ISSN: 1346-535X

Proceedings of the 12th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics
第十二回環太平洋応用言語学会予稿集
19-21, December, 2007
Royal Cliff Beach Resort, Pattaya, Thailand

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

Proceedings of the 12th 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 © 2007 PAAL All rights reserved.
PRINTED IN JAPAN

Co-Chairs:
Michiko Nakano (Waseda University)
Nak-Seung Baek (Kangwon National University)

Vice Co-Chair:
Kouichi Ano (Bunkyo University)

Conference Committee:
Norifumi Ueda (Mejiro University), Junko Negishi (Waseda University),
Eiichiro Tsutsui (Hiroshima International University), Yusuke Kondo (Waseda University)
Kota Kodachi (Shiba Junior/Senior High School), and Remi Murao (Waseda University)Preface

We are very pleased to host the 12th Conference of PAAL at Royal Cliff Beach Resort, Pattaya, Thailand.
This year we have decided to publish our Proceedings prior to the conference.

PAAL Korea often

requested us in the past to publish Proceedings prior to the conference and PAAL Japan finally managed to
do so. This facilitates us to read paper contents, which deepens our understanding of the paper, resulting in
the richer interaction in each session.

As before, we will upload the Proceeding papers on our Home Page

for publicity: http://paaljapan.org/
As you know, the proceedings and our journal have been linked to LLBA and ERIC. All our abstracts areread widely in the world for research purposes. This year we have made arrangement with EBISCO so that
our journal papers are digitalized to be distributed all over the world.
The members at Japan PAAL take turns in editing the Proceeding papers. I am very grateful to Yusuke
Kondo and Yasuo Miyamoto for their efforts in maintaining our Home Page and editing the Proceeding
papers. To give thanks and tributes to the members of PAAL Japan who have made the 12th PAAL
successful, I am listing the names of PAAL members who have contributed in 2007.
Norifumi Ueda (Ebisco arrangements, jointly with Prof H. Lee, Korea University)
Yusuke Kondo (Home Page and Editor for the Proceedings)
Eiichiro Tsutsui (the previous editor for the proceedings)
Yasuo Miyamoto and Ryo Yoshimoto (Home Page maintenance)
Kota Kodachi (Travel Arrangements)
Junko Negishi (Treasurer)
Special Thanks to the Financial Supports from the following organizations and research funds:
Digital Campus Consortium (Conference Room charges)
Graduate and Undergraduate Exchange Program, Division of International Affairs (Proceedings)
Cross-Cultural Distance Learning Research Center which received the payment of my contributions inediting English Tutorial Textbooks and in supervising all the courses offered by Waseda University
International (Travel Expenses for Invited Speakers and their accommodation fee)
Special Research Fund-in-Aid, Waseda University
We all look forward to seeing you in Pattaya.

Michiko Nakano
Co-chairperson, PAAL.
November, 25th 2007

Day 1: 19th of December
HALL

Room 1

09:00-09:30

Registration

09:30-10:50

Opening Address & Keynote I

11:00-12:00

Session A

Session B

Session C

A-1

B-1

C-1

A-2

B-2

C-2

12:00-13:30

13:30-15:00

Break
Session D

Session E

D-1

E-1

D-2

E-2

Poster Session I:

D-3

E-3

P-1-1715:00-15:30

15:30-17:00

Room 2(14:00-16:00)

Break
Session F

Session G

F-1

G-1

F-2

G-2

F-3

G-3

18:00-

DinnerDay 2: 20th of December
HALL

09:00-10:30

Room 1Room 2

Session H

Session I

H-1

I-1

H-2

I-2

H-3

I-3

10:30-11:00

Break

11:00-12:00

Keynote II

13:00-15:00

Board MeetingiiDay 3: 21st of December
HALL

09:00-10:30

Session K

J-1

K-1

J-2

K-2

J-3

K-3
Break

Session L

Session M

L-1

M-1

L-2

M-2

12:00-13:30

13:30-15:00

Room 2

Session J

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

Room 1

Break
Session N

Session O

Poster Session II:

N-1

O-1

Q-1-18N-2

O-2(13:00-15:00)

N-3

O-3

15:00-15:30

Break

15:30-17:00

Keynote III & Closing Addressiii

Contents
Keynote Speech
I

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trustbuilding: Past, Present, & Future
Kyung-Ja Park (Korea University)

II

2

English as a World Language: Implication for the Teaching Pronunciation
Tony T.N. Hung (Hong Kong Baptist University)

18

Politeness Formulas in L2 Acquisition: An Intercultural Perspective
Ho-min Sohn (University of Hawaii at Manoa & La Trobe University RCLT)

26

Paper Presentation
A-1

Textualising Emotions and Poetic Effects in Advertising Language
Vincent Daoxun Zhang (National Chengchi University)

A-2(Un)satisfied Regulations and (In)consistency of Dialogue
Susumu Kubo (Matsuyama University)

B-1

42

Japanese Students' New Perceptions about Using English as an International Language
Setsuko Oda (International Christian University)

B-2

46

Analysis of Kenyan English Textbooks
Seongchan Kim (Songkonghoe University)

C-1

38

50

A Detailed Analysis of Teacher Feedback to the University-level L2 Writing andStudents' Reception and Preferences
Kahoko Matsumoto (Tokai University) & Tama Kumamoto (Nagoya University ofForeign Studies)

C-2

52

Comparing L2 Writers' Degrees of Preference for Writing and L1 Use by Proficiency
Eun-Mi Yang (Kkottongnae Hyundo University of Social Welfare)D-1

An Analysis of Recreational Email Messages
Chan Ai Nyet & Rajeswary A. Sargunan (University of Malaya)

D-2

58

Enhancing EFL Vocabulary Learning via Web-based Concordancing System
Fang-rong Kuo (National United University)

D-3

54

60

Possibilities and Effectiveness of Collaborative Language Learning in a Multicultural
Distance Class over Broadband Networks
Yuri Nishihori (Hokkaido University)

64
iv

E-1

Analysis of Verbal Processes in Research Articles of Medical Journals
Afsaneh Dehnad (University of Tehran)

E-2

68

The Effect of Nonuse of EFL Learners' L1 by an Instructor in Classrooms
Chiyo Myojin (Kochi University of Technology)

E-3

Extensive Reading of Authentic Materials and Graded Readers in an EFL Context
Paul Suh (Korea University)

F-1

70

72

Learning English through Social Issues: Ways to Develop ESL Learners' Social andCognitive Strategies
Yee Lin Ruffell (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

F-2

74

Current Perceptions and Beliefs among Incoming College Students towards Learning
English–A Case Study in National United University
Hsiao-fang Cheng (National United University)

F-3

Communication Apprehension among Japanese College Students
Rieko Matsuoka & Ian Smith (The National College of Nursing)

G-1

82

English Acquisition through NNS-NNS Interaction in EFL Contexts
Bok-Myung Chang (Numseoul Univrsity)

G-3

80

An Inquiry into Strategies for EFL Elementary Teachers' Professional Development
Chiou-hui Chou (National Hsinchu University of Education)

G-2

76

86

From Corpus to L2 Vocabulary Curriculum: Some Limitations of a Data-driven
Approach
Arthur McNeill (Hong Kong Baptist University)

H-1

An Effective Way Using Literary Works for a Foreign Language Learning
Jongbok Lee (Mokwon University)

H-2

92

The Interlanguage of Thai Undergraduate Students: The Use of Verb Phrase
Suthida Soontornwipat (Chulalongkorn University)

H-3

96

The Gap between Commercial Textbooks and Children's Cognitive Development
Naomi Kakihara (Waseda University)

I-1

88

100

Malaysian English: What makes it so?
Rajeswary A. Sargunan (University of Malaya)
v

102

I-2

Lexicalization by Malaysian Learners of English as a Second Language
Asha Doshi (University of Malaya)

I-3

104

The Posit Text Profiling Toolset
George R. S. Weir (University of Strathclyde)

J-1

106

The Effect of Portfolio Assessment on Metacognitive Reading Strategy Awareness of
Iranian EFL Students
Mahmoodreza Atai & Fatemeh Nikuinezhad (Islamic Azad University)

J-2

Analysis of Requests Produced by Native and Non-Native Speakers of English
Junko Negishi (Waseda University)

J-3

114

Comparing Expressions in Bilingual Japanese-English “Manga”
Misuzu Miyake & Timothy Floyd Hawthorne (Hiroshima International University)

K-1

110

118

Measuring Readability for Japanese Learners of English
Toshiaki Ozasa (Fukuyama Heisei University), George R. S. Weir (University ofStrathclyde), & Masayasu Fukui (Fukuyama University)

K-2

122

Diachronic and Synchronic Analyses of English Textbooks of Japan and Five AsianEFL Countries: With a Focus on the Gender Awareness
Tomoko Nakamura (Hiroshima International University) & Toshiaki Ozasa (Fukuyama
Heisei University)

K-3

126

Estimating Naturalness in Japanese English Textbooks
George R S Weir (University of Strathclyde) & Toshiaki Ozasa (Fukuyama Heisei
University)

L-1

130

Variation in the Acquisition of Unaccusative Verbs by Japanese EFL Learners
Kenichi Yamakawa (Yasuda Women’s University), Naoki Sugino (Ritsumeikan
University), Hiromasa Ohba (Joetsu University of Education), Michiko Nakano(Waseda University), & Yuko Shimizu (Ritsumeikan University)

L-2

English Secondary Predicates and Their Equivalent Expressions in Thai
Natsuki Matsui (Kwansei Gakuin University)

M-1

134

138

The Effects of Peer Response and Teacher Response on EFL College Composition
Instruction
Yuh-Yun Yen (National Chiayi University)

142

vi

M-2

Learner Perceptions and Learner Involvement in Remedial Writing Classes
Swathi Vanniarajan (San Jose State University)

N-1

146

University Students' Needs toward the General English Instruction for the Curriculum
Development
Myeoung-Hee Seong (Eul-ji University) & Hyung-ji Chang (Catholic University of
Daegu)

N-2

150

The Effect of the Lexical-Based EFL Learning Approach on Learners’ General
Language Proficiencies and Lexical Abilities
Arunee Arunreung (Chulalongkorn University)

N-3

154

The preliminary study on curriculum design with culture-based language learning foruniversity students
Hyung-ji Chang (Catholic University of Daegu)

O-1

The Effect of Reading Aloud Practice on English Abilities of College Students
Kouichi Ano (Bunkyo University)

O-2

158

162

A Study of What Students Think They Have Learned through Synchronous
Computer-Mediated Communication
Kenji Nakayama (Waseda University Senior High School)

O-3

164

The Design of Web-based Collaborative Environments for Global Teacher Training
Yuri Nishihori (Hokkaido University)

168

Poster Session
P-1

Using Differential Item Functioning to Detect Individual Differences of EFL Learners
Eiichiro Tsutsui (Hiroshima International University), Michiko Nakano (Waseda
University), Yusuke Kondo (Waseda University), & Kazuharu Owada (Ritsumeikan
University)

P-2

174

Examining Predictors of Second Language Speech Evaluation
Yusuke Kondo (Waseda University), Eiichiro Tsutsui (Hiroshima International
University), Hajime Tsubaki, Shizuka Nakamura, Yoshinori Sagisaka, & Michiko
Nakano (Waseda University)

176

Development of Grammar (Expectancy) Strategies: Expecting the Following Sentence
P-3

Constituent
Akihiro Kobayashi (Waseda University)

180
vii

P-4

Study on Students' Attitude Towards World Englishes and Non-native English Teachers
Kyunghee Choi (Hanyang Women's College)

182

Developing CEFR-based Can-do Descriptors to Assess Practical Communication Skills
P-5

of Japanese Learners of English
Eiichiro Tsutsui (Hiroshima International University), Yusuke Kondo, & Michiko
Nakano (Waseda University)

186

The Effect of Previewing Item-stems and Answer Options and the Effect of Repetition
P-6

of a Text in Listening Comprehension Tests
Ken'ichi Otsuka (Ibaraki National College of Technology)

P-7

190

Why do we Need to Teach Communication Strategies to Japanese EFL Learners?
Eiichiro Tsutsui (Hiroshima International University), Kazuharu Owada (Ritsumeikan
University), Yusuke Kondo (Waseda University), Kouichi Ano (Bunkyo University),
Norifumi Ueda (Mejiro University), & Michiko Nakano (Waseda University)

P-8

Integrating Debate and Drama in an Intermediate College English Course
Yasuko Shiozawa (Bunkyo University)

P-9

192

196

Using Diaries to Investigate Teachers' Perception of Rating Schemes
Jyi-yeon Yi (Chongshin University)

198

Tense and Aspect in English, French and Mandarin Chinese - Proposal for a
P-10

Pedagogical Tool
Lih-Juang Fang (Paris University – Sorbonne)

202

The Relationship between Learning Strategy Preference and English Proficiency: In
P-11

Case of Japanese University Students
Satoshi Yoshida (Waseda University)

P-12

206

The Role of Anxiety in Self-perception of L2 Competence
Hyun Jin Kim (Cheongju National University of Education)

210

A Comparison of Immigrants in Taiwan with Respect to Their Language Use andP-13

Language Attitude - Southeast Asia "brides" and Japanese Spouses in TainanLekun Tan & Wi-vun Chiung (National Cheng Kung University)

P-14

212

The Study on Writing Anxiety in Korean EFL classroom
Yousun Chung (Korea University)

216

viii

P-15

Teaching Practice Focusing on Improving Students' Communicative Competence
Akihiko Kawashima (Waseda University)

P-16

Q-1

218

Investigating English Teachers' Attitudes towards E-learning Platforms
Hung-Hsuan Kao (Jinwen University of Science and Technology)

220

Does Vowel Quality Matter?

224

Aya Kitagawa, Yusuke Kondo, & Michiko Nakano (Waseda University)
Analysis on Text Chats of Novice Japanese Learners of English in Computer MediatedQ-2

Communication
Takane Yamaguchi (Waseda University)

Q-3

228

Strategic Language Teaching: Using Moodle in EFL Contexts
Eiichiro Tsutsui (Hiroshima International University)

Q-4

230

Sex Difference in Kanji Processing: a MEG Study
Yoko Okita (Tokyo Medical and Dental University)234

Acquisition of English Vowel Contrasts by Native Korean Speakers: The Effect of
Q-5

Perceptual Identification Training on Production
Kyounghee Lee (Hanyang University)
Methodological

Q-6

Considerationsof236
MentalLexiconResearch:

Focusing

onRepresentational Links among Lexical Entries
Naoki Sugino (Ritsumeikan University), Simon Fraser (Hiroshima University), Yuya
Koga (Shukugawa Gakuin College), Naoki Sugimori (Ritsumeikan University),
Hirokatsu Kawashima (Nagasaki College of Foreign Languages), & Chika Ikeda (Aichi
Prefectural University)

Q-7

240

Developmental Processes in L2 Acquisition of Japanese Learners of English
Norifumi Ueda (Mejiro University)

Q-8

244

Theme-based Cross Cultural Distance Learning: (1) Social and Global Issues
Michiko Nakano, Remi Murao, Seiko Ito, Mariko Yokota, Annette Karseras Sumi, &Darren Mcdermott (Waseda University)

Q-9

248

Theme-based Cross Cultural Distance Learning: (2) MediaMichiko Nakano, Mariko Yokota, Annette Karseras Sumi, Remi Murao, Darren
Mcdermott, & Seiko Ito (Waseda University)

ix

252

Q-10

Theme-based Cross Cultural Distance Learning: (3) International Carrier Path
Michiko Nakano, Annette Karseras Sumi, Remi Murao, Mariko Yokota, Seiko Ito, &Darren Mcdermott (Waseda University)

Q-11

256

On the Acquisition of Passives in Child Language
Ho Han (Ajou University)

260

Adaptation of Cross-Cultural Distance Learning to EFL Contexts of Korean
Universities-Case studies on Kangwon National Univ., Hanyang Women’s College, andQ-12

Namseoul Univ.Nak-Seung Baek (Kangwon National University), Kyunghee Choi (Hanyang Women'sCollege), & Bok-Myung Chang (Numseoul University)

262

A Study of Grammar Development among Japanese University Students: Intransitive
Q-13

Verbs, Transitive Verbs, Ditransitive Verbs and Logical Subjects in Xcomps–Part (1)Michiko Nakano (Waseda University), Kenichi Yamakawa (Yasuda Women's
University), Naoki Sugino (Ritsumeikan University), Hiromasa Ohba (Joetsu
University of Education), & Yuko Shimizu (Ritsumeikan University)

264

A Study of Grammar Development among Japanese University Students: Intransitive
Q-14

Verbs, Transitive Verbs, Ditransitive Verbs and Logical Subjects in Xcomps–Part 2
Michiko Nakano (Waseda University), Kenichi Yamakawa (Yasuda Women's
University), Naoki Sugino (Ritsumeikan University), Hiromasa Ohba (Joetsu
University of Education), & Yuko Shimizu (Ritsumeikan University)

268

A Study of Foreign Language Anxiety and its Constructs of Japanese College Students
Q-15

Learning English
Nami Iwaki (Nagoya University)

Q-16

272

The Recognition of the Cultural Similarity as an Effective EFL Learning Strategy
Keum Sook No (Kyungwon University)

Q-17

276

Analysis of Native English Speaking Teacher Role in Korean English Education
Hyun Sun Im & Kyung-Ja Park (Korea University)x278

Keynote speech I

Table of Contents
The 12th International PAAL Conference
1. Historical Background
2. Goals / Objectives

PAAL as a Venue for
Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trustbuilding: Past, Present, & Future

3. Distinctive Features
4. Conclusion
5. Further Suggestions
6. Acknowledgements

Dec. 19-21, 2007
Kyung-Ja Park
Korea University

7. Selected References

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

1. Historical Background2

Historical BackgroundA researchsociety

Korea Univ.

Waseda Univ.

Prof. Park& her students

Prof. Nakano& her students

Establishedin 1996

To foster
Academic
exchange

BetweenW.U. &
K.U.

Started as a small scale colloquium in the beginning
PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

3

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

Historical Background

2. Goals / Objectives▪ Title of the association▪ Goals/Objectives at the initial stage► The Waseda-Korea University English
Teaching & Psycho- linguistics Association(WKETPA, 1996)► Japan-Korea Association of Applied
Linguistics (JKAAL, 1997)► Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics (PAAL, 1999)

A venue for sharing knowledge, information, experience, techniques on
language learning & teaching among students at K.U. & W.U.
WKETPAJKAAL

A venue forsharing

PAAL

Knowledge

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

4

5

Information

Experience

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

Techniques

6Goals / Objectives

Goals / Objectives▪ The goal of PAAL was to provide an excellent opportunity to cooperate indisseminating new and current research in the fields of applied linguistics
and English education, to provide a venue to be exposed to Global English,
and to build mutual trust, mutual prosperity & world peace.

▪ A new paradigm in Teaching and Learning :Mutual understanding & sharing academic experiences
between K.U. & W.U. graduate students & amongscholars from different cultural backgrounds▪ A vehicle for mutual understanding and collaboration
for students and scholars

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

7

Goals / Objectives

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future8

3. Distinctive Features of PALL

▪ How to :1. share information
2. exchange opinions
3. prepare & present academic papers
4. Q & A appropriately
5. learn international etiquette & global English▪ To recapitulate :Participants
Small in number

Conference Venues

Intercultural
Collaborative Activities

Host universities
participating in CCDL
Project

To provide an excellent opportunity not only for graduate students
but also for undergraduates for building mutual trust & friendship

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

Goals
Build mutual trust

9

Goals

Student-oriented +teacher guided, CCDL,WE seminar, TEFL VCs,
Student seminar

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

10

Paradigm Shift A venue for (under) graduates to be actively involved in global
academic exchange with scholars & practitioners from different
cultural backgrounds

Teacher-centered Intercultural exchanges to promote mutual understanding & tobuild trust among students & scholars from different cultures
Student oriented + teacher guided

 For mutual friendship & trust-building through in(ter)dependent+ collaborate studies

In(ter)dependent & collaborates

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

11

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

12Participants

Conference Venue, the Organizer, & Keynote Speakers

 Quantitatively : Small in number ( 100 ~ 200 ) Host countries / universities : Qualitatively : High, creative in-depth research Geographically : Asia and beyond CCDL participating countries / universities :
Japan
Korea

 Keynote speakers
Inner Circle
America
Australia
England
New Zealand

Expanding Circle
China, Iran,
Jordan, Kuwait,
Taiwan, Thailand

Outer Circle
Malaysia
Philippines
Singapore
Hong Kong

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

13

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

Conference Organizers

Conference Organizers▪ Japan side

▪ Korea side

 Homepage
http://www.paaljapan.org

 Homepage
http://www.paal.re.kr
http://cafe.naver.com/paalkorea.cafe

 PAAL Japan Office
16-621, School of Education, Waseda University,
1-6-1 Nishi-Waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 169-8050, Japan
Tel : 81-3-5286-1558
Fax : 81-3-5273-4435

 PAAL Korea Office#1, 5-Ga, AnamDong, Sungbug-Gu, College of Liberal Arts,
Korea University, Seoul, 136-701, Korea
Tel : 82-2-3290-1995
Fax : 82-2-3290-1995

 E-mail
office@paaljapan.org (for general questions)account@paaljapan.org (for account inquiry)

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future14

 E-mailpaalkorea@yahoo.co.kr (for general questions)15

Conference Organizers

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

16

Conference Venue / Organizer

To apply for membership to PAAL, you can either apply online or fill out theapplication form, print it out, and mail it with your check payable to
PAAL:
Post office, account number 313031-02-026533, Prof. Hyun-Jin Kim, PAAL
Treasurer, c/o English Education, Cheongju National University of
Education, Korea.
The mailing address is:Prof. Hyun-Jin Kim, Department of English Education, Cheongju National
University of Education, 135 Sugokdong, Heungdeok-ku, Cheongju, North
Chungcheong Province, Korea, 361-712.
Membership in PAAL is provided on a calendar-year basis.
Please address questions to the PAAL Korean Officeat 82-2-3290-1984 or email paalkorea@yahoo.co.kr

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

17

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

18

The PALL Conferences : Keynote speakers

The PALL Conferences• 96 K.U.
• 97 W.U. Ho-Min Sohn (U.H./Principles of• 00 U.H. Roderick A. Jacobs (U.H./ Language,

performance-based foreign language
instruction)• 98 SKHU. Yoji Tanabe (W.U./What English
language teachers could do for educational
reform in Japan?)• 99W.U. Chin-Man Kim (SKHU./Somethoughts on English Education)
PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

culture, & cognition: Bridging the gap)/ Yoji
Tanabe (W.U./ A standard pronunciation ofEnglish in TEFL)/ William O’Grady (U.H./A
linguistic approach to the study of language
acquisition)

19

The PALL Conferences

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

20

The PALL Conferences• 04 Namseoul U. Soraj Hongladarom (Chulalongkorn
U./The information society & the aims of education:
Technology, culture, & philosophy)/ Krisdawan
Hongladarom (Chulalongkorn U./ Bridging the gap
between Micro- and Macro pragmatic research:Some Thai experiences)/Ellen Skilton-Sylvester(Temple U./ Culture in English language teaching &research: Complexity meets reality)/ Teresa Pica
(U.Pennsylvania/ Content, communication & thelanguage classroom: Emperical issues & instructional
approaches)/Shameem Rafik-Galea (U.of Putra/
Language policy & its impact on bilingual needs &practices)• 02 RELC Singapore. Benedict Lin (RELC/
English as an international language)/ Yoji
Tanabe (W.U./Can we really teach English asa global language?)/ Yasukata Yano (W.U./
Communicative competence & English as aninternational language)• 03 Kibi International U. Okayama.Japan.
Christopher Long (Sophia U./Critical thinking& English education)

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

21

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

The PALL Conferences

The PALL Conferences• 05 U. Edinburgh. Alan Davies (U.Edin./ World• 06 Kangwon N. U. William O’Grady (U.H./

Englishes, English as a lingua franca &language testing)/ John E. Joseph (U.Edin./
The radical agenda of Edinburgh applied
linguistics)/ Hugh Trappes-Lomax (U.Edin./
How not to give a paper at a conference)

The problem of verbal inflection in second
language acquisition)/ Susan Gass (MSU/
Learning to talk like a teacher)/ Sudaporn
Luksaneeyanawin (Chulalongkorn U./
Technology assisted language learning –TALL)

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

23

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

22

24

Intercultural Collaborative Activities

The PALL Conferences

A. KW Cross cultural distance learning (KWCCDL)• 01 Jeju N.U. Alan Davies (U. Edinburgh/The native
speaker of world Englishes)/ Ho-Min Sohn
(U.H./Linguistic politeness in interculturalcommunication)/ Michael Forman (U.H./The PanPacific Association of Applied Linguistics)/ YongjaePaul Choe (D.U./Culture-loaded expressions in
Korean EFL students’ composition)/Ikuo Koike(Keio U./English language education in Japan seen in
Asian context)

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

B. CCDL Related Courses & WE Seminar
C. Research Collaborations & Conference
D. PAAL Journal & Proceedings

25

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

A. The (KW)CCDL

A. The (KW)CCDL▶ Cross-Cultural Distance Learning(Korea-Waseda Cross-cultural Distance Learning Project): academic collaboration between Korea University & Waseda University (est. 1998)▪ Cross-Cultural distance learning, The KWCCDLP▪ Goals- utilize English as communication means- incorporate multimedia & internet technology into classroom
environment- foster understanding & good will
- respect differences & build trust▶ Members of PAAL
: involved in an international CCDL project.
15 universities including the Hong Kong Baptist University , National University ofSingapore, and the De La Salle University, are participating in CCDL.

• Learner-centered learning + teacher facilitation• Integrating English teaching and content courses• Venue to present research (PAAL)• Innovating teaching & learning English• International collaboration

This collaboration has resulted in active academic exchanges that havetranscended time and place. The conference, journal, and participationin CCDL have brought PAAL international recognition.

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future26

27

Goals / Objectives

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28

A. The (KW)CCDL

To improve English proficiency and to promote communicative competenceby establishing means for integrating English teaching and teaching content
courses: TEFL, English Grammar, Language Acquisition.

Improve English Proficiency:
Communicative competence

TEFL

EnglishGrammar

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

Language
Acquisitionetc.

with the aim of mutual understanding and foreign language acquisition
Korea University / De La Salle / Waseda University
29

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A. The (KW)CCDL

A. The (KW)CCDL▪ Homepage Menu (English, Japanese and Chinese)▪ Log in (ID & Password)☞ 1. Select Organization : list of participating universities → select your Univ.
2. your course code and your number
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31

A. The (KW)CCDL

32

A. The (KW)CCDL▷ Starts with supplementary work/requirements for regular courses :▪ CCDL Participating Universities & Programs• Text Chat → Oral chat
• VC for graduate students (evening class)(1) Participating Universities:
99-01:3 (DeLaSalle, K.U., W.U.)
99-02:5 (Univ. of Malaya, Essex)
03-01:15 (RELC, ChulalongKorn Univ., Hong Kong Baptist Univ. etc.)▷ Program (software) :• CU-SeeMe (1998)• Bizmate (2003)• Moodle (2005)• Live On (2007)(2) Programs: CU-SeeMe (1998)→ Bizmate (2003)→ Moodle (2005)→ Live on (2007)

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33

B. CCDL Related Courses

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B. CCDL Related Courses• Dept. of English, Institute of Foreign Language Studies (IFLS)▶ Undergraduate courses at K.U.

: students engage in online chat with Japanese counterparts: occasional video conferencing- IFLS courses- Core general education curriculum- Dept. English courses- Other Dept. courses• Graduate courses in Dept. of English: do not participate in online chat: utilize video conferencing▶ Graduate Courses: Dept. of English- Psycholinguistics & TEFL I, II- World Englishes Seminar• Dept. of Chinese, Dept. of Japanese: online chat and video conferencing

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35

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B. CCDL Related Courses

B. CCDL Related Courses▶ Undergraduate courses☞ Undergraduate Courses offered regularly- IFLS Practical English courses- Global English through Internet I, II

1. Global English Through Internet I & II (IFLS)- 2 semester joint course between KU-WU- KU : Global English (est. 2002)- WU: Global Literacy (est. 1999)- video conferencing, online chat, BBS

 CCDL use : online chatting between K.U. and W.U.
 Inclusion of online chat as a course requirement.
 Majority are undergraduate participants.

2. World Englishes and Miscommunication / Englishes in a globalizing Society- core general education curriculum- utilizes on-demand lectures- joint sessions with WU (est. 2006)

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Chatting in the Multimedia Education Lab.

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38

Chatting in the Multimedia Education Lab.

39

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B. CCDL Related Courses

Chatting in the Multimedia Education Lab.

▶ Graduate courses: Dept. of English
Psycholinguistics & TEFL (started in 1999-01)- World Englishes Seminar☞ Graduate Courses offered regularlyVideo Conferencing- real-time joint lectures- adds face-to-face dimension- KWCCDLP database- video tapes, chatting logs

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B. CCDL Related Courses

VC session in the Multimedia Education Lab. - Graduate Students▶ KWCCDLP Graduate Courses- CCDL use : VC; no online chat
- Instructor : facilitate students in joint discussions during VC sessions- Students : actively participate in VC and oral presentation of their views on the
topics discussed in class

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VC session in the Multimedia Education Lab. - Graduate Students

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VC session in the Multimedia Education Lab. - Graduate Students

45

VC session in the Multimedia Education Lab. - Graduate Students

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PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

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46

K.U., W.U., & 8 Universities in Hong Kong (2002. 3. 22)

47

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B. CCDL Related Courses

Pictures (VC session: Global English through Internet II)▶ Undergraduate Courses☞ Global English thru Internet I, II- First offered in 2002 at K.U. as an IFLS course.
- Explicit joint collaborative course between K.U. and W.U.
- Counterpart at W.U.: “Global Literacy”- Goal is to utilize multi-media technologies.
- Oral chat, BBS, VC sessions

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B. CCDL Related Courses

50

B. CCDL Related Courses▶ WE & Miscommunication▶ English in a Globalizing World- First offered in March 2006.
- Offered in every first semester- Part of Core General Education Curriculum.
- Especially designed to incorporate CCDL.
- On-line text chatting with Waseda students

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future- First offered in September 2006 affiliated with WE & Miscommunication.
- Offered in every second semester- Part of Core General Education Curriculum.
- Especially designed to incorporate CCDL.
- On-line text chatting with Waseda students

51

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52

Courses engaged in chatting

English in a globalizing society (Freshman Seminar)• Applied Linguistics/TEFL(1999-1)• English Acquisition Theory (1999-2)• English Grammar (2000-1)• English Drama (2001-1)• English Literary Criticism (2001-1)• Practical English (2001-1)• Global English thru Internet I, II ( 2002 - 2007)• Studies in English Linguistics(2004-1)• Reading & Debate (2004-1)• World Englishes Seminar (2005-1)• World Englishes & Miscommunication (2006, 2007 -1)• Englishes in a Globalizing Society (2006-2)

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Overall CCDL Use

On-demanded lectures

 Mainly online chat and video conferencing
 Online chat = 100-170 students per semester Offline (face-to-face) sessions

 The Lecture Series on Korean English, Women’s Place in Korea, and Culture Part of WU’s On-demand internet class (OIC): workshops (WU: 2005; RELC, Singapore: 2006, 2007): KU-WU student workshops (e.g., 2006)
 complements online component offers personal dimension

 KWCCDLP makes innovative use of computer-assisted language learning(CALL) New paradigm in EFL
 Learner-oriented; teacher serves as facilitator: Highlights commonalities and bridges cultural or linguistic divides through theuse of English and technology: Ultimate English learning experience
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On-demanded lectures

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

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On-demanded lectures

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C. Research Collaborations & Conference

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58

C. Research Collaborations & Conference▪ Research Strands• Research ( Papers & Books )• KWCCDLP database: Korean EFL, Japanese EFL, non-native speakernon-native speaker dyad interactions, network-based language learning• CCDL Teaching Manuals• Computer-mediated communication (CMC):→ Synchronous: online chat (written and oral),→ Asynchronous: BBS, e-mail• M.A. Ph.D. dissertations• Suggestions• Offline data: group discussions, oral interviews, oral presentations,written summaries, etc.
• World Englishes & Miscommunication

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C. Research Collaborations & Conference

C. Research Collaborations & Conference▪ Papers▪ Books• Park & Nakano (2001a; b): collaborative papers on writing patterns,
features of written chat
• Lee (2006): comparison of CMC with speech and writing• Park, Lee, & Kim (2006): Korean English ms. Submitted to be published
in WE & Miscommunication: DCC. Waseda University• Park, Nakano, & Lee (2003): compilation of research on the KWCCDLP• Park (2004): report on the history of the KWCCDLP• Park, Nakano, Choi, & Lee (2007): Asia Englishes & Miscommuniction:
Englishes Spoken in Asia.
• Etc.

. Etc.
Etc▪ Topics▪ Topics: EFL acquisition, interaction, CMC, L1 transfer, pragmatic competence,etc.

: EFL acquisition, interaction, CMC, L1 transfer, pragmatic competence,
etc.

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C. Research Collaborations & Conference▪ PAAL Conferences
1)1996 Colloquium (K. U.)2)1997 Colloquium (W.U.)
3)1998 Conference (SK. U.)4)1999 Conference (W.U.)
5)2000 Conference (U.H.)
6)2001Conference (Jeju U.)7)2002 Conference (RELC.)
8)2003 Conference (Kibi U.)9)2004 Conference (NamS. U.)10)2005 Conference (Edin. U.)11)2006 Conference (Kangwon)
12)2007 Conference (Chula)13)2008 Conference (U.H. )CCDL Related: 32.14 %Ph.D. Disseration (2000 ~ 2007)
CCDL Related: 20%

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PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

C. Research Collaborations & Conference

D. PAAL Journal & Proceedings▪ Suggestions▪ PAAL Journal• More in-depth collaboration by joint research & publication• Learn how to respect and build trust• Appreciate and respect other cultures and learn global etiquette• Treasure our own culture and cherish what we are, what we have, andwhat we can do now. Mutual respect for diversity is important tounderstand that cultures are interdependent for survival.
• Learn from each other thru student workshop & seminars

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C. Research Collaborations & Conference▪ Master‘s Thesis (2000 ~ 2007)

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future64

 Published twice a year
 Indexed in ERIC and LLBA
 E-Journal published by EBSCO The Editorial Board of the Journal of PAAL Clear communication

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D. PAAL Journal & Proceedings

D. PAAL Journal & Proceedings▪ PAAL Journal▪ PAAL Journal – Field

 Total number of volumes : 10 volumes (From Vol 4 onwards
published twice a year) Total number of articles : 170
 Total number of authors : 213 from 9 countries (Korea, Japan, USA,
GB, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand) Total number of participating countries : 9
 The mean number of articles per volume: 10
 The mean number of authors per volumne: 12.5

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future67

D. PAAL Journal & Proceedings

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D. PAAL Journal & Proceedings▪ PAAL Journal▪ PAAL Journal – nationality of paper writers

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D. PAAL Journal & Proceedings

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future70

D. PAAL Journal & Proceedings▪ PAAL Proceedings▪ PAAL Proceedings
 Published once a year
 First in book form
 Later in CD Rom

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4. Conclusion

D. PAAL Journal & Proceedings▪ PAAL Proceedings• Consider: Miscommunication arises mainly due to L1 transfer: linguistic
and para-linguistic differences between the native and the target language.
• Mutual intelligibility, comprehensibility, and interpretability can only berealized when mutual understanding and respect between native speakers andnon-native speakers are sustained.
• Awareness of these differences, respect and tolerance of these differences
can be realized through PAAL.
To have positive and sympathetic attitudes
toward different varieties of English

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PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

Conclusion

Conclusion• Better position to be able to provide “core features of English”• PAAL is a global association for both scholars and students in fields related
to English education.
• PAAL is a genuine venue for promoting mutual friendship and trustbuilding.

• Be able to study commonalities of Englishes used in this globe by working
closely together : similarities and differences of different varieties ofEnglishes

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future74• PAAL is a venue for achieving mutual intelligibility, comprehensibility, andinterpretability: i.e. for learning Global English.

75

Conclusion

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Conclusion PAAL : Bright future (Immediate concerns)• Global educational environments become possible by collaboration inteaching, learning, and developing materials. Solving problems specific to
Korean and Japanese learners of English.

: more effective use of technology: more effective way of collaboration: new courseware, upgrading of hardware: development of exclusive e-learning tasks: material developments for Englishes used in this globe• Broadening of horizons by transcending time and space.
The horizons of English learning can be expandedlimitations of time and space can be eliminated Needs analysis: Korean/Japanese/Asian EFL/ESL situation: university-level learners: commonalities of different varieties of English(esp. Englishes used in Asia…)

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5. Further Suggestions

Further Suggestions
 Joint research and publication
 Learn how to respect and build trust by appreciating and respecting othercultures and learning global etiquette Treasure our own culture and cherish what we are, what we have, and what
we can do now☞ More opportunities for Inter-cultural exchanges: collaborations not only among (under) graduates but also among scholars
from different cultural backgrounds
Ex) Providing students with cross-cultural courses that make them be able
to grow into global citizens (more inter-cultural collaborations):
workshops and seminars for both undergraduates and graduates, contents
developments, evaluation measures, material developments, understanding global
etiquette, respect and awareness of other cultures etc.

PAAL can also help students to build trust among themselves
through understanding and respecting people from different
cultural and linguistic backgrounds

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Further Suggestions

6. Acknowledgements

 Encourage our students to have global minds & perspectives for“intelligibility, comprehensibility, & interpretability.’/A deeper
understanding of other cultures as well as their own.
 To be aware of the differences & similarities between different varieties ofEnglish spoken in this globe: To have positive and sympathetic attitudes
toward different varieties of English because mutual respect for diversity isimportant to understand that cultures are interdependent for their survival.
 To have them think about the importance of the bi-directionality ofteaching/learning English as L2
 Not only NS –NNS but also NNS-NNS interaction is beneficial and PAAL
can serve for the purpose.

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

All the participating PAAL Members

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7. Selected references

82

Selected references

Chu, H. (2006). Critical thinking in EFL learner’s computer-mediated discussion.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.

Park, K-J., & Nakano, M. (2001a). The acquisition of synchronous communicationcompetence by NNS of English. Proceedings of the 6th Conference of the PanPacific Association of Applied Linguistics (pp. 145-151). Seoul, Korea: PAAL.

Cohen, N. (2006). So English is taking over the globe. So What. The New York Times,
Sunday, August 6, 2006.

Park, K-J., & Nakano, M. (2001b). Interlanguage pragmatic features of Japanese andKorean learners of English. Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, 5(1), 153-174.

Lee, H. (2006). Defining the nature of chat in relation to speech and writing. English
Language & Literature Teaching, 12(2), 87-105.

Park, K-J., Nakano, M., & Lee, H. (2003). Cross-cultural distance learning andlanguage acquisition. Seoul: Hankook Publishing Co.

Lee, O-S. (2005). A study on NNS-NNS interaction in synchronous CMC: Focusing on
negative feedback. Unpublished master’s thesis, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.

Park, K-J. (2003). On the KW Cross-Cultural Distance Learning Project and Its
Significance in English Education. In Hongladarom, S (Ed) Proceedings of theInternational Conference on Information Technology and Universities in Asia
(ITUA 2002) pp.173-190. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press.

Oh, S-J. (2007). A study of communication strategies in the NNS-NNS
communication. Unpublished master’s thesis, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.
(forthcoming).
Park, K-J, Nakano, M. Choi. KH., & Lee. K-Y. (2007). Asia Englishes andMiscommunication. Korea University Press, Seoul, Korea
Park, K-J. (2004). Wonkuri kyoyookkwa eune haksup-koryodaehakkyuwa
wasedadaehakkyu projectlul choongsimeulo [Long distance education andlanguage learning: With a focus on the project between Korea University and
PAALWaseda
as a Venue University].
for Cross-CulturalSeoul:
Exchange& Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future
Kyungjin.

PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future

Shin, D. (2006). Negotiation and output modification in learner interactions via CMC.
Unpublished master’s thesis, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.

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PAAL as a Venue for Cross-Cultural Exchange & Trust-building: Past, Present, & Future84Thank you very
much, indeed!

Keynote speech IIENGLISH AS A WORLD LANGUAGE:IMPLICATIONS FOR THE TEACHING OF PRONUNCIATION
Tony T.N. Hung

Language Centre, Hong Kong Baptist University
tonyhung@hkbu.edu.hk

acquired a rapidly increasing number of
second-language speakers, who have by now
greatly surpassed its native speakers in number, andthe gap between the two will no doubt widen evenfurther in the near future. According to Crystal(2004), there are an estimated 400 million speakers
of English as a second language and 600 million
speakers of English as a foreign language in theworld today, compared with 400 million ‘native
speakers’ – a 5 to 2 ratio, and increasing.
The growth of English as a world language has
inevitably led to the development of a number of‘New Englishes’ (NE’s), or ‘Outer Circle’ varieties,
all over the world – in India, Singapore, Malaysia,
Hong Kong, Philippines, Sri Lanka, West Indies,
Africa, etc. – each with (more or less) systematicand homogeneous linguistic features of its own, notto mention sociolinguistic roles and features.
Most of these varieties are by now widely (though
by no means universally) accepted, and many havebeen systematically analysed and described (cf.
Kachru 1992 & 2006, Schneider 2004, Jenkins
2000, Crystal 1997, McArthur 2002, Brown et al.
2000, Bolton 2002, Hung 1995 & 2002, Kirkpatrick
2007, etc.)
Along with descriptions of these new varieties
of English, the question has sometimes been asked
whether they, or one of the ‘older’ varieties ofEnglish (OE for short), like British RP, should serveas the ‘model’ for our learners. I think there is anunderlying misunderstanding here which needs to
be cleared up. First of all, we should understandthat ‘China English’, ‘Hong Kong English’,‘Japanese English’ etc. are only labels invented bylinguists to describe a general phenomenon. Strictly
speaking, there is no such thing as ‘China English’(etc.), just as there’s no such thing as ‘British
English’ (etc.). There are speakers of English from
China, and from Japan, and from Hong Kong andso on, and they each have their own way of
speaking, based on various factors such as their first
language, their linguistic and cultural environment,
the way they were taught, etc. In a word, they speak
the way they do because they've lived the lives they

Abstract
By the beginning of the 21st century, English has
finally arrived as a ‘world language’.
Yetteachers and learners have been slow to adapt tothis transition, and continue to teach and learn thelanguage as if nothing had changed in the last 50
years.
Among the implications of English becoming aworld language is the fact that English no longer
belongs to a small handful of traditional
English-speaking countries (like the U.K. and
U.S.A.) but to the world, and therefore variety is its
essence and no single, monolithic form of English
has the right to dominate as the ‘standard’ which
speakers in the ‘Outer’ and ‘Expanding’ Circles
have to follow. Furthermore, as English is now
spoken by more ‘non-native’ than ‘native’ speakers,
theissuesofinternational
intelligibility,
acceptability, cultural identity, etc. have to take bothgroups into account.
The present paper focuses on one particulararea, pronunciation, and advocates an approach to
the teaching/learning of English pronunciation
which fully takes into account the implications of‘World Englishes’, and the need to satisfy both theneeds of international intelligibility and of ease of
acquisition.
Traditionally, teachers have tended to focus
heavily on phonetics in teaching English
pronunciation, and on imitating the exact phonetic
quality of individual sounds according to somechosen ‘native’ model.
The present paper
advocates shifting the focus from phonetics tophonology, and outlines an approach to teaching
English pronunciation which is based on pragmatic
rather than ‘purist’ considerations.

1

English as a World Language

On the linguistic scene, no development in the last
fifty years has had more far-reaching consequences
than the rise of English as a ‘world language’ – thefirst time that there has ever been such a languagein the history of the world. In the process, it has
18

is no longer the language of Britain or the UnitedStates or any single country or single group of
speakers. It is a world language, and as such,variety is its essence. Mimicking the way a small
minority of native speakers pronounce English
seems more pointless than ever before.
Fortunately, the question of which ‘model’ toadopt has increasingly become a ‘non-issue’ in thereal world. There are at least three reasons for
this:

lived – and that is why Professor Higgins tells
Colonel Pickering in 'My Fair Lady' that (from theway he speaks) he must have come from
Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and India -which is practically a summary of his whole life.
Thus, labels like ‘China English’ etc. areinvented by linguists who analyse the linguisticfeatures of English speakers from China and othercountries and discover many broad similarities andpatterns among each group of speakers, and whothen proceed to generalize across these speakers
and invent labels like ‘China English’ etc. todescribe them. These labels are convenient and we
may continue to use them, but we must understandthem properly and not forget that they are justdescriptive labels. No speaker is consciously ordeliberately speaking ‘China English’ (or any other
English), but as a group, speakers of English from
China do sound sufficiently alike to be labeled as‘China English speakers’, and likewise speakers
from Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan etc. They did
not choose to do so, and there is nothing either‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ about it – it’s justa simple fact. Of course, they may be either
high-proficiency or low-proficiency speakers ofEnglish, but that is a totally different matter.
There are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ speakers of English
among both ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ speakers, as avisit to any ‘native-English-speaking’ country willsoon make clear.

i.

Most teachers speak the local variety ofEnglish anyway, and not the ‘model’ (whateverthat may be), so adopting a particular model(like RP) is really a moot point;
ii. The learners are exposed to far more language
input than the ‘model’, to many different
varieties of English from around the world,
through the mass media and internet,
interactions with foreigners, etc.;
iii. The influence of the learners’ first language,
and of the local English-speaking environment,
is pervasive.
From a 21st century ‘World Englishes’
perspective, the traditional practice of mimicking anative English accent is no longer tenable. It is
not only an unattainable goal, but both unnecessary
and inappropriate as well. That it is unattainable(for all but the most gifted few), no-one would
argue. And because it is unattainable, it leads
often to frustration and a sense of failure, not tomention an inferiority complex which undermines
the learners’ self-confidence. But the funny thingis that all this frustration over the learners’ inability
to acquire a native English model of pronunciation
is not even necessary in the first place. In a world
where English is a world language, there is nolonger any value to sounding ‘native-like’, for thesimple reason that variety is now the norm. Thereis one and only one valid criterion for judging one’s
pronunciation today, and it is not how close it is to anative English accent, but how intelligible it is toother English speakers from around the world.
Not just intelligible to native speakers (which used
to be the ‘yardstick’), but to both native andnon-native speakers worldwide.
Furthermore,
mimicking a native accent is not only unnecessary,
but inappropriate as well, because nothing reflects
our identity and culture more than our use oflanguage. For a Chinese speaker to mimic an
Englishman’s accent would be just as inappropriate– not to say comical – as for an Englishman tomimic a Chinese accent.
This is not to say, however, that international
intelligibility is not a problem for learners speaking
NE’s, or that there is nothing which English

The question of ‘models’2
But back to the proliferation of new varieties ofEnglish around the world. It can potentiallyaccentuate the problem of mutual intelligibility
between speakers of different varieties fromdifferent parts of the world, and this potential
problem has alarmed some linguists andeducationists sufficiently to keep the issue of an‘internationally intelligible’ standard of English
alive for the past two decades, and probably wellinto the future. One conservative approach(exemplified by John Honey 1989) advocates
adopting an OE accent such as British RP as theinternational model for second-language English
speakers all over the world, in order to maintainmutual intelligibility at the international level.
Admittedly, there is a certain incontestable logic tothis. If people all over the world were to learn tospeak RP, I suppose they would understand eachother a little better. By the same token, if
everybody were to learn Australian or Scottish or
Singaporean or any other variety of English, theywould understand each other a little better too.
Advocates of RP (or any other OE accent) as aninternational ‘model’ have missed the most crucial
point of all, which is that English in the 21st century
19teachers can or need to do about it. Granted thatmutual intelligibility is a mutual problem, and thatthe burden is not solely on NE speakers but on OE
speakers as well, one may still want to ask what
aspects of NE phonology are most likely to hamper
international intelligibility, as opposed to thosewhich (other than merely being ‘non-native’sounding) do not? And what aspects of English
phonology not found in NE’s are most likely toenhance international intelligibility, and among
these, which ones are relatively amenable toacquisition? The answers to these questions are
partly theoretical and partly empirical. Among
recent works, Jenkins (2000 and 2007) is the most
systematic attempt to answer these (and other)questions from both points of view, and to present a
coherent proposal based on the concept of a ‘lingua
franca core’, consisting of phonological features
which are considered crucial for international
intelligibility. Other proposals, including Low,
Deterding & Brown (2000), Kirkpatrick (2007) etc.,
are also motivated by the need to be internationallyintelligible.
In the present paper, I shall argue for my own
position on this issue, which overlaps in some ways
with the above authors’ – which is inevitable, giventhat all of us have adopted a more or less pragmatic
approach to the issue. A pragmatic rather than‘purist’ approach is indeed the key to current
discussions on the subject. After all, in the context
of English as a world language, where English is nolonger the exclusive property of a few traditional
English-speaking countries, and where ‘non-native’
speakers increasingly outnumber ‘native’ speakers
in the world today, it stands to reason thatinternational intelligibility rather than conformity
should be the over-riding concern, and that any
such considerations ought to take NE as well as OE
speakers into account.
One final word before I proceed to the main
body of this paper. Though this paper focuses on
pronunciation, we need to be reminded that
‘intelligibility’ is not a matter of pronunciation
alone -- an obvious point which seems to have been
overlooked by those who advocate adherence to aparticular accent as the solution to the perceived
problem. Mutual intelligibility is just as much alexical, grammatical, discoursal and cultural matter.
But even with respect to pronunciation alone, it isoften forgotten that good articulation -- clarity,
voice projection, etc. – matter just as much as theaccent itself, and that it is perfectly possible tospeak an ‘internationally intelligible’ accent (suchas RP) in a poorly articulated and therefore
unintelligible manner, and to speak a‘non-international’ accent in a clearly articulatedmanner which renders it highly intelligible toeverybody.
Good articulation is a universal
quality totally independent of any particular accent,and can be acquired just as easily by anyone
speaking any accent. The fact that most people’s
image of RP is tacitly based on its being spoken bya highly trained speaker (such as a BBC announcer
or speech teacher), and of the local (e.g. Hong Kongor Singapore) accent as it is spoken by anyone in
the street, gives a totally biased impression of the‘superiority’ of the former in terms of clarity,
intelligibility and esthetic appeal. In fact, I would
say that most learners would have been better off iftheir teachers had invested as much (or more) timeon improving their articulation as on ‘improving’
their accent.

3

Focusing on Phonology

In the past (and even today), teachers used to get
the learners to mimic the phonetic qualities of -- i.e.
the actual sounds produced by -- native English
speakers. From the point of view of World
Englishes, this is a rather futile exercise,considering how much variation there is evenamong native varieties of English alone (not tomention all the other varieties). For instance, thevowel in words like kid (phonemically represented
as //), is pronounced in RP as [kd], in AustralianEnglish as [kid], and in New Zealand English as[kd]. The vowel in no (phonemically some sortof /o/) is pronounced in RP as [n], in General
American as [no], in Scottish English as [no:], andin Australian English as [na]. And so on…
Which of these should our learners mimic?
Whichever it is, the final outcome is none of theseanyway. A direct comparison will show that a
Hong Kong learner’s pronunciation of an English
word like till is virtually identical, phoneticallyspeaking, to a Cantonese word like 跳 (‘jump’,[tiu]), and of sick, virtually identical to 識(‘know’, [sik]), etc. L2 speakers of English allover the world do this all the time, which is whatmakes a person’s accent so easy to identify. Froma language acquisition point of view, it is also
natural for learners to draw on the repertoire ofsounds from their L1 for the closest equivalents to
the L2 sounds. Most of the time, these equivalentsounds will serve adequately, and are indeed no
more different from the sounds in a particular native
variety of English (such as RP) than are sounds
from other native varieties (such as Australian or
Scottish English).
What really sets a language apart from anotheris not so much its sounds but its phonology. Afterall, there are only so many different configurationsof the vocal apparatus, and one look at the20

NE’s, in particular the contrasts between tense andlax, or long and short, vowels. Thus, in Singapore
English, there is no contrast between each of thefollowing pairs of vowels (cf. Hung 1995):

inventory of sounds in one language (like English)
and another (like Mandarin or Cantonese) will showthat they share far more sounds in common thansounds which are unique to only one of them.
Learning to pronounce a language is basicallyacquiring the phonology of the language – itsphonological contrasts, its distributional properties(including syllable structure), its alternation
phenomena, its suprasegmental features, and so on.
According to S. Pit Corder (1983), the learnerstarts by trying to accommodate L2 data in his L1
phonological system, and ‘restructures’ it wherevernecessary, depending on his ability to perceive andrealise systematic differences between L1 and L2.
The teacher’s task is basically to guide the learners
in this restructuring process, by raising theirconsciousness to features of L2 phonology andgiving them adequate practice.
The central question that the teacher has to face is
this: what features of the L2 phonology areparticularly important for learners to acquire, fromthe point of view of intelligibility andcommunicative value? As I said earlier, this isboth an empirical question (to be determined byresearch) and a theoretical question. As empiricalresearch on this issue is far from adequate, I will
focus in this paper on what appear to me to betheoretically important phonological features for the
purposes of international intelligibility. I would
consider the following to be among them:






/i:/ ~ // e.g. beat~bit, peep~pip, deem~dim/e/ ~ /æ/ bet~bat, peck~pack, ten~tan// ~ /:/ cot~caught, cock~cork// ~ / :/ cut~cart, luck~lark, hum~harm// ~ /u:/ full~fool, foot~foodLikewise, in Hong Kong English very similar
neutralizations occur (cf. Hung 2002a):/i:/~///e/~/æ//u:/~////~/:// :/ heart// hut

While HKE maintains the / :/ vs. // contrast,
China English shows the same neutralisations as
Singapore English (cf. Hung 2002b):/i:/ ~ // e.g. beat~bit/e/ ~ /æ/ bet~bat// ~ /:/ cot~caught// ~ / :/ cut~cart// ~ /u:/ foot~foodImportant phonological contrasts at the level ofsegments (e.g. /i:/ vs. //) and features (e.g.
[+voice])
Distribution -- syllable structure andphonotactics
Lexical word stress
Use of intonation to structure information[NB. There are some variations among speakers
from different dialect backgrounds, but nthe general
picture remains the same; for details, see Hung
2002b.]On the other hand, I would consider the following
to be less important, and not necessarily to be
included in a course on pronunciation:heat, hit
bet, bathoot, hoodcot, caught

The similarities between the vowel systems of
the NE’s spoken in East Asia are indeed soremarkable that it is possible to construct a vowel
chart like the following (cf. Hung 2006):

Most allophonic variations
Vowel reduction
Most supra-segmental features, including
rhythm and the emotive use of intonation

TYPICAL ‘ASIAN ENGLISH’ VOWEL CHART
Front

3.1
Vowel contrasts
It is a well-known fact that most NE’s have a much
simpler vowel system than OE’s, which is not
surprising considering that OE’s (especially BritishRP) have a comparatively complicated vowel
system (RP has 12 simple vowel contrasts alone),compared with most East Asian languages (Chinese,
Japanese, Malay, etc.)
Many of the vowel
contrasts which are found in OE’s are neutralized in

High

i

Mid

e

Low

Central

Back
u







Given that all the above-mentioned NE’s have amuch simplified vowel system, the practical
21

instance, in Hong Kong English, where mostspeakers do not exhibit any voiced fricatives, but
pronounce them identically to their voicelesscounterparts, or other consonants (cf. Hung 2002a):question to ask is what (if anything) the teacher
needs to do about it. Should he try to teach thelearners to acquire – at great ‘cost’ in terms of effort– all the other vowel contrasts in RP, or should hebe selective about it? I am in favour of a‘cost-benefit’ approach to this problem. Given
that not all phonemic contrasts in English are ofequal importance, one way of deciding on theirrelative importance is to look at the number ofwords in English that depend on a particular
contrast, e.g. between /i:/ and //. One convenient
way of checking this is the ‘Table of minimal pairs’,
whichisavailable
onlineatwww.marlodge.supanet.com/wordlist/index.html.
From this source, we find the following numbers ofwords that depend on these particular contrasts in
English vowels:/z/ > [s] e.g.
zeal
// > []pleasure// > [d]this/v/ > [f] / __ [-stress] even, leaving[w] / __ [+stress] advice, event
In China English, there is also an absence ofvoiced fricatives, but the solution takes a different
form from HKE, with voiced fricatives being
realized as affricates, stops or approximants:/v/ > [w] e.g. vine
// > [d] this/z/ > [dz] zip, zoo// > [d] pleasure or[i:/] (e.g. beat/bit): 471;[e/æ] (bet/bat): 302;
[/ :] (duck/dark): 172;
[/:] (cot/caught): 157;
[æ/e] (dad/dared): 31;[/u:] (pull/pool): 18.

[r] usual

As in the case of vowels, we can gauge theimportance of the contrasts between particular pairsof voiced/voiceless consonants by referring to thetable of minimal pairs, to help us decide which
contrasts are important enough to be worth theeffort of acquiring.

It would appear that contrasts such as that between/i:/ and // or /e/ and /æ/ are much more important
than that between // and /:/, or // and /u:/. It istherefore quite clear where the teacher’s priorities
should lie. For consonants, some representative
figures are given below:

3.3
Phonotactics and Syllable structure
East Asian varieties of English generally exhibit amuch simpler syllable structure than OE’s, owing to
the syllable structure of Chinese, Japanese, Malay,etc., which are generally of the CV or CVC type.
The consequence is that these NE speakers have agreaterpropensityforconsonantcluster
simplification than OE speakers -- though this does
not always matter, as a certain amount of cluster
simplification is a natural phenomenon in allvarieties of English (e.g. pronouncing act as [æk] orsound as [saun]). What becomes a matter ofconcern is when final consonants or consonant
clusters are drastically altered to the extent ofjeopardizing intelligibility.
This happens forexample with Fuzhou-speaking learners of English,
who are influenced by their L1 (the Fuzhou dialectof Chinese), whose phonotactics forbids any
consonant other than velars from occurring in thecoda of a syllable. In Fuzhou, which has six stop
consonants which can all occur in the onset of asyllable, i.e. [m], [n], [], [p], [t] and [k], only thevelar stops [] and [k] can occur in the coda. The
effect can be seen in Fuzhou English, where allsyllable-final stops are realised as velars:[r/l] (e.g. rice/lice): 589;
[r/w] (reed/weed): 213;[v/f] (van/fan): 130;
[/t] (thin/tin): 117;[/d] (then/den): 58;[w/v] (wet/vet): 52;[/] (either/ether): 8;[/] (confusion/Confucian): 5.

3.2
Consonant contrasts
Among consonants in East Asian varieties ofEnglish, especially China and Hong Klong English,
the most prominent feature is the frequent absenceof the [+voice] contrast among obstruents. (NB.
In the case of stops, the lack of this contrast is
disguised by the presence or absence of aspiration
as a distinctive feature.) This is no doubt related
to the fact that such a phonological contrast doesnot (generally speaking) exist among consonants inmany East Asian Englishes (including most Chinesedialects). This feature is highly noticeable, for22

incomesome timesunspot

languages,
Malay,
French,Spanish,etc.
Experience has shown that it is extremely difficult
to teach stress-timing to NE speakers. But an evenmore pertinent question is this: even if it weresuccessful, how would it help intelligibility?
Stress-timing involves the reduction of unstressedsyllables to the point of neutralizing most of the
unstressed vowels, and considerable ‘speeding up’
between stressed syllables if a number of unstressedsyllables fall in between. How does this aid
intelligibility for people who were not brought up
speaking this type of English, which includes
virtually all speakers of NE’s? It is probable thatmost of these speakers would find stress-timed
English less intelligible than syllable-timed, on
account of the massive reduction and neutralizationof unstressed syllables.
Conversely, while‘syllable-timed’ English may sound ‘non-native’ tonative speakers, it is unlikely to cause any
intelligibility problems.

[ka][sa ta][sa spk]This phenomenon can be captured by thephonological rule:[+stop] --> [+back] / __ #Obviously, a NE phonology where syllable-final
stops are all neutralized and where (say) some, sunand sung are all pronounced alike, can give rise tofrequent ambiguities.
3.4
Suprasegmental features
3.4.1
Word stress
Most suprasegmental features are well known to bedifficult to acquire. With respect to word stress,
however, this is not entirely true. Even if learners
do not internalize the lexical stress rules of English(for whatever they are worth), they do learn the
stress placement of individual words holistically, as
part of the phonological structure of the word inquestion. Though opinions differ (cf. Jenkins
2000), I would maintain that word stress isimportant for intelligibility, especially in the case of
shorter words (2- or 3-syllable), as in ‘marshal vs.
mar’shal, ap’pear vs. ‘appear, or im’portant vs.
‘important, where the latter (for example) may be
misinterpreted as ‘impotent’ (unless rescued by thecontext). For longer words, it probably does notmatter (a word like generalisation can be stressedin any way whatsoever and still be understood), but
most words in common use in spoken English tend
to be much shorter.

3.4.3
Intonation
Like stress-timed rhythm, intonation is also
extremely difficult to teach, in the sense of
acquiring native-like patterns of intonation. But
then, what is the motivation for wanting to acquire
native-like intonation in the first place?
We will need to consider this issue not as an‘all or nothing’ matter, but with respect to the actual
functions of intonation, as they have implications
for how much intonation to teach, and in what form.
Intonation in English can be said to have three mainfunctions:
a.

3.4.2
Sentence rhythm
English is generally said to have ‘stress-timed
rhythm’, i.e. the intervals between stressed syllables
are more or less equal, regardless of the number ofintervening unstressed syllables. For example, inin’credible expla’nations vs. ab’surd ‘theories, thetime taken to get from the stressed syllable -‘cre- tothe next stressed syllable -‘na- is about the same asfrom -‘surd to ‘the-, even though there are several
intervening unstressed syllables in the former andnone in the latter. (We are only interested in broadtendencies here, and not in precise timemeasurements.)
This necessitates considerable‘speeding up’ and reduction of the unstressedsyllables between -‘cre- and -‘na-, and slowing
down between -‘surd and ‘the-.
In contrast with a stress-timed variety like RP,
most (if not all) NE’s tend towards ‘syllable-timed
rhythm’, i.e. each syllable occupies more or lessequal space. This, incidentally, is also true of mostlanguages in the world, including the Chineseb.

c.

Attitudinal and emotive: Expresses the
speaker’s attitude or emotion, e.g. surprise, joy,anger, certainty, uncertainty, sarcasm, etc.,
through various intonation contours (combinedwith amplitude, duration, etc.)
Grammatical: Marks grammatical functions,e.g. declarative vs. interrogative (as in ‘He is
here’ vs. ‘He is here?’, with falling vs. risingintonation), restrictive vs. non-restrictive
clauses (as in ‘The city which hosted the 2000
Olympics…’ vs. ‘the city,/ which hosted the2000 Olympics,/…’).
Information structure: The use of intonation
boundaries to mark out information units, andthe use of focus to highlight prominent or new
information. Examples are: /All the students
have gone shopping/ vs. /All the students havegone shopping/ vs. /All the students have gone
shopping/, etc.

With regard to the use of intonation to indicate thespeaker’s attitude or emotion, this is a highly
culture-specific and subjective matter, and varies
23

Honey, J. 1989. Does Accent Matter? London:
Faber & Faber.
Hung, T.T.N. 1995.
Some aspects of thesegmental phonology of Singapore English.
In S.C. Teng (ed.), The English Languagein Singapore: Implications for Teaching.
Singapore: Singapore Association forApplied Linguistics.
Hung, T.T.N. 2002a. Towards a phonology ofHong Kong English. In Bolton, K. (ed.)
Hong Kong English: Autonomy andCreativity. Hong Kong University Press.
Hung, T.T.N. 2002b. Phonological features ofChinese varieties of English. 7th English
in Southeast Asia conference, Hong Kong
Baptist University, December, 2002.
Hung, T.T.N. 2006. A comparative study of thephonological features of Asian Englishes.
11th Contemporary Linguistics Conference,
Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, Oct.
2006.
Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as
an International Language.
OxfordUniversity Press.
Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca:
Attitude and Identity. Oxford University
Press.
Kachru, B. (ed.) 1992. The Other Tongue: English
across Cultures (2nd Ed.). Illinois,Champagne: University of Illinois.
Kachru, B., Kachru, Y. and Nelson C. (eds.) 2006.
Handbook of English as a World Language.
Blackwell.
Kirkpatrick, A.
2007.
World Englishes:
Implciations
forInternational
Communication and English Language
Teaching. Cambridge University Press.
McArthur, T. 2002. Oxford Guide to World
English. Oxford University Press.
Pit Corder, S. 1983. A role for the mothertongue.
In Gass, S. & Selinker L.
(eds), Language
Transferin
Language Learning. Newbury House.
Schneider, E.W. et al. (2004) A Handbook of
Varieties of English. Mouton.

greatly even among native varieties of English andamong individual speakers.
It is a dubious
proposition to teach learners that sort of intonation.
If successful, it would sound inappropriate or
artificial or affected in the local context, and if
unsuccessful, it would merely render the speakerludicrous.
The grammatical and information-structure
functions of intonation are another matter.
Intonation can certainly enhance intelligibility inthese respects, as it is concerned with elucidating
the nature or content of the message throughhighlighting or contrast. It is also (I think) lessdifficult to acquire than the attitudinal/emotivefunction, being less subjective and more transparent.
For instance, there is a certain logic in equating thenotion of the intonation phrase with the information
unit, and the most prominent (tonic) syllable with
the information focus.

4

Conclusion

English has come a long way in the last century,
from being the language of a few traditionally
English-speaking countries to the first truly global
language in the history of the world, with
‘non-native’ speakers outnumbering ‘native’
speakers, and with an unprecedented amount ofcommunication in English taking place in‘non-native’ contexts.
Attitudes towards‘acceptable’ models of pronunciation should keep
pace with these developments, and a ‘purist’approach that advocates conformity to a particular‘old variety of English’ now seems more outdated
than ever. In the present paper, I have argued for a
pragmatic approach which looks at ‘international
intelligibility’ not from the native speakers’
viewpoint but from a truly international perspective.
References
Bolton, K. (ed.) 2002. Hong Kong English:
Autonomy and Creativity. Hong Kong
University Press.
Brown, A., Deterding, D. & Low, E.L. (eds.) 2000.
The English Language in Singapore:
Research on Pronunciation. Singapore
Association for Applied Linguistiucs.
Crystal, D. 1997. English as a Global Language.
Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, D. 2004. The Language Revolution.
Polity.
Fudge, E.C.
1984.
English Word Stress.
London: Allen & Unwin.
Gimson, A.C. 2001. The Pronunciation of English.
6th Ed. (revised by A. Cruttenden).
London: Arnold.
Graddol, D. 1997. The Future of English.
London: British Council.

Professor TONY T.N. HUNG is Head of theLanguage Centre at the Hong Kong Baptist
University. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics fromthe University of California (San Diego) and an
M.A. in Applied Linguistics from the University of
Lancaster. He has published on New Varieties ofEnglish (especially Hong Kong, Singapore andChina English), the teaching of grammar andpronunciation,andphonology
andthesyntax-phonology interface.

24

Keynote speech III

Politeness Formulas in L2 Acquisition: An Intercultural
Perspective
Ho-min Sohn

University of Hawaii at Manoa & La Trobe University RCLT
homin@hawaii.edu

1Introduction

Language is not only a communicative tool but also
an interactive tool. That is, it has essentially twointerrelated functions—transmission or sharing of
information, knowledge, and feelings, on the one
hand, and establishment, maintenance, andenhancement of human (social and interpersonal)
relationships on the other. This distinction between
transactional and affective functions is particularly
clear in interpersonal communication where both
functions of language are conspicuous and interact
delicately. The first function of language can be
performed most effectively in terms of economy
and clarity, as suggested, for example, by Lakoff’s(1973) rule of clarity (“be clear”) and Grice’s(1975) Cooperative Principle (CP) and its four
maxims of quality, quantity, relevance, and manner.
Thus, this function calls for, among others,
linguisticcompetence
includingphonetic,
phonological, lexical, morph-syntactic, semantic,
and sociolinguistic accuracies as well as
communicative fluency.
On the other hand, the second function of
language can be attained best in terms of pragmatic(pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic) competence
including linguistic politeness. For instance, when
we meet a colleague in the morning, we utter
annyeng-ha-sey-yo “How are you?” in Korean,ohayoo-gozai-masu “Good morning” in Japanese,and Good morning or Hi in English. Through such
politeness rituals, our intention in these utterances
is not to convey such literal meanings as asking
about the addressee’s well-being or being early or
stating the condition of the morning weather, but
simply to maintain a smooth and polite humanrelationship with the addressee. Thus, it is thefunction of establishing, maintaining, andenhancing human relationships that is relevant tolinguistic politeness, among other things.
“Politeness formulas” refers to the formulas of
linguistic politeness. Thus, it is necessary at theoutset to examine how concepts like linguistic
politeness, formulas, and politeness formulas havebeen defined and dealt with in the literature. Then,we will take up the roles and functions politeness
formulas play in second language acquisition andthe issue of how to have learners efficiently acquire
them.

2

Linguistic politeness

Linguistic politeness of one way or another exists inall cultures. Let us first dwell on what linguistic
politeness is and how it is treated by linguists.
There is no doubt that the position of linguistic
politeness is an integral part of pragmatics, in that
pragmatics is the study of communicative action inits socio-cultural context or the study of the use oflanguage in human communication as determinedby the conditions of society (e.g., Mey 2001: 6;
Kasper & Rose 2001: 2; Swann, et al. 2004: 248).
Although how to precisely define linguistic
politeness has been extremely controversial, it may
be generally viewed as language use whose purpose
is to establish mutual comfort and promote rapport
by considering others’ feelings (e.g., Hill, et al.
1986) or as forms of friction-reducing behaviour inpersonal interaction (Lakoff 1973) and thus relates
to the linguistic expression of concern for others(e.g., courtesy, deference) (Swann, et al. ibid.).
A number of linguists have endeavoured toprecisely define linguistic politeness in terms of
universal rules, strategies, principles, or maxims.
For instance, Lakoff (ibid.) proposes three rules ofpoliteness: Don’t impose on the addressee; Give theaddressee options; and Make the addressee feel
good.
Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987; henceforth
B&L) rebut the doctrine of cultural relativity ininteraction and claim that superficial cross-cultural
diversities can emerge from underlying universal
pragmatic principles. Building on the notion of face,which refers to a person’s public self-image, B&L
distinguish two aspects of face: ‘positive face’, thedesire for appreciation and approval by others, and‘negative face’, the desire not to be imposed on byothers. In their theory, positive or negative
politeness operates only when positive or negative
face needs are at risk. These strategic options ofhandling face-threats are called politeness.
B&L established five levels of linguistic
strategies for politeness—Direct strategy; Positive
politeness strategies; Negative politeness strategies;
Off-record strategies; and No speech act—andprovided a number of concrete strategies for eachlevel. 1 Politeness strategies are the resources
available to interlocutors to balance their own faceneeds against those of others. Interlocutors’moment-to-moment choices of strategies are basedon their intuitive calculation of the relative
closeness or distance of their relations with theirinterlocutor(s), the relative difference in their status,and how much of an imposition they are making.
Leech’s (1983: 81) “politeness principle”
model states that people need to minimise theexpression of impolite beliefs or, in its positive
form, maximise the expression of polite beliefs.
Under this principle, he presents six maxims ofpoliteness:
Tact;
Generosity;
Approbation;
Modesty; Agreement; and Sympathy. He points outthat the most important kind of politeness inEnglish-speaking society is that which is coveredby the operation of the Tact Maxim. This maxim
reads “Minimize cost to other; Maximize benefit toother” in terms of three scales: the cost-benefit scalethat concerns the propositional content of anutterance, the indirectness scale that concerns theillocutionary force of an utterance, and the social
distance scale that concerns the vertical (power) andhorizontal (solidarity) relationship between the
speaker and addressee or a third party.
Fraser (1980, 1990) advances a so-called
conversational-contract view. This suggests thatpoliteness operates within the current terms andconditions of the conversational contract enteredinto by the participants in an interaction in an effort
to maintain the interaction conflict-free. Fraser(1980) associates politeness with his notion of
mitigation, defining mitigation as a strategy for
reducing the force of a speech act whose effects areunwelcome to the addressee.
Of all the politeness theories advanced thus far,1

For instance, under the Positive politeness strategies,
B&L propose fifteen concrete strategies including“Notice, attend to hearer’s wants, needs, interests,
goods”; “Exaggerate interest, approval, sympathy withhearer”, “Seek agreement”, “Avoid disagreement”, and“Give reasons”. Under the Negative politeness strategies,
they propose ten strategies including “Be conventionallyindirect”; “Give deference”; “Question, hedge”;“Apologize”; “Go on record as incurring a debt”. Under
the Off-record strategies, fifteen strategies are listed
including “Give hints”; “Give association clues”;“Presuppose”; “Understate”; “Use metaphors”; “Userhetorical questions”; “Be ambiguous”; “Be incomplete”;
and “Use ellipsis”.

B&L’s (ibid.) is the most elaborate and extensive,
attracting the most attention from linguists,
especially in regard to their claim that there areculturally universal principles underlying politeness.
Many subsequent linguists (e.g., Watts, Ide, &Ehlich 2005; Locher & Watts 2005; Holtgraves
2005a; and several papers in Lakoff & Ide 2005)
argue against the universality thesis propounded by
B&L. Those anti-universal arguments are based ondiverse language-use data from different cultures.
For instance, in the introductory chapter of Watts,
Ide, & Ehlich (2005), Watts claims that “politenesswill always be a slippery, ultimately indefinable
quality of interaction which is subject to change
through time and across cultural space” and the
pursuit of both an a priori predictive theory ofpoliteness and a post-facto descriptive theory ofpoliteness should be abandoned. Instead, he argues
that analysts need to “pay closer attention to how
participants in social interaction perceive
politeness,” a move toward discursive approaches
to politeness. Several papers in Watts, Ide, & Ehlich(ibid.) and Lakoff & Ide (2005) deal with
non-Western languages such as Hebrew, Japanese,and Thai. The key point of these papers is thatpoliteness cannot be defined in the same way acrosscultural spaces.
Similarly, I argued earlier in Sohn (1988) that
all the earlier universality proposals are only
partially valid, in that linguistic politeness is viewed
only as a feature of strategic language use in social
interaction. For instance, Lakoff’s and Leech’s
conversational maxims of politeness, B&L’s
face-oriented politeness strategies, and Fraser’s
contractual politeness are all pertinent only to
strategic language use, hardly to language structureon the one hand and normative use on the other.
The fact of the matter is that linguistic structure alsostrongly manifests linguistic politeness, as observed
more distinctly in honorific languages such as
Korean, Japanese, and Javanese, and many
politeness expressions are used normatively.
As reflected in extensive misperceptions or
misunderstandings in spoken and written
intercultural communications (e.g., Moeschler
2004; Watts, Ide, & Ehlich ibid.; Lakoff & Ide ibid.),
there is tremendous cultural (norms and values)
variability in terms of what constitutes politeness,
how politeness is expressed or conveyed, who ispolite to whom, and so on. Besides, each culture
has its commonly accepted verbal conventions andusages. In Korean, Chinese, and Japanese cultures,for example, imposing on or not giving options to
the addressee is often very natural and generally
polite when the speech act is in the interest of theaddressee, as when “imposing” upon the addressee
to eat more in casual contexts. The concept of“face” itself, B&L’s central universal notion, is thus
considerably culture-bound and is perceived andconceived quite differently from culture to culture.
As a result, sensitivity to B&L’s strategies is notequal in all cultures. For example, while theimperative forms are rarely used to issue requests(for speaker’s benefit) in favour of indirect speechacts in English, this is not necessarily the case withmany other cultures such as Chinese (Tsuzuki, et al.
2005) and also Japanese and Korean. Kallia (2005)
reveals the differences in the uses of imperatives
among English, German, and Greek.
Furthermore, linguistic politeness is expressedwith a wide variety of linguistic devices such asaddress/reference terms, honorifics, politeness
formulas, indirect speech act forms, various
hedging devices, polite auxiliaries, sentence enders
with appropriate intonation contours, hesitation, andso forth. Such politeness devices are picked up by
interlocutors in accordance with establishedsociolinguistic rules and culture-bound conventions,norms, and values. Thus, different cultures may
choose different devices for the same speech acts.
One additional point is that linguistic politeness inany culture is not static but dynamic reflecting
socio-cultural dynamism.
In short, linguistic politeness is an essential
aspect of human interactive behaviour, an importantsocio-cultural phenomenon, and a facet ofcommunicative competence and performance. Thus,
it has both universals and local culture-boundmanifestations, as reflected in linguistic patterns
and pragmatic usages of each language. That is,languages share many universal components
especially in higher abstract and principled levels,
but also differ in unpredictable ways, especially inlower, specific manifestation levels. Both sides are
significantly relevant to L2 acquisition.

3

Formulas and Politeness Formulas

Language is basically conventional. Otherwise, themembers of the linguistic community would havedifficultyinproducing,processing,andcomprehending sentences and discourses. In thesame vein, formulaic expressions, which are highly
conventionalized, facilitate communication by
providing ready-made expressions.
Formulas, which refer to linguistic formulas,are also variously called formulaic languages,
formulaic sequences, chunks, prefabs (prefabricatedspeech), (interactional) routines, formulaic routines,
routine formulae, and conversational routines.
According to Swann et al. (2004), formulaic
language refers to set phrases or expressions suchas idioms (e.g., to all intents and purposes),
metaphorical uses (e.g., kick the bucket ‘die’, pieceof cake ‘easy’, and get out of here ‘don’t fool me’),and greetings formulae (e.g., pleased to meet you).
Bardovi-Harlig (2006: 4) quotes several definitions
as they are used in language acquisition researchand sociolinguistic perspective: “Routines arewhole utterances that are unusually error-free andshow no transitional states of development or
systematic order of acquisition. They are learned as
unanalyzed wholes, much as one learns a single
word” (Dulay et al. 1982: 232–3); “Routine
formulae are highly conventionalized prepatterned
expressions whose occurrence is tied to more orless standardized communication situations. . . .
In embodying social knowledge they are essential
in the handling of day-to-day transactions”(Coulmas 1981: 3–4). “A formula is a sequence,
continuous or discontinuous, of words or othermeaning elements, which is, or appears to be,prefabricated, that is, stored and retrieved wholefrom memory at the time of use, rather than being
subject to generation or analysis by the language
grammar” (Wray 2000: 465).
In pragmatics, terms like “semantic formulas”
and “pragmatic strategies” are employed to refer toconventionalized expressions associated withvarious speech acts. For instance, in regard to the
speech act of apology, the perpetrator uses semantic
formulas such as an expression of apology, astatement of responsibility, an offer of repair, and/or
a promise of forbearance (Olshtain and Cohen
1991; Bardovi-Harlig ibid.). Semantic formulas areusually conventional but need not be formulaic.
I will take all the above definitions into accountas appropriate. Although many formulas may belearned as unanalysed wholes, they can be and, infact, should be analysed for instructional purposes.
Needless to say, formulas occupy certain syntactic
and discourse positions, and thus they are
analysable in relation to other grammatical
functions and categories; their morpho-syntactic
compositions,semantic,
pragmalinguistic,sociopragmatic, and discourse properties, andcross-cultural differences must be studied andrevealed. Unlike some arguments to the contrary, I
maintain that teaching and learning of formulas
contribute to language acquisition to a great extent
through developing the pragmatic competence ofthe learners.
Politeness formulas constitute a subset of
linguistic formulas. They are conventionalized
polite expressions used in interactive contexts. They
are formulaic expressions that maintain, promote,or boost smooth interpersonal relations in various
interactive speech acts, written or spoken. Thus,
non-interactive idioms and non-polite metaphoricalformulas are not politeness formulas. Politeness
formulas are culturally and interpersonally sosensitive and context-bound that improper use ornon-use of politeness formulas in given contexts
can immediately lead to impoliteness and can be
detrimental to carrying on smooth conversation.
Unlike idioms and other non-polite formulas
whose meanings are by and large given in
dictionaries,
thepragmalinguisticandsociopragmatic meanings of politeness formulas are
generally not readily available in dictionaries andgrammar books and are hard to grasp and pin down
without interactive contexts. This is particularly thecase with L2 language learners whose
socio-cultural and pragmatic backgrounds are
distinct from those of L2. All this justifies theimportance of establishing the set of politeness
formulas for second language teaching, learning,
and research.
Politeness formulas involve two kinds,
relatively more ritualized ones (such ad “Good
Morning”) and relatively more strategic ones (suchas “Would you do me a favour?”), althoughborderline cases are numerous. Both kinds ofexpressions are politeness devices in that non-use ofthem immediately leads to impoliteness. These twokinds correspond to Janney and Arndt’s (1992)
social politeness and interpersonal politeness (ortact), respectively. Janney and Arndt regard
politeness not as a static logical concept but as adynamic interpersonal activity that can be observed,
described, and explained in functional interactionalterms. They distinguish between social politenessand interpersonal politeness (or tact), saying thatboth types of politeness are culturally acquired andare interrelated in speech. The function of social
politeness is essentially to coordinate social
interaction—to regulate the mechanical exchange ofroles and activities—whereas the function ofinteractional politeness is to preserve face andregulate interpersonal relationships. One mainmeans for social politeness is to follow conventionsof social politeness, often termed “conversationalroutines”, “politeness formulas”, “politenessconventions”, or “formulaic expressions”. One
main means for interpersonal politeness is to be
tactful, i.e., behaving in an interpersonally
supportive way and empathizing with others, andnot saying or doing things that threaten or offend
them or injure their feelings. While Janney andArndt limit “politeness formulas” to their social
politeness, I will use the term more broadly to coverboth their social and interpersonal politeness aslong as the linguistic forms are conventionalized.

4

Importance of Politeness Formulas in
L2 Acquisition

Early research in second language acquisition
included empirical studies of formulas used byadult learners, but the Universal Grammar (UG)emphasized the rule-governed nature of language
production, maintaining that knowledge of formulas
did not contribute to syntactic development(Bardovi-Harlig 2006:1–2). There has recently beena renewed interest in formulas in the second
language studies literature (e.g., Kasper & Rose
2001; N. Schmitt, 2004). In particular, recent
research focus is the function of formulas inlanguage acquisition and language use, whether
among native speakers or learners.
Advantages of learners’ knowledge and use of
L2 politeness formulas in L2 acquisition may besummarized as follows:(a) Pragmatic or pragmalinguistic competence is anindispensable component of language learning.
Interactive speech acts, such as request, suggestion,
invitation, promise, offer, refusal, agreement,
introduction,excuse,thanking,
apology,complaining,
congratulating,complimenting,condoling, and greeting, are required to be
conducted in a polite manner. Such speech acts are
by and large through exchanges of politeness
formulas. Learning of politeness formulas andstoring them in the learners’ repertoires are,therefore, an essential requirement for attaining
interactive pragmatic competence, as politeness
formulas constitute a substantial part of adult native
speakers’ pragmatic competence. For example, if alearner of English has acquired and naturally andproductively used conventionalized politenessexpressions such as those in (1) in interactive
situations (data from Holtgraves 2005b: 2029),
there is no doubt that he or she has achieved a
considerable level of pragmalinguistic competence
in English.
(1)
Be careful. There is a cop near.
(Warn: imperative plus assert negative
state)
Keep at it. You’ll do fine.
(Encourage: imperative plus optimism)
Please, please, please. I’ve got to see this movie.
(Beg: assert strong desire plus humble
mode of achievement)
Do you know the time?
(Ask: indirect request for information)
Would you like to come for dinner tomorrow?
(Invite: request hearer’s presence with low
degree of strength)
I swear I will be neater after this weekend.
(Promise: strongly obligate speaker toperform possible future action)
If you need some help then give me a call.
(Offer: conditional promise)

You’re right. It is wrong to do that.
(Agree: assert previous proposition and/or
correctness of proposition)
I haven’t been feeling well.
(Excuse: assert reason for negative
situation)
I appreciate your help. I couldn’t have done it
without you.
(Thanks: express gratitude (for event
benefiting speaker)
I’m sorry that I ruined your shirt.
(Apology: express regret for negative act
for which speaker irresponsible)
That’s awesome. I’m so happy for you.
(Congratulate: express pleasure at hearer’s
outcome–high degree of strength)
I like your new coat.
(Compliment: express approval ofhearer’s object/event–low degree ofstrength)(b) The knowledge and use of politeness formulas
contribute to sociolinguistic or sociopragmaticcompetence, which involves appropriate language
use in social and interactive contexts or situations.
In this connection, Coulmas (1981) indicates that
language learners need to acquire a sizable
repertoire of formulas in order to cope efficiently
with recurrent and expanding social situations anddiscourse requirements. Similarly, House (1996:
227–8) emphasizes the importance of learning
formulas at any learning stage because formulas
embody the given community’s common societal
knowledge and thus are essential in the verbal
handling of everyday life.
For instance, the English casual acceptanceformula Sure, no problem is appropriate for request
contexts but not for offer contexts. Thissociopragmatic knowledge can prevent theovergeneralization observed in Kecskes’ (2000)
example in (2), where one learner used the same
response Sure, no problem in requests and offers.
(2)a. Can I borrow your pen? — Sure, no problem.
b. Can I talk to you after class? — Sure, no
problem.
c. Would you like some candy? — *Sure, no
problem.
Thus, felicitous use of politeness formulas incorrect socio-cultural and discourse contexts orsituations enhances the learner’s sociolinguisticcompetence.
(c) The knowledge and use of politeness formulas
contribute to cross-cultural awareness and thus tointercultural communicative competence, as users
of formulas are communicating across cultures.
Intercultural communication is communication
between members of different cultural groups, who
may bring different language practices or ways of
speaking and different expectations, social norms,
and cultural values as well as different discourse
conventions and usages (e.g., Swann et al. 2004:
149). Encapsulating cultural elements, L2
politeness formulas reflect intercultural differences
between L1 and L2 speakers, which are responsibleforcommunicationdifficulties
suchasmisinterpretations and misconceptions (e.g., Clyne
1996; Moeschler 2004).
For instance, the concept of congratulation
applies to birthdays and Christmas in Korea andmany societies in the same way as it is used in suchachievement situations as promotion and graduation,
which is not the case in English (Happy Birthday!
Merry Christmas!). Another example is the use of
Excuse me or Thank you for I’m sorry by Japaneseor Korean learners of English. Reversely, English
speakers find it difficult to understand why
Japanese and Koreans say “I’m sorry” in situations
when the appropriate response is actually “thankyou”.
In Korean society, asking a senior addressee’s
age is culturally accepted. There is a politeness
formula to do this, as in (3), where NM =nominative; SH = subject honorific; AH =addressee honorific; HQ = honorific question ender.
(3)
Yensey ka
etthehkey
toy-si-p-nikka?
age
NM
how
become-SH-AH-HQ‘How old are you? (lit. what does your age
become?)This indirect speech formula is used to ask
somebody’s name, address, hometown, current time,etc. Examples (4) and (5) are recent email
exchanges between two senior faculty members in
an American university setting. X is a Japanese
female (complainant) and Y is an American male
(perpetrator). Notice the different communicative
styles. In (4), the main complaint in the first
sentence is expressed in the passive construction,
nominalised form using no, and the polite
conjectural question, a typical formula of an
indirect speech act. The request for formal apology
is another carefully worded indirect speech act,
using the hedge “I think”, the desiderative “wish”,
and the humble auxiliary verb “humbly receive”.
The pronoun “I” does not appear at all. All these
represent a typical Japanese indirect communicative
style to express negative politeness. Example (5)expresses a sincere apology, another negative
politeness strategy in B&L’s terms. All the semantic
formulas are assertive, worded straightforwardly
and explicitly, with “I” appearing seven times andno indirect speech or hedge appearing. This may beconsidered a typical American communicative
style.
(4) Email to Y (with copies to other members)
ミーティングの部屋をどこにするかというだけのメッセージに、何故 個人情報、身体的情報が公表されたのでしょうか。アメリカという国は個人情報を大切にする国だと思っていましたが、このようにコミッティーに全く関係のない人々にまで個人情報をもらすとは、余りにも無神経で、常識ある者のするべきことでは ないと思います。正式に謝っていた
だきたいと思います。. . .
X(5) Email to X (with copies to other members)
I apologize for the error. I thought I was sending
the message to the office staff, but I sent it bymistake to everybody. That certainly was not
my intention. At the time, I THOUGHT thecorrect address for the staff was 000, since I
use the same kind of addresses for groups.
Once again, I make this apology publicly andhope that you will accept it. Y(d) Does learning of formulas contribute togrammatical development? A series of studies in L2
acquisition indicate that there is little evidence thatthe use of formulas resulted in syntactic
development (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig 2006:1). For
instance, Schmidt’s (1983) well-known three-year
longitudinal study shows that his subject Wes’s
grammar did not catch up with the apparent
structure of his formulas. Wes’s data demonstrated
no subject-verb inversion in questions, except informulaic utterances. Thus, formulaic expressions
like Shall we go, Do you have time, and Are you
busy were correctly uttered, whereas Ah, you has
keys? and When Tim is coming? were not.
It seems to me, however, that the data do notserve as evidence for the lack of the formulas’contribution to grammatical development, because
the structure of the learned formulas could slowly
affect Wes’s non-formulaic constructions by
analogy and generalization. Indeed, the given Wes’s
data include Shall we maybe go out coffee now, oryou want later? which gives this developmental
hint. As Bardovi-Harlig (2006:7–8) indicates, theacquisition of pragmatics by the lowest level
learners has not been well documented ininterlanguage pragmatics. She further mentions that
R. Ellis (1984) does provide information of thedevelopment of grammar.

In view of the nature of language learning
through generalization and analogy, it is legitimate
to assume that repeated and frequent uses of ample
formulas and conventionalized expressions in
discourse frames will lead to the learner’ lexical,
morpho-syntactic, and semantic development, as
language ability tends to develop holistically.
Indeed, generalization is an essential component of
human cognition, especially language. It allows
people to use language in new ways they have notbeen directly exposed to.
(e) The use of politeness formulas allows learners
early entry into communication even when there islack of competence in target language rules. This
contributes to improving the learners’ discourse andconversational competence. Politeness formulas are
relevant not so much to syntax but more to thediscourse level in that they appear in interactive
situations. Their key roles and functions are theappropriate uses of them in interactive situations in
discourse situations. Thus, frequent and fluent useof politeness formulas will necessarily contribute tosmooth discourse operations.
(f) Finally, the knowledge and frequent use offormulas allow for fluency in production and fasterprocessing and comprehension, while saving the
speaker planning time that can be used where it isneeded more urgently. Psychologically, all this will
boost the learner’s courage, self-confidence, andinterest in the learning and use of the target
language.

5

Teaching of Polite Formulas

Now, should politeness formulas be explicitly
taught? As indicated in Chick (1996: 344),
sociolinguists generally agree that sociolinguistic
conventions and rules of different social groups canbe learnt through awareness raising of one type oranother and not through explicit teaching. For
instance, Gumperz and Roberts (1980) suggest
involving both learners and native speakers inevaluative discussion of their interethnic encounters
to raise their awareness of their own contributions
to miscommunication. Wolfson (1989) argues thatlearners’ acquisition of sociolinguistic rules can befacilitated by teachers who have the necessary
information and knowledge about speech acts,
values, and patterns at their command.
While accepting fostering learners’ awarenessas a useful approach, I nevertheless subscribe to
explicit teaching of politeness routines to adultlearners. First, learning of politeness formulas
through awareness raising alone is insufficient andtime-consuming and can be fragmentary. How can
we expect a learner who is not in the L2 emersion

situation to internalize the culture-bound usages ofall such formulas by him- or herself from scratch
within a limited time frame?
Second,politeness
formulasareconventionalized in usage and predictable to thenative language users. Such conventionalized
expressions are “situation-bound utterances”(Kecskes 2000), which constitutes a closed set. The
context or situation enables the understanding of thewords spoken or written, as in “help yourself”,
which is typical of a “hospitality” situation, and“let’s get together some time”, which is a typicalparting reply (Mey 2004: 38). In view of theirrelatively manageable quantity and the definable
contexts in which they occur, politeness formulas
are amenable to efficient curriculum design,materials development, classroom teaching, andtesting. Once they are taught and learned, learners
can practice and use them with native speakers inreal communicative situations because suchformulas are context bound, frequently occur indaily interactions, and are in immediate need.
Therefore, they must be taught systematically andintensively in various contexts lest the learners
should use the forms inappropriately.
Third, as already indicated, language is and has
to be essentially conventional in order for the
speakers to mutually understand without much
effort. Thus, in second language acquisition, such
convention building is important for learners tocommunicate with native speakers with facility.
Otherwise, communication will be greatly
hampered, broken down, with misunderstandings
resulting. One cannot expect to achieve thiscompetence through fostering of awareness alone.
Words and phrases and many grammar points canbe self studied. The classroom should be used formore pragmatic training.
Fourth, in learning politeness formulas, acommon source of miscommunication is pragmatictransfer, that is, the use of the rules of speaking of
one’s native language when interacting withmembers of another community. While there areample universality-based positive transfers, there
are also a host of negative transfers as well. Without
contextualised culture-bound acquisition, formulause
canexhibitovergeneralization,
undergeneralization, or misuse. Using mianhayyo‘I’m sorry’ even to one’s senior by an American
learner of Korean is overgeneralization, because
there is a separate form, coysonghayyo, for a senior(Sohn 2001). In cases of undergeneralization,
learners do not use formulas where they are
expected. A formula may be misused as in the caseof using Excuse me or Thank you for I’m sorry by
Japanese and Korean learners of English. Explicit
contextualized teaching will contribute to keeping

learners from falling into such pitfalls. Indeed,learners need the instructor’s explanations of theforms and their felicitous usages but also mustreceive subsequent reinforcing practice for notice
and intake and then take verbal and written post
tests to check their learning.
Fifth, there are some experimental studies on
successful explicit teaching (Olshtain and Cohen
1990, 1991; Dunham 1992). Techniques forteaching speech acts have been proposed. Olshtainand Cohen (1991) propose the following five steps.
(6)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

Diagnostic assessment
Model dialogue
The evaluation of a situationRole-play activities
Feedback and discussion

Dunham (1992) describes ten techniques forteaching complimenting behaviour.
(7)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
j.

Reviewing how it is done in the native culture
Reviewing how it is done in the United States
Vocabulary phrase list
Student practiceRole playing in pairs
Teacher role play with students in front of theclass
Projects in which learners must complimentnative speakers
Students’ oral reports to the class following
their field experiences with native speakers
Connecting
techniquestolengthenconversation
Paired interaction with complimenting andconnecting techniques

Sixth, some recent data-based research results
also indicate that explicit instruction of L2
pragmatics is more effective for L2 acquisition than
implicit instruction. For example, Kasper & Rose(2001) maintain that, although some universal
pragmatic knowledge can be positively transferredfrom L1 to L2, adult L2 learners do not always use
such information. The implication is that learners
need instruction—pedagogic intervention for
pragmatic development—so that they might beaware of such L1-transferable pragmatic knowledge
and use it in L2 contexts (cf. Yanagisawa 2007).
The studies on Japanese as a Foreign Language(JFL) classroom in this volume offer valuable
insights in respect to which components could or
should be taught and what kind of instructional
approaches are available. Three studies are
introduced below.

Tateyama (2001) reports on her investigationon the effects of explicit and implicit instruction in
the use of a Japanese routine formula, sumimasen,
on beginning JFL learners. This commonly used
Japanese phrase has three different functions, i.e.,
getting attention (“Excuse me”), apologizing (“I’msorry”), and expressing gratitude (“Thank you”).
Both explicit and implicit groups were given four
treatments over an eight-week period. The explicit
group received explanations on the use of
sumimasen and watched the same video clips,
which included this routine. The implicit group
received no explanations but only watched the sameclips. Multiple-choice test results reveal that the
explicit group performed better in items which
involved higher formality, indebtedness, andseverity of offence. On the other hand, the explicit
group became overly polite, which suggests that the
explicit instruction resulted in teaching-induced
hyper-correction. The author suggests thatinteractional routines seem to be teachable even to
beginners before they develop analysed second
language knowledge.
Yoshimi (2001) examines the effects of explicit
instruction on JFL learners in the use of Japanese
discourse markers in narratives, such as n desu, ndesu kedo, and ndesu2 which have organizational
and interactional functions. The participants weredivided into experimental and control groups. The
experimental group received explicit instruction
which consisted of (a) the explanatory handout, (2)the native speaker (NS) model, (3) the planningsession (composing their stories with NSs), (4)communicative practice (perform their planned
telling to an NS), and (5) feedback (given by NSs).
The experimental group received such explicit
instruction three times per week over 16 weeks,
which was withheld from the control group except
for regular, in-class small group interaction with
NSs. The quantitative analysis reveals that in the
post-treatment storytelling, the experimental groupmade significant gains in both frequency andaccuracy (i.e., not producing errors), while no
discourse markers were produced by the control
group, which indicates the beneficial effects of
explicit instruction combined with communicative
practice and feedback.
Cook (2001) investigates JFL learners’
pragmatic awareness of a Japanese polite speechstyle. The three conventionalized expressions likethose in (8) share the same referential content, buthave different linguistic features denoting different
levels of politeness or humbleness.

2 Korean equivalents would be ketunyo, nunteyyo, nun
ke yeyeyo, etc.

(8)
a. Doozo yoroshiku
b. Doozo yoroshiku onegai shimasu
c. Doozo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu‘Please treat me well.’Cook reports that 80 percent of the 120 JFL
experimental learners, who were asked to listen to
three job applicants with expressions like (8),focused only on the referential content and wereunable to recognize the polite versus impolitespeech styles indexed by linguistic features (e.g.,plain verb form or -masu). They were unable torecognize polite hedges such as to omoimasu ‘Ithink’ either.
Through interviews with instructors, Cookfound that except for the difference between theformal masu and informal plain verb forms, theinstructors were not aware of the co-occurringfeatures that contributed to the polite versus
impolite speech styles. Accordingly, no explicit
instruction was given in respect to the pragmatic
meaning indexed by these features. Based on thefindings, Cook suggests that it is necessary to teacha range of co-occurring linguistic features that
constitute a particular speech style and that it isimportant for these features, especially the
relationship between a linguistic form and its social
meaning, to be brought to learners’ attention so thatthey will become more noticeable.
There are two important implications in Cook’s
findings. First, instructors should be trained in boththe pragmatic awareness of politeness formulas andeffective instructional methods so that they may
effectively teach formulas to students. Second,
extensive pragmatic and pedagogical researchshould be extensively conducted from across-cultural perspective to prepare for suchteacher training (see next section).
All the above research results can be applied tolearners of Korean, English, and other languages.
For instance, rough Korean equivalents of (8) arelike (9).
(9)
a. cal pwuthakha-nta
b. cal pwuthakha-yc. ca pwuthakha-ney
d. cal pwuthakha-yyo
e. cal puthakha-pnita
cal puthak tuli-keyss-sumnita‘Please treat me well.’ (lit. ‘(I ) ask a favour (ofyou) well.’)
Roughly speaking, the formulas in (9) are
typically used when the speaker is introduced to asocial equal for the first time or when the speakersincerely asks a favour of the hearer. In the former
case, their function is more or less ritualistic andusually the interactants exchange the same formula.
In the latter case, the speech act is somehow notconsidered imposition on the hearer, but rather
tends to enhance the hearer’s face by recognizing
the hearer’s ability or power to handle the requested
matter. It is up to the hearer whether to comply withthe request or not. Different speech levels are
involved from ‘plain’ in (9a) to ‘deferential’ in (9e),appropriate use of which is essential. In (9f),features such as tuli ‘give to a higher person’ and–keyss ‘(I) will’ are added to pwuthak ‘asking
favor’. Contextualized acquisition of the formulas
cannot be expected without elaborate explicit
instruction.
Thus, in order for politeness formulas to takemeaningful roles and functions in L2 pragmatics
and second language acquisition, they must be
captured, taught, and learned systematically. It must
be emphasized that formulas must be taught withappropriate contexts (or situations) given, not at thesyntactic but at the discourse level of speech acts.
Well-organized explicit classroom instruction
should at least include the following items:
a.

b.
c.
d.
e.
f.

presentation of natural syntactic collocations inwhich the formula occurs and natural discourse
frames in which those sentences occur
succinct explanations of semantic-pragmatic
meanings of the formula
explicit account of the contexts where it canand cannot occur
cross-cultural comparison
context-based interactive practices
recognition and production tests (e.g.,multiple-choice identification tests, role plays)

In addition, various instructional strategies
proposed by many researchers should be taken into
account to design the best classroom models
possible.

6

Research on Acquisition
Politeness FormulasofL2

In view of the significant roles they play inintercultural pragmatics and second language
acquisition, more extensive data-based pragmaticand pedagogical research covering a wide range ofpoliteness formulas is required from a L1/L2
comparative perspective. The role and function of
formulas and the learning of formulas andformulaic sequences have only just begun to be
described through empirical research for adultlearners in the area of second language pragmatics.
The fact that Kasper & Rose (2001) is the firstedited volume devoted solely to data-basedclassroom research on general L2 pragmatics
eloquently indicates that the research in the fieldstill in the fledgling stage.
So far, research on politeness formulas appears
to have heavily concentrated on requests andapologies. 3 Regarding apologies, for example,
more than a dozen research papers focus on theJapanese apology act sumimasen alone in regard to
cross-cultural misunderstanding between Americans
and Japanese. These studies include Coulmas(1981), Kimura (1994), R. Ide (1998),
Kumatoridani (1999), and Tateyama (2001).
Several studies on apologies in English havebeen conducted from a cross-cultural perspective,
usually employing a discourse completion test as
their analytic tool (e.g., Cohen & Olshtain 1981;
Trosborg 1987; Blum-Kulka et al. 1989; Olshtain1989).
Apologies and requests are only two areas ofspeech acts, a tip of an iceberg. There is a rich vein
yet to be explored. Typically, politeness formulas
include speech act patterns where strong
face-oriented linguistic politeness is called for.
Searle’s (1969, 1979) classification of speech actsand Holtgraves’s (2005b) work based on Searle’s
show an extensive list of interactive speech acts.
These include (a) Directives: request, recommend,suggest, forbid, advise, claim, warn, encourage, beg,demand, ask, invite; (b) Commissives: refuse,consent, accept an offer, accept an apology, reject
an offer, threaten, promise, offer, reassure; (c)Assertives: accuse, argue, predict, admit, criticize,
agree, blame, remind, guess, deny, correct,
introduce, excuse; and (d) Expressives: praise,
condole, disapprove, approve, greet, welcome,sympathy, thanks, apology, complain, brag,
congratulate, compliment.
Every one of these speech acts deserves
exploration from data-based pragmalinguistic,sociopragmatic, discoursal, cross-cultural, and/or
pedagogical perspectives. In particular, results ofresearch on politeness formulas in theseperspectives will be of enormous significance to L2
acquisition.
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3 For Korean, ‘requests’ are dealt with in Byun (2006)
and others and “apologies” in Sohn (2001).

Blum-Kulka, S., J. House, and G. Kasper (eds.).
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Paper presentation

Textualising emotions and poetic effects in advertisinglanguage
Vincent Taohsun Chang

Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Chengchi University
94555001@nccu.edu.tw

Abstract
This paper aims to explore the dialogic relations
between form and function in advertising discourse
by looking into Chinese print advertisements. They
invite an active/imaginative audience to consume
the texts and spell out a variety of weak
implicatures involving feelings, attitudes, emotions
and impressions along the textual lines, fairly
invisibly persuade her to recognise the significant
inter-/cultural values. Positioning the audience associal elite and shaping the corporate image/brandas a cultural polysemy and landmark of culturalempowerment, they too initiate an emergent text
genre with communicative innovation in culturalindustry and academic disciplines.

Keywords
Advertising language, emotions, implicature, poetic
effects, pragmatic inference, textual consumption

1

Rationale

If the sentence like Colourless green ideas sleep
furiously is seen as semantic anomaly (Chomsky1957) or syntactic deviance solely from structural
viewpoint, the discussions within the semantics
scope would fail to catch the panorama of linguistic
facts and shall be unable to engage in multifaceted
communication of various contexts. This is not
merely inappropriate for the explanatory power
concerning form and function in language use, but
epistemologically unconvincing for elaborating
implicit meaning in discourse. Figurative speech inthis regard plays an indispensable role in humancognition and communication, and the ramificationsof verbal arts are quite prominent in advertising andmedia discourse in their own right.
This paper thus examines the audience’s
comprehension and interpretation concerning
emotions and poeticity in media communication
under relevance-theoretic account (RT) (Sperber &Wilson 1986/1995, Noveck & Sperber 2006) bylooking into contemporary Chinese advertisinglanguage. The rhetorical strategies of syntactic

parallelism and repetition of name and metaphor are
artfully manipulated through literary styles in theads to attract the audience’s attention, to initiate
cognitive poetic effects (Blakemore 1992,
Pilkington 1992) and advertising literariness, toperform diverse communicative functions, and toconvey dominant ideologies. Placing little emphasison commodity, they invite/encourage imaginative
audience to consume the texts and infer a widearray of weak implicatures involving feelings,
attitudes, emotions and impressions along the lines.

2

Research questions

The study investigates ideology and power relations
shaped in advertising by society and culture, andtheir possible effects on society and culture,rendering plausible interpretations to our researchaims. What does the role of audience play ininterpretation process in media discourse? How can
she process/interpret the communicated informationfrom advertiser? How are diverse linguistic
strategies and advertising appeals used to affect andpersuade the audience, as the enterprise attempts tobuild certain corporate image? What cognitiveeffects could be perceived/inferred by different
audience through the rhetorical strategies ininstitutionalised discourse? What is the social
meaning accompanying or behind language use?
What competing ideologies and changing culturalvalues can be seen from advertising discourse, andfurther to shape social cognition? How will theaudience construct their cultural understanding via
popular culture, e.g. advertising?

3

Theoretical framework

In Relevance, Sperber & Wilson define optimal
relevance from the hearer’s processing ability interms of her processing effort and possible effects.1
It means the audience, as a decision-maker, has tomake a decision during her interpretation process.
1

In this paper I also consider the audience to be female,and the addresser to be male (cf. Tanaka 1994: xv).

RT develops two general claims of ‘principles’
about the role of relevance in cognition and incommunication (Noveck & Sperber 2006: 6-7). In
cognitive principle of relevance, human cognition
tends to be geared to the maximisation of relevance.
In communicative principle of relevance, every actof communication conveys a presumption of its
own optimal relevance. This better help understand
how we make decisions as we process utterances(and non-verbal message, Forceville 2005) against
the dynamic interrelations amongst contexts, sharedbackground knowledge/cognitive environment, andthe mind.
According to RT, the presumption of optimal
relevance conveyed by every utterance is precise
enough to ground a specific comprehension
heuristic. That follows a path of least effort inconstructing and interpretation of the utterance,
particularly in resolving ambiguities and referential
indeterminacies, in going beyond linguistic
meaning, in computing implicatures, etc, and stops
when expectations of relevance are satisfied.
Poetic effects refer to the peculiar effect of anutterance that achieves most of its relevancethrough a wide array of weak implicatures (Sperber& Wilson 1995: 222, Pilkington 1992: 38,
Blakemore 1992: 157). 2 Since poetic effects
suitably illustrate the reasoning and pragmatic
inference towards emotions via larger units of text
processing and inferred implicit meanings, thecurrent study centres on the audience’s inferential
processes over longer texts (Blakemore 1992: 165-6,
macrostructure, van Dijk 1977: 130) against
institutionalised discourse, advertising.

4

Data analysis

We deal with the chosen data respectively in thissection. Poetic metaphors typically communicate
many weak implicatures. The more novel/creative
the metaphor is, the greater the range of
implicatures with emotions it communicates(Pilkington 1992: 41). Creative metaphors arewidely crafted in advertising to trigger literary
effects, evoking cultural awareness, emotional
states and social concerns, which themselves
encode the properties of elitism and intelligence.
Consider (1):(1)
2Assumptions that are derivable from the proposition
expressed by the utterance together with the context are
called implicatures (Tanaka 1994: 26-7). Also (p.29),“…there is no clear cut-off point between assumptions
strongly backed by the communicator, and theassumptions derived from the utterance on theaddressee’s sole responsibility.” But both strong andweak implicatures conform to the principle of relevance.

Measured by Kg. Used books on sale
1995.3.11~3.19(a) Expired canned pineapple. Unexpired fooddesire.
(b) Expired film. Unexpired creation desire.
(c) Expired PLAYBOY. Unexpired sex desire.
(d) Expired used books. Unexpired knowledge
desire.
30~50% On sale.
Plenty goods. Low prices. Quick supply.
Knowledge has no expiry date
Old and new friends are welcome to seek andpurchase. For a lifelong useful!
Reading and seeing the utterances ‘separately’ willlead to semantic oddness. But if we process thewhole text as a single texture (cf. §3), the meanings
generated by global coherence, and the inferredweak implicatures and poetic effects are significant.
There’re clear syntactic, semantic and phonologicalparallelisms in this text. These reinforce theaudience’s natural tendency to reducing processing
effort by looking for matching parallelisms inpropositional form and implicatures (Sperber &Wilson: 222-3). On careful examination, however,
she’ll find food desire and sex desire are biologicalcharacteristics, while creation desire/creativity andknowledge desire/desire of pursuing knowledge arelinked to something intellectual. The syntactic
parallelism is deliberately designed for Eslite’s
campaign; it is strong enough to trigger parallel
processing in spite of the partial semantic
divergence. The problem is then one of finding acontext in which all four clauses have parallel
contextual effects. This requires an effort ofimagination: the audience has to bring together thefour encyclopaedic entries and constructnon-stereotypical assumptions. The audience’s task
is to find a set of assumptions in the context ofwhich the facts that (1a-d) have either identical or
directly contrasting implications. The assessment
suggests (1a,c) and (1b,d) are different categories.
Still, these conclusions could have been derived
more cheaply if the addresser had expressedcategorically. He might have been trying to convey
a wide array of weak implicatures, which an
imaginative audience could spell out along a wholevariety of lines:(2)
Creation/knowledge desires are not biologicallydriven.
Creation/knowledge desires are generally not tobe controlled.
Creation/knowledge desires are intellectually
motivated.
Creation/knowledge
desiresarestrongly

encouraged.
Creation/knowledge desires are positively built
images.
Creation/knowledge desires are the forces tomake a better society.
[…]3
The contrasting implications exist also between(1b) and (1d), after considering the first clauses in(1a-c). Food and film have expiry dates, andmagazine is published periodically under normal
condition, all of them have a better timing for
consumption. But the time loadings are not sosignificant on books as on food, film and magazine.
Books
are
normally
without
expiration.
Metaphorically used here, the addresser purposely
elicits contrasting alternatives to convey a variety offairly weak implicatures:(3)
Creativity/creation desire requires ideas.
Creativity/creation desire requires knowledge.
Ideas and knowledge originate from manysources and aspects.
Books are an effective and straight way to supply
you ideas and knowledge.
Knowledge is time-free.
Old books provide time-free knowledge.
Old books offered at Eslite at low prices.
Knowledge from both new books and old books
will bring you competitive edge.
Both new books and old books are available at
Eslite.
[…]The weak implicatures of (2) and (3) might beoverlapping and there is no precise stage during
which the specific implicatures will appear. Some
may not infer the contrasting implications between(1b) and (1d), but still achieves optimal relevance.
As long as the audience recognises the metaphoricalexpressions and the implicatures are falling into thisindeterminate range, the communication is
successful (Tanaka 1994: 88-9).
The notion of weak communication is important
for the indeterminate nature of metaphors and theway in which the hearer processes them. The
hearer’s comprehension of an utterance, that is theassumptions that she infers from it, may not belimited to those that the speaker specificallyintended her to recover. She may recover some
implications that she infers on her own
responsibility. In the two extremes of metaphors,
3

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.

conventional/standardised metaphors encourage theaudience to recover a narrow range of strong
implicatures. Creative metaphors, however, invite
the audience to recover a wide range of weak
implicatures, which require audience’s imagination
on her own responsibility, arousing audience’s
attention much easier and will be retained longer in
her memory due to heavier processing effort. The
audience will thus feel closer to the addresser. The
more matching for her recovered weak implicatures
and the ones the addresser intended to convey, themore intimate with the addresser she is, and moreaesthetic pleasure she is getting in solving themetaphor (and other tropes). Next comes another ad
artfully manipulating names of artistic/aesthetic
eminence that triggers and suffices the audience’s
literary imagination and tapestry:(4)
Without knowing (Italo) Calvino. Without
knowing love.
Without knowing body meteorology. Without
knowing homosexual.
Without knowing women. Without knowing
Marguerite Duras.
Without knowing Free Jazz. Without knowing
death.
Without knowing millenium astrology. Without
knowing Bauhaus.
Without knowing (François) Trauffault. Without
knowing political power and struggle.
We therefore read.
Eslite Bookreview
Naming literary celebrities, professional disciplines
and appealing topics/concerns over life with lexical
repetition is indicated too in (4). The repetition of
without knowing yields the strong implicature ‘wedon’t know (very/so) much.’ Without knowinginterweaves here with diverse cultural elements ofwriter, director, music (free jazz) and art. Love,
women, death are compelling issues in human life,
political power and struggle are increasingly
prevailing in modern society, gay/homosexual issue
is in no way so tabooed than ever before, even in
East Asian and Chinese societies. The compoundnouns body meteorology and millenium astrology
are neologisms to fulfil the reader’s imagination.
All these are manipulated to convey a wide array of
weak implicatures:(5)(It seems that) We should read.
We should read more. We should read a lot.
We should read (a lot) to gain (more) knowledge.
We should read (a lot) to gain (more) knowledge
to be like celebrities.

We should read (a lot) to know prominent issues.
Eslite Bookreview could tell us prominent issues.
Eslite Bookreview could help us gain (more)
knowledge.
Buy, and try (Eslite Bookreview).
[…]
On closer look, the coherence between love and
Italo Calvino, women and Marguerite Duras, andthe seemingly opaque one between bodymeteorology and gay/homosexual, will drive thereader to infer and derive the implicatures below:(6)
If we know something about Calvino, we’ll know
love more.
If we know something about Marguerite, we’llknow women more.
If we know something about gay life, we’ll know
“body meteorology.” (Or vice versa)
We can find and know these names and issues in
Eslite Bookreview.
[…]
The addresser intends here to evoke the audience’s
emotions, the affective dimension to poetic effects,
which is associated with weak implicature in therelevance theory account: “What look like
non-propositional effects associated with theexpression of attitudes, feelings, and states of mind
can be approached in terms of the notion of weak
implicature…” (Sperber & Wilson 1995: 222,
Pilkington 1992: 45). She is guided to process andeven entertain the texts after which she would be
rewarded by extra contextual effects (wide-ranging
implicatures), and feel closer to the addresser.

5

Concluding remarks

From the analyses in this study, we can know theaudience is active, rather than passive, in theinterpretation process, where ‘relevance’ is crucial
to the text/discourse interpretability. The audiencewould achieve 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).
People often mean more than they say.
Grammar on its own is typically insufficient for
determining the full meaning of an utterance, theassumption that the discourse is coherent or ‘makes
sense’ has an important role to play in determining
meaning as well (Asher & Lascarides 2005). Just as
syntactic surface structures display complexity ofunderlying structures, we can well appreciate theimplicit meanings and emotions conveyed andenrichedbylexicalitems
andsyntactic-semantic-pragmaticinterplayinadvertising discourse and media communication.
Language carries emotions. Figures of speech inthis regard play a vital role in human cognition andcommunication, and the ramifications of verbal arts
are quite noticeable in advertising discourse in its
own right. This study examined the audience’s
mental processing and inferential processes overpoeticity and emotions in Chinese print ads. The
sociocultural aspect of language use is further
explored to see the inseparable relationship between
language and social meaning. Advertising, lending
itself as a symbolic domain of dominant ideologies,
incorporates fashion-driven discourse by reflecting
social cognition and cultural patterns, it also invites
the audience members as potential consumers torecognise the values. It is socioculturally shaped but
it also constitute sociocultural cognition, in waysthat may be transformative as well as reproductive(Fairclough 1995), thus maintaining the dialectical
relationship between social structures and social
practice.
References
Asher, N., & A. Lascarides. (2005). Logics ofConversation: Studies in Natural Language
Processing. Cambridge University Press.
Blakemore, D. (1992). Understanding Utterances:
An Introduction to Pragmatics. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic Structures. The
Hague: Moutom.
Fairclough, N. (1995). Media Discourse. London:
Edward Arnold.
Forceville, C. J. (2005). Multimodal metaphors incommercials.
“The
pragmatics
ofmultimodal representations” panel at the 9thInternational
Pragmatics
Association(IPrA) Conference, July 10-15, Riva delGarda, Italy.
Noveck, I. A., & D. Sperber (eds.). (2006).
Experimental Pragmatics. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Pilkington, A. (1992). Poetic effects. Lingua 87:
29-51.
Sperber, D., & D. Wilson. (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:
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Longman.
Wilson, D., & D. Sperber. (1992). On verbal irony.
Lingua 87: 53-76.

(Un)satisfied Regulation and (In)consistency of Dialogue
Susumu Kubo

Graduate School of Language and Communication, Matsuyama University
mukubo@cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp

Abstract

Introduction

The concept of regulation has been a major part ofdevelopmental psychology since Piaget andVygotsky. 1 More recently, Watson (1989) andFogel (1993) 2 described the functions ofself-regulation and co-regulation, respectively, incaretaker-infant interactions. Regulation is very
general concept and a good tool in the analysis ofadult interactions, as well. 3 In current theory ofspeech acts such as Kubo and Suzuki (2007),
regulation is defined as an innate capacity ofmaintaining our holistic emotional state inequilibrium 4 or technically a function from
disequilibrium to equilibrium. There, like any
illocutionary act, a regulatory act is assumed tohave the condition of success and satisfaction: aregulatory act is satisfied if and only if the actor’semotional state is maintained in equilibrium withrespect to the given environment including the
speaker and the hearer after his/her performance of
the act. In this paper, it will be demonstrated that an
unsatisfied regulatory act in a dialogue derives
inconsistency of the dialogue taking the distinctionof the function of language, namely, transaction orinteraction, into account.

In the studies of formal theory of conversation suchas Success and Satisfaction Conditional Semantics(cf. Vanderveken, 1994, 1999), the goal of the study
is to construct a well-defined theory through theanalysis of intelligent goal-directed conversationsuch as dialogues of negotiation or quarrel. There,
they tend to exclude ordinary conversation
including phatic communion from their analysis ofconversation mainly because, they claim, thosedialogues are in general deprived of proper
discursive goals and collective intentionality (cf.
Vanderveken, 1994, 1999). Kubo and Suzuki (2007:
75-84) proved that not all ordinary conversations
are of such characteristics by showing that they are
considered to be goal-directed and are performed
with collective-intentionality from the perspectiveof interaction. As an illocutionary act is either
satisfied or unsatisfied, a dialogue is also either
satisfied or unsatisfied. In this paper, it will beargued that an unsatisfied dialogue is the result ofan unsatisfied regulation by one of the participantsof the dialogue, that brings about dialogicalinconsistency between participants’ selection of
language function, either transaction or interaction,in the sequence of exchanges. It has to be noted thatthe unsatisfied regulation leads participants of the
dialogue into the mental state of disequilibrium.
In the next section, it will be shown two casesof satisfied dialogue where both illocutions andregulations are consistently performed. In the third
section, two cases of unsatisfied dialogues areshown to clarify our argument concerning therelation between unsatisfied regulation andinconsistency of dialogue. In the last section, atentative proposal is given to decrease thepossibility of inconsistency of dialogue.

Keywords
regulation, regulatory act,(un)satisfaction, (in)consistency(dis)equilibrium,

1

See Flavell (1963), Piaget (1970), Vygotsky (1986),
Watson (1989) and Fogel (1993).
2 According to Fogel (op. cit., 19), the concept ofco-regulation “will refer to the dynamic balancing act bywhich a smooth social performance is created out of thecontinuous mutual adjustments of action between
partners.”
3 A socilinguist like Watts(2003) also argues for thistrend: “Socioculturally determined behaviour directed
towards the goal of establishing and/or maintaining in astate of equilibrium the personal relationships between
the individuals of a social group” (Watts, 2003:135).
4 For detailed account of Piaget’s notion of equilibrium,
see Flavell (1963).

1

Satisfied Dialogues

A dialogue of negotiation or quarrel consists of asequential process of consecutive coregulations (cf.
Fogel, 1993) or bi-directional regulations (Kuboand Suzuki, 2007) in which participants of the
dialogue intentionally attempt to regulate themselves to the other party as well as to themselves torealize their goal in the dialogue.
A dialogue of negotiation is satisfied if andonly if the participants of the dialogue successfully
reach an agreement and both participants feelsatisfied with the result. In (1), the discursive goalof the dialogue is to reach an agreement regarding
the cost for JACK’s service. JOAN is obliged toaccumulate her cost for every additional utterance
to the maximum cost she can spend, on the one
hand. JACK has to reduce his profit each time heutters to the minimum benefit he can get, on theother hand. Both of them are unstable in the mental
state on the way till they can see the end. In otherwords, the dialogue of negotiation is a process ofequilibration that starts with the context in which
both participants are in the mental state of
disequilibrium, passes through the intermediateinconstant stages, and ends with the context inwhich they are in the state of equilibrium.
Fortunately, this dialogue is satisfied because its
goal is successfully reached and both participants
feel satisfied as the last utterance, “Deal,”
represents.
(1) (Context: Joan was forced to come to Colombia
to save her sister, Elaine, who had been kidnapped.
She was left in a jungle with an American hunter,Jack. Joan must make contact with the kidnapper
to secure her sister’s life. So, Joan needs someone
who can take her to the nearest telephone. While
Jack needs money to make his living since he lost
his annual income in the car crash he had with thelocal bus of which Joan was a passenger.)
01 Joan: I’ll pay you!
02 Jack: How much?
03 Joan: Fifty dollars. I thought you just lost
everything.
04 Jack: Not my sense of humor.
05 Joan: Well, what d’you want? I’ll give you ahundred dollars. Two hundred dollars.
06 Jack: I’ll do it for five.
07 Joan: That’s ridiculous. I’ll give you twofifty.
08 Jack: Lady, my minimum price for taking
stranded women to telephones is four
hundred dollars.
09 Joan: Will you take three seventy-five intraveler’s checks?
10 Jack: American Express?
11 Joan: Sure.
12 Jack: Deal.
[Romancing the Stone]
The dialogue of quarrel is satisfied if and only
if one of the participants of the dialogue yields tothe other party, the winner feels satisfied and theloser feels dissatisfied with the result. In otherwords, the winner changes his/her mental state fromthe state of disequilibrium to that of equilibrium, on
the one hand. The loser enhances his/her mental
state of disequilibrium. In (2), Grace Farrell
succeeds in bluffing Miss Hannigan into believingthat her master and Mr. Donatelli are in close
relationship and she will lose her job at theorphanage if she does not cooperate with Farrell.
Thus, Grace gets the mental state of equilibrium
and Miss Hannigan enhances her mental state of
disequilibrium. Therefore, the discursive goal ofthis dialogue is satisfied.
(2) (Context: Grace Farrell visited an orphanage
to find an orphan who could stay one night with Mr.
Warback who is her boss and a billionaire. She
thought a girl as a candidate. However, Miss
Hannigan, matron of the orphanage, was reluctant
to do so. Grace found something strange in Miss
Hannigan’s attitude and threatens her.）
01 Farrell:

I assume your resistance has something to do with Mr. Donatelli and theboard of orphans—.
She began icily.
02 Hannigan: Don’t assume nothing, sweetheart.
Miss Hannigan hissed.
03 Farrell: Mr. Warbucks and Mr. Donatelli arelike this.
Farrell continued, holding up her right handwith the two first finger crossed. She’s lying,
thought Hannigan. She’s bluffing. She gave
an elaborate yawn of boredom, then buffed
her fingernails on her blouse and studied
them carefully.
04 Hannigan: Is that a fact.
It was not a question.
05 Farrell: Yes, that’s a fact.
Farrell went on and her face betraying
nothing.
And it’s a further fact that Mr.
Donatelli was at the house just last weeksaying how many people he had lined up
for your job.
Farrell, too, studied her hands, as she pulled
her gloves on carefully, finger by finger.
“She’s bluffing,” Miss Hannigan told herself
again, but with far less conviction. Yet it
was far from impossible, very far.
06 Hannigan: Is that a fact?
And this time it was a question.
07 Farrell: Awful time to be unemployed.
Miss Farrell commented.
[Annie]2

Unsatisfied Dialogues
Inconsistency

and

their

In unsatisfied dialogues, their discursive goals are
not satisfied. Let us examine (3) and (4) in order.
In (3), the utterance “I will write you” that is aformulaic expression of farewell is meaninglessbecause JOAN does not know where to write. 5
Technically, her illocutionary act is not successful
and defective because it violates the preparatory
condition of the illocutionary act of promising.
(3)
01 JOAN: I will write you.
02 JACK: Yeah. Where?
Joan thought they sounded like two
kids at the end of summer camp,
making assurances they would stayfriends, knowing they wouldn’t.
03 JOAN: “Yeah, right. Where?”
Feigning a casual grin, then clearing
the emotional frog from his throat,
Jack smiled at her one last time.
[The Jewell of the Nile]
From the perspective of interaction, by thatutterance, she attempts to regulate herself to JACK.
Her utterance is understood as what Goffman(1975: 5) calls “negatively eventful behaviour” toextend her affection to JACK. She maintains her
mental state in equilibrium and her regulation issatisfied if and only if JACK just accepts her
intention by nodding with “Yeah” withoutcommitting himself to the propositional content of
her utterance. Here, incidentally, his question,“Where?” requires her to perform transactional
speech act and offer a concrete reply. In
consequence, the interactional function of thepreceding reply is cancelled and the participants ofthe dialogue are drawn into the transactional
exchange by the question. Therefore, JOAN’s
regulatory act is not satisfied and the dialogue
comes to be inconsistent in the sense that aninteractional statement faces a transactional reply.
Put it differently, she has to be in the sate of
disequilibrium.
Similarly, in (4), WALKER is performing an
illocutionary act of questioning expecting simply
some verbal reply from CLAIRE to put an end to
the uncomfortable silence. In other words, he wasin the state of disequilibrium in the given
environment. Here, he has no intention to get a
concrete reply from her (violation of the conditionof illocutionary point).
5 Put it differently, to say “I will write you but I don’tknow where to write” is self-defeating.

(4) (Context: This conversation takes place
at a graveyard between Claire who has
lost her husband and their friend, Walker.
Clare is in a bad mood and is utterly
helpless.）
01 WALKER: What suit did you put him
in?
Walker said, to be saying something.
It was the wrong thing. She gave him aneedle glare.
02 CLAIRE: The blue suit.
03 WALKER: I always liked that one.
04 CLAIRE: Well, it’s too late now.
Her voice was brittle. The cigarettesmoke hung around her like a mist.
05 WALKER: I didn’t mean I wanted it.
Walker said, desperate.
[Lucky Lady]
Thus, from the perspective of transaction, his
illocutionary act is not successful and defectively
performed. 6 In other words, he performs a
regulatory act to promote the relationship between
the participants in the discourