object; and IO, Indirect Object, respectively[+human] _ (about) + Theme [-human]].

Table 2: Syntactic framework of talk.
framework
numbertalk + to + Noun
4
talk + about + Noun
10talk + with + Noun
4
talk#
1
total
19
# means no word come after the word.

Table 7: Semantic structure of tellsemantic structure
Agent [+human]_ (complement)
Agent [+human]_ (about) Theme [-human]
Agent [+human] _ Patient [+human]
Agent [+human] _Theme[-human], Patient[+human]Agent [+human]_ Patient [+human], (about)
Theme [-human]

Table 3: Semantic structure of talkSemantic structure
Agent [+human]_ (about) Theme [-human]
Agent [+human]_ (to) Recipient [+human]
Agent[+human] _ (with) commitative [+human]

The most frequent syntactic structure in
speak is “speak + DO”, and its semantic structure is
only one: [Agent [+human] _ Theme [-human]].

Table 4 shows syntactic framework of say.
Three types of the syntactic framework have almost
the same frequencies: “say + to”, “say +complement” and “say + noun”.
And their
semantic structures are followings in Table 5:[Agent [+human] _ (to) Receiver [+human]],[Agent [+human]_ (complement)], and [Agent[+human] _Theme [-human]].
In the case of tell, there are the most various
kinds of syntactic structures in Table 6. The mostfrequent structures are “tell + about + Noun” andTable 8: Syntactic framework of speak
framework
numberspeak + DO
31
Speak + to7
speak#
4# means no word come after the word

From the results, the most frequent structure for say,tell, and speak is “V + DO”, and their semantic
structure is the same: [Agent [+human] _ Theme1

In this study, we analyze the present forms ofverbs only.
485

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics[-human]]. Careful examination shows that thekinds of nouns for Theme are different. The nouns
used as the object in speak are related to alanguage.(for example, English, Spanish, etc.) In
the case of tell, the “fact”, a “truth” and a “lie” wereused as the object. This information differentiates
the usage among these three verbs.

Table 13: Syntactic framework of hearframework
hear + that complement
hear +DO
hear + person + V

45
1

Table 14: Syntactic framework of listen
framework
numberlisten + to7listen#2# means no word come after the word.

3.2
Results of watch, see and look
There were various frameworks found in look in
Table 11, whereas the semantic structure is only
one:[Agent [+human] _ ]. In the case of watch,just one syntactic and semantic structure were
found in Table 9 and 10. See had various syntactic
framework like look, and had similar semantic
structure to watch. But in the case of see, theme canhave the attributes [+human] or [-human]. Hence
we can say, in the textbooks, these three verbs havecompletely different semantic and syntactic
environments.

Table 15: semantic structure of hear and listen
Semantic structure
Agent [+human] _ Theme [+human]
hear
Agent [+human] _ Theme [-human]listen Agent [+human] _4Table 9: Syntactic framework of watch
Syntactic framework
watch +DO

numberConclusion

Through the analysis, we found what kinds of input
the Japanese L2 learners obtain from the textbooks,
and what information to differentiate semantic andsyntactic information in acquiring English
synonyms is included in the textbooks.
The information we found in this study canbe useful in developing L2 vocabulary test to
examine the breadth of vocabulary knowledge,“How much do you know of a word?” And also,
the results of this study can be helpful for teaching
vocabulary. Moreover, the results imply what kindsof information should be tested to examine L2
vocabulary knowledge.

number22

Table 10: Semantic structure of watch and look
Semantic structure
watch Agent [+human] _ Theme [-human]
look Agent [+human] _seeAgent [+human] _ Theme [+-human]

Table 11: Syntactic framework of lookframework
numberlook + at
36
look + like1
look + adj
3
look#
8
total
48
# means no word come after the word.

References
Dong, Y., Gui, S. and MacWhinney, B. (2005).
Shared and Separate meanings in thebilingual mental lexicon. Bilingualism:
Language and Cognition 8, 3. 221-238.

Table 12: Syntactic framework of see
fromnumbersee +DO63
see +DO + PLACE2
see + DO + TIME2
see + DO + Ving
2

Ijaz,

H. (1986). Linguistic and cognitive
determinants of lexical acquisition in asecond language. Language Learning, 36,
401- 451.
Nation, I. S. P. (1990). Teaching and Learning
Vocabulary.
HeinleandHeinlePublishers: Boston.
Richards, J. (1976). The role of vocabulary teaching.
TESOL Quarterly. 10-1, 77-89.
Ueda, N., Miyasaka, N. and Yamazaki, T. (1999).
L2 Input and Output: Do L2 Textbooks
Contain Enough Syntactic Information?
Essays on English Language and Literature.
Pp.21-27. The English Language andLiterature Society of Waseda University

3.3
Results of hear and listen
The most frequent syntactic framework of hear is“hear + complement” and “hear + DO”. On theother hand, in the case of listen, the typicalsyntactic structure is “listen to”. In the point ofsemantic structure, hear and listen had the samestructure.

486

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Listening Comprehension Strategies of Turkish EFL Students and the
Effects of Proficiency Level on Strategy Use
Funda Gercek

The School of Foreign Languages, Anadolu University
fgercek@anadolu.edu.tr
directed, more effective and more transferable to
new situation”. Nevertheless, studies learning havemostly focused on reading, writing speaking
strategies of EFL and ESL learners. Learning
strategies in listening skill have widely ignored byresearchers. Vogely (1995) claims that “Although
our knowledge about Listening Comprehension andLanguage Learning Strategies has increased in thepast decade a gap still exist between research andtheory and the classroom reality. We still needresearch that document empirically the relationshipbetween what theory says and what learners
actually know and more importantly do. Morespecifically information is needed on the skills andstrategies learners actually bring or do not bring to
the Listening Comprehension Task”. Since theimportance of listening comprehension cannot be
underestimated and given the lack of research on
how learners acquire listening ability, the main
focus of this study will be;
What listening comprehension learning strategies
are employed by elementary, low-intermediate,intermediate and upper-intermediate level EFL
students at Anadolu University Prep classes. This
study attempts to identify the listening
comprehension learning strategies used by Turkish
students studying English in Intensive Language
Program at Anadolu University. It also examines therelationship between language proficiency andlistening comprehension strategies.

Abstract
This study attempts to identify the type andfrequency of listening comprehension strategy usedby students learning English as a foreign languageand determine the effects of proficiency level on
strategy use. The participants were Turkish. A total
369 students studying English in the Intensive
Language Program at the Preparatory School at
Anadolu University participated in the study. The
students were given a survey of listening
comprehension strategies adapted from Oxford(1990). The data was gathered from Elementary,
Low-Intermediate,
Intermediate
andUpper-Intermediate language level students.
Findings indicated that all language proficiency
level students used listening comprehension
strategies in the medium range in general.
The results indicated that the students at the
low-intermediate level used overall strategies
significantly more than the students at elementarylevel.
Memory and Cognitive strategies were used by
low-intermediate students more often thanelementary level students. Intermediate level
students used cognitive strategies significantly more
often than the students at elementary level. The
students at the upper-intermediate level usedmemory strategies significantly more often than theones at elementary level. When the students in
low-intermediate level was compared with the ones
in intermediate level and the students in
low-intermediate group was compared with theones in up-intermediate level, no significant
differences were found between their means forindividual SILL categories.

1

Aim and the Scope of the Study

This study attempts to identify listening
comprehension learning strategies used by Turkish
students of English studying at the Preparatory
School Prep classes at Anadolu University.
It also examines the relationship between
language proficiency and listening comprehension
learning strategies frequency use.
This study emphasizes the following five
strategies; memory, cognitive, metacognitive, andsocial-effective, based on the taxonomy of Oxford’s(1990) Language Learning Strategies.
This study was limited to students attending

Keywords
Listening
Comprehension,
Listening
Comprehension Strategies, Learning Strategies.

Introduction
Learning strategies are defined by Oxford(1990:8)
as “the specific actions taken by the learner to makelearning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self487

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

grammar and structure items, 30 vocabulary items
and 20 reading comprehension items. Students were
given to two hours to complete the test.

elementary, low-intermediate, intermediate andupper-intermediate level classes at Intensive
English Program of Preparatory School of Anadolu
University, Eskişehir. Beginner and Advanced
group classes are not included in this research.
Communicative strategies were not included. This
study was also limited to the listening skill. Sex
differences, age and English background of thesubjects were not considered.
1.1

2.2.2
Listening Strategy Inventory
To determine the listening strategies students use
SILL (Strategy Inventory for Language Learning)
was used. An adopted version of Oxford’s (1990)
SILL for listening comprehension was administered.
Only the items related to listening skill in SILL
were given to the subjects in this study. The
Inventory consisted of 26 statements on a 5 point
Likert scale ranging from 1(‘Never or almost
never’) to 5 (Always almost true of me’). These
items were translated to Turkish by the researcher
herself. To determine the linguistics validity of
Turkish version of Oxford’s (1990) SILL, 20
randomly chosen students from all levels wereasked to comment on the statements in terms oflanguage use, grammatical points, punctuation,
content and sentence structure. Again, revisions
were made based on these students’ comment. The
modified version was given to 10 teachers oflistening comprehension. The teachers were native
Turkish speakers.

Research Questions

The research questions to be answered in this study
are as follows;
1. Which listening comprehension learning
strategies do Turkish students of English use ingeneral?
2. Is there a relationship between language
proficiency and listening comprehension
learning strategies frequency use?

2

Methodology

2.1
Subjects
A total 368 students attending the Intensive English
Program at Anadolu University, Eskişehir
participated in the study. The students were given aplacement test examination and the results of theexam revealed that their language levels ranged
between beginner and advanced. The students were
given the first placement test at the beginning of theFall Term and the same students were given thesecond placement test at the beginning of theSpring Term of the same year. The students hadtaken 16 weeks English instruction according to thegrades that they had in the first exam in the Fallterm. After the second placement exam that they
had, they were placed in different levels. During thestudy they were enrolled in Intensive English
Program in Prep School where they received
between 31 and 20 hours of English classes in all
skills weekly. At the time of the study, they had allcompleted a period of 32 weeks English instruction.

2.3

All data were collected during the last week of thespring semester. Students were informed that SILL
was designed to identify their listening
comprehension strategies. They were recommended
to give responses to the statements as sincerely as
possible. There was no time limit for the SILL.
2.3.1
Data Analysis
Students responses (ranging from 1to 5) to the SILL
items were scored on the SILL answer sheets.
Responses to each strategy group were totaled andthen the results were divided by the number of each
item in each strategy group to provide an averagefor each group. These averages were rounded off
the nearest hundredth, i.e. 2.25.
Significant variation in mean strategy use acrossthe entire SILL and in differences in mean strategy
use in the memory, cognitive, compensation,
metacognitive, affective and social strategies
categories as related to language level was
determined by using one-tailed t-test, employing
Stat View 512+ statistical software. The results
were considered significant if they reached thelevel .05 or below.

2.2
Instruments
The following instruments were used to determine
different factors such as language level and strategy
use of students.
2.2.1

Procedure

Placement Test

Students language levels were determinedaccording to the scores on a standard placement test
(Michigan Placement).The goal of the test was tomeasure the language level of the students. The
highest score possible in Michigan placement
examination is 100. There are four parts of theexam; 20 listening comprehension questions, 30

3Results

3.1
Differences in Overall Strategy Use
Frequencies of listening comprehension strategy

488Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Table 1: Summary of Variation in Listening
Overall Strategy Use by Language Leveluse in general revealed that the students participatedin the study used the listening comprehension
strategies in the medium range (mean 3.13).
Students’ overall means for individual SILL
categories were in the medium use range as well.

Language Level
Elementary
Low –intermediate
Intermediate
Upper-intermediate

n
96
81
76
116

Mean
3.08
3.19
3.11
3.14

Table 2: Summary of Variation of Means in Six Strategy Group in Listening Comprehension Use by
Language Levels
Level
Elementary
Low-int
Intermediate
Up-intMean

Memory
2.86
3.02
2.86
3.02
2.94

Cognitive
2.99
3.24
3.20
3.24
3.16

Compensation
3.33
3.43
3.41
3.32
3.37

Table 3: Summary of Variation in Listening
Overall Strategy Use by Proficiency Levels
Comparision ofProficiency Level

n

mean

Elem vs L-int
Elem vs Int
Elem vs Up-int
L-int vs Int
L-int vs Up-İnt
Int vs Up-İnt

96/81
96/76
96/116
81/76
81/116
76/1163.08 /3.19
3.08 /3.11
3.08 /3.13
3.19 /3.08
3.19 /3.31
3.11 /3.13

Metacognitive
3.31
3.39
3.26
2.77
3.18

Affective
2.67
2.81
2.76
3.13
2.84

Social
3.30
3.30
3.30
3.14
3.26

students’ means were higher than those ofelementary level students yet the difference did not
approach statistical significance. Low-intermediatelevel students’ means for the six SILL categories
were in the medium use range, except sor
compensation strategies (mean 3.43) which wasbarely over the upper limit of the range. Elementarylevel students’ means were again in the medium use
range.
As table 5 shows, indicated that the students at
Intermediate level used cognitive strategies
significantly more often than the students atelementary level (t=1.969, p<.02). The means were
3.20 and 2.99 respectively. In two of other five
strategy categories (memory and social) Elementary
and Intermediate group students’ means were equal.
The mean was 2.85 respectively the same for bothgroups. The other two strategy categories(compensation and affective) Intermediate levelgroup students’ means were slightly higher thanelementarygroup
students’means.
For
meatacognitive strategies the reverse was true.
However the differences were far from being
significant. Intermediate level students’ means forthe six SILL categories were in the medium range,
except for compensation strategies (mean 3.41)
which was over the upper limit of the range.
Elementary level students’ means were in themedium range again.

t valueandsignificant
level1.757 p<.04
ns
ns
ns
ns
ns

To determine the general listening strategies
students use, all 26 items were investigated. These
26 items were classified as memory, cognitive,compensation, metacognitive affective and social
strategies.
Overall strategy use, according to the t-test
results did not vary significantly by language levelsof elementary –intermediate (t= .423, d.f=170
p=.3363), elementary –upper-intermediate (t= .868,
d.f=210,
p=.1931);
Low-intermediate–
intermediate (t=-1.467, d.f.= 155, p=.0722);
upper-intermediate – low-intermediate (t= .887,
d.f= 155, p= .1882); intermediate – up-intermediate(t=.364, d.f= 190, p=.558). However overall
strategy use according to the t-test result varies
significantly by low-intermediate and elementarygroups (t= 1.757, d.f.=175, p= .0403; p<.05)
3.2

Variation in Use of the Six Categories ofStrategies
The t-test results as table 4 presents, indicated thatthe students at low-intermediate level used memory
strategies significantly more often than the students
at elementary level (t= 1.733, p<.04). The means
were 2.85 and 3.02 respectively.
The difference between low-intermediate andelementary students’ uses of cognitive strategies(means were 3.24 and 2.99 respectively) was close
to significance (t= 2.33, p<.01).
In three of the four strategy groups (memory,
metacognitive, social) low-intermediate level

Table 4: Summary of Variation in Elementaryand Low-Intermediate Students’ Means for
Strategy Categories
SILL Category

Elementary

Low-Int

MemoryCognitive
Compensation
Metacognitive
Affective
Social

3.02
2.99
3.32
3.31
2.66
3.29

2.85
3.24
3.43
3.39
2.80
3.30

t ValueandSignificanceLevel
1.733 (p<.04)
2.33(p< .01)
ns
ns
ns
ns

When the students in elementary group compared489

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Strategy Categories

with the ones in Upper-Intermediate group as table
6 presents, the students at upper-intermediate level
used memory strategies significantly more often
than the students at elementary level (t= 1.797,
p<.03). The means were 3.01 and 2.85 respectively.
Moreover, the students at Upper-intermediate level
used cognitive strategies significantly more often
than the students at elementary level (t=2.728,
p<.003). In two of the other five strategy categories(compensation and metacognitive), elementary andupper-intermediate group students’ means are equal.
The means were 3.32 and 3.31 respectively thesame for both groups. The other strategy category(affective) Upper-intermediate level group students
mean was slightly higher than elementary groupstudents’ mean. For social strategies the reverse wastrue. Although the differences were far from being
significant both level students’ means for the six
SILL categories were in the medium range.

SILL
Category
MemoryCognitive
Compensation
Metacognitive
Affective
SocialElementary

Low-Int

MemoryCognitive
Compensation
Metacognitive
Affective
Social

2.85
2.99
3.32
3.31
2.66
3.26

2.85
3.20
3.41
3.26
2.75
3.30

t ValueandSignificanceLevel
ns
1.969 (p<.02)
ns
ns
ns
ns

4

Elementary

Low-Int

MemoryCognitive
Compensation
Metacognitive
Affective
Social

2.85
2.99
3.32
3.31
2.66
3.29

3.01
3.24
3.32
3.31
2.77
3.12

t Value andSignificanceLevel
1.797 (p<.03)
2.728 (p<.003)
ns
ns
ns
ns

Table
7:
Summary
of
Variationin
Low-Intermediate and Intermediate Students’
Means for Strategy Categories
SILL Category

Elementary

Low-Int

MemoryCognitive
Compensation
Metacognitive
Affective
Social

2.80
3.30
3.19
3.02
3.24
3.43

2.75
3.30
3.11
2.85
3.20
3.41

2.85
3.20
3.41
3.26
2.75
3.30

3.01
3.24
3.32
3.31
2.77
3.12

t Value andSignificance
Level
ns
ns
ns
ns
ns
ns

Conclusion

The results of this study show that the students’
overall listening strategy mean across the whole
SILL and general means for individual SILL
categories were in the medium range, which meansthat the students used listening strategies“sometimes”.
The results indicated that the students at the
low-intermediate level used overall strategies
significantly more than the students at elementarylevel.
Memory and Cognitive strategies were used by
low-intermediate students more often thanelementary level students. Intermediate level
students used cognitive strategies significantly more
often than the students at elementary level. Whenthe students in low-intermediate level and thestudents in intermediate level was compared withthe ones up-intermediate level, no significant
differences were found between their means forindividual SILL categories.

Table 6: Summary of Variation in Elementaryand Upper-Intermediate Students’ Means for
Strategy Categories
SILL Category

Low-Int

When the students in Low-intermediate group wascompared with the ones in Intermediate no
significant differences were found between theirmeans for individual SILL categories (See Table 7).
Although Low-intermediate group students’ means
were higher than those of the students inintermediate group, the differences between theirmeans were higher than those of the students inIntermediate group, the differences between theirmeans were found to be non-significant.
When the students in Intermediate group wascompared with the students in Upper-intermediate
no significant differences were found between theirmeans for individual SILL categories (See Table 8)

Table 5: Summary of Variation in Elementary
and Intermediate Students’ Means for Strategy
Categories
SILL Category

Elementaryt Value andSignificance
Level
ns
ns
ns
ns
ns
ns

References
Oxford,J.R. (1990). Language Learning Strategies:
What Every Teacher Should Know. Heinleand Heinle Publishers.
Vogely, A. (1995) Perceived Strategy Use During
Performance on Three Auhentic Listening
Comprehension Tasks, The Modern
Language Journal. 75, 1, 41-56

Table 8: Summary of Variation in Intermediate
and Upper-Intermediate Students’ Means for490

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Students’ perception of intercultural communication throughnew distance learning model
Bok-Myung Chang1 and Eunjung Bang2

1

Department of English, Namseoul University, 2Namseoul University
bmchang@nsu.ac.kr,eunjungbk@yahoo.co.kr
For example, even though English is not used
as an official language in Korea, many people
invest their money and energy in English education.
One of the main purposes of English education in
Korea has become raising students’ communicativecompetence. However, despite increasing emphasison communicative competence in English education,
Korean people lack of communicative competencecomparing to their grammar and vocabulary level.
So teachers and practitioners in Korea are trying todevelop a variety of ways enhancing students’communicative competence.
Meanwhile, as there are more NNS-NNS
interactions taking place worldwide, people begin
to recognize the importance of English as an
International Language (EIL), so language
practitioners in the countries of Expanding Circles
have devised various models of intercultural
distance learning. These kinds of cross-cultural
distance learning model provide students withchances to use English as an International language,
and by doing so, students can also strengthen theircommunicative competence.
NWCCDLP (Namseoul-Waseda Cross-Cultural
Distance Learning Project) is such a model which isdesigned to improve students’ communicativecompetence by using English as an international
language through intercultural communication
between students in Namseoul and Waseda
universities.
Especially, NWCCDLP which is newly
introduced this semester is focusing more on
improving students’ communicative competence.
This model consists of preparation class, reading or
research, in class voice chatting discussion andreflection papers for each discussion topic and thisschedule is expected to maximize students’contribution to the discussion. Also, students aretaught to be aware of a variety of communication
skills so that students can recognize communicationdifferences between individuals and cultures.
In other words, students can practice different
kinds of intercultural communication styles in
addition to negotiating various cultural issues

Abstract
This study tries to examine students’ perception of
the newly introduced model of NWCCDLP(Namseoul-Waseda
Cross-Cultural
Distance
Learning Project) which focuses more on
improving students’ communicative competence.
In the newly introduced NWCCDLP, the course
is divided into five different discussion sessions.
For each discussion topic, there is additional one totwo preparation class and students are also expected
to do reading or research outside of class time.
Then students have Joint Class for each topic. Afterthe Joint Class, students submit reflection papers
three times during the whole semester.
The results from students’ reflection papers andprivate interviews reveal that
1) the preparation class and homework are very
helpful to get the idea of the discussion topic so thatstudents can contribute to discussion meaningfully2) the preparation class and homework also help
students be aware of various kinds of interculturalcommunication styles which result in upgrading theinteractions through CCDL
3) students’ satisfaction for the course is higher
than out-of-class text chatting that students havedone with Japanese students4) this new type of distance learning model(preparation class + reading or research + in classvoice chatting + reflection paper) is very effective
in language learning especially in enhancing
students’ communicative competence.

Keywords
Communicative Competence, English as an
International Language (EIL), Distance Learning,
NNS(non-native speakers)-NNS Interaction

1

Introduction

As communicative competence gains more
attention in language learning, the needs for
employingvariouswaysofenhancingcommunicative competence have also beenemphasized by language practitioners.

491

Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Even though the figure is not uncontroversial, it
is clear that non-native speakers of English
outnumber native speakers of English.
This can be also seen in Kachru’s three-circle
model of World Englishes. As English is spoken
worldwide, Kachuru (1992) divides World
Englishes into three concentric circles, the Inner
Circle, the Outer Circle and the Expanding Circle.
According to him, the Expanding Circle occupies
the biggest circle representing that there are morecases of communication between non-native
speakers of English than with native speakers ofEnglish and NNS-NNS interaction is critical in
successful L2 learning.
Cross-cultural Distance Learning is one of thepossible models which can enhance NNS-NNS
interactions. NWCCLDP provides students in the
Expanding Circle with a new environment tostrengthen their communicative competence byraising their sociolinguistic and conversational
skills through interactions with other NNSs.
Warschauer (1997) claims that the special
features of online communication such as
computer-mediated, many-to many, time- andplace-independent, usable across long distances
provide an impressive array of new ways to linklearners. He also argues that these features makeonline learning a potentially useful tool forcollaborative language learning when viewed in thecontext of sociocultural learning theory, whichemphasizes the educational value of creating
cross-cultural communities of practice and criticalinquiry.

through the new model. By doing so, students are
expected
to
widen
their
communicativecompetence.
In this light, we try to examine students’
perception of intercultural communication throughthis newly introduced model of NWCCDLP which
increases the chance to use English as an
International Language for their communication
In this vein, the following research questions
are formed:
1) Do the preparation class and homework activate
students’ intercultural communication in the Joint
Class?
2) Is this course more effective in improving
students’ communicative competence than other
out-of-class chatting?

2

Literature Reviews

The notion of communicative competence, first
proposed by Hymes (1974), not only includes
linguistic competence but also a range of othersociolinguistic and conversational skills that enable
the speaker to know how to say what to whom,
when. In other words, students with highcommunicative competence are thought to haveability to apply grammatical, discourse and cultural
knowledge to communicate effectively in particular
contexts for particular purposes (Nunan, 1999).
In the meantime, Crystal (1997) argues thatcurrently, there are seventy-five territories where
English is spoken either as a first language (L1), oras an official (i.e. institutionalized) second language(L2) in fields such as government, law andeducation.
From the Crystal’s figures, it is implied that
English is commonly used not only by its native
speakers but also by people whose native language
is not English.
However, there are still other non-native
speakers of English for whom English has no
official function within their countries, whoprobably number around one billion and whose
proficiency levels range from reasonable tobilingual competence.
They are speakers referred to as speakers ofEnglish as an International Language, reflecting thefact that these English users from, for example,
Europe and Japan, speak English more frequently
as a contact language among themselves than withnative speakers of English (Jenkins, 2003).
According to her, non-native English speakers
who speak English as a second or foreign language
are thought to be over one billion while speakers ofEnglish as a native language are thought to number
around 350 million.

3

Methods

The newly introduced cross-cultural distancelearning model designed by Waseda University isadopted for this study. This section begins by
describing the course.
3.1

Course Description
In the newly introduced NWCCDLP, the wholesemester is devoted to the course. The course isdivided into five different discussion topics. For
each discussion topic, there is additional one to two
preparation class and students are also expected to
do reading or research outside of class time.
Through the preparation class and homework,
students are encouraged to participate in theinteraction more actively and contribute to
discussion meaningfully. Moreover, students canpractice
different
kindsofinterculturalcommunication styles provided by the textbook in
addition to be prepared for negotiating various
cultural issues.

492Proceedings of the 14th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

there are many other students who report that the
NNS-NNS interaction helps them become moreinterested in Japanese culture, more confident inusing English and so on.
Instead, we are more concerned with thestudent’s perception of the new cross-cultural
distance learning model which is focusing more on
enhancing students’ communicative competence by
preparing for the discussion before the Joint class.
Here are other examples of students’ reflection
papers.

Then students have Joint Class (in class voicechatting discussion) for each topic. The students
from Namseoul and Waseda Universities arematched as partners and meet as a small groupthrough the Live On system 5 times during thewhole semester.
During the discussion, students are encouraged
only to speak in English (voice chatting) and use
text box only when there is a communication
breakdown.
After the Joint Class, students submit reflection
papers three times during the whole semester.
For this course, material developed by Waseda
University is used as a main textbook through thewhole semester.
All of the students in this study have experienceof out-of-class text chatting, so we investigate
students’ perception of two different cross-cultural
distance learning models.

NSU 03141513
We share many opinions. When each othercome with another opinion, there were problems ofcommunication. But because of the textbook andpreparation class, there were more understanding
with each other.
NSU 01141547
When I have preparation class, it was difficult
to make a decision about our topic. Because I didn't
have much information about topic before thepreparation class. However, when I talk with otherstudents in Liveon, it was easier than preparation
class because I had some information about our
topic which I've prepared in before class.

3.2

Data Collection and Analysis
The data are collected from the students’reflection papers and interviews. Qualitative
methodology is used to analyze the data (reflection
papers and interviews) from the students who
participated in the course.
Reflection papers are submitted three times
during the sessions and the private interview iscarried out at the end of the semester.

4

NSU 01141107
Only the hardest part was the hardware systems.
It shows why we need over preparation for thesekinds of CCDL classes

Results
Here are some of students’ reflection papers.

Analysis of students’ reflection papers andinterviews regarding two research questions reveal
the followings.
1) the preparation class and homework are very
helpful to get the idea of the discussion topic so thatstudents can contribute to discussion meaningfully2) the preparation class and homework also help
students be aware of various kinds ofcommunication styles which results in upgrading
the interactions through CCDL.
3) students’ satisfaction for the course is higher
than out-of-class text chatting as students canrecognize communication differences between
individuals and cultures through the preparation
class and homework prior to the real discussion.
Moreover, students can have actual chances to
speak and concentrate on the course through thewhole semester as there is consistency in theirlearning.
4) In general, this new type of distance learningmodel (preparation class + reading or research + inclass voice chatting + reflection paper) is very
effective in language learning especially inenhancing students’ communicative competence.

NSU 03141119
The Live On was very interesting to me.
Making conversation with different country’s
people is difficult, but I could try to get them tounderstand. And I was more comfortable when I
talked in English with Japanese students than
Korean students. Also, we could know about theother countries. This class was helpful to me tohave confident about English.
NSU 04141008
Even though there was hardware problem, I
could communicate with real foreigners. I do nothave chance to talk to the foreigner, but I could. I
was also very relaxed talking to foreigners.
Even though most of the students point out thattechnical problem causes too much communication
breakdown, students are satisfied with the course ingeneral.
However, we are not centering on generaladvantages of cross-cultural distance learning inthis study. In addition to the above reflection papers,

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5

through CCDL project. Journal of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, 9(2), 241-261.
Chang, B. M. (2008). New environment for
acquiring English as an International
Language. Proceedings of the 13th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 129-132.
Chapelle, C. A. (2001). Computer applications insecond language acquisition: Foundations
for teaching, testing and research.
Calbridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, D. (1997). English as a global language.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jenkins, J. (2003). World Englishes. New York:
Routledge.
Kachuru, B. (1992). The other tongue: English
across cultures (2nd ed.). Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois Press.
Nunan, D. (1999). Second language teaching andlearning. Boston: Heinle & Heinle
Publishers.
Warschauer, M. (1997). Computer-mediatedcollaborative learning. Modern Language
Journal, 81(4), 470-481

Discussions and Conclusions

As English is increasingly used as acommunication tool between NNSs, teachers ofEnglish in the Expanding Circle have attempted toinvestigate various types of models to improvestudents’ communicative competence by using
English as an International Language.
NWCCDLP is one of possible models which
provide students with the chances to interact withother NNSs of English by using English as an
International Language.
The newly introduced NWCCDLP, focusing
more on raising students’ communicativecompetence, consists of preparation class, readingor research, in class voice chatting and reflection
paper. Through this course, students can participate
in the discussion more meaningfully by practicing
different kinds of communication styles prior to thereal discussion. Also students can prepare for theintercultural communication by doing previous
research or reading or even discussion practice with
Korean students.
Students announce that the preparation classand homework seem to be more effective inintercultural communication as computer-mediatedcross cultural communication is more difficult than
the normal face-to-face interaction with the
speakers of the same language.
In fact, the preparation class and homework
prior to the real discussion enable students torecognize communication differences between
individuals and cultures. Moreover, with these
preparations, students felt more relaxed andconfident during the real discussion so that they
participated in the discussion more actively.
The results from the students’ reflection papers
and interviews imply that this new type of
NWCCDP is very helpful in raising communicativecompetence by not only acquiring English as an
International Language through the interaction withJapanese students but also learning various kinds ofcommunication skills.
However, nearly all the students report that
there is too much technical problem. Especially, incomputer-mediated distance learning, as students
have to utilize electronic devices to communicate
with each other, technical problem can cause
serious communication breakdown.
With these results, this research will help us to
improve the environment which can activate theinteraction between non-native speakers.
References
Alptekin, C. (1993). Target-language culture in EFL
materials. ELT Journal, 47(2), 136-143.
Chang, B. M. (2005). World English acquisition494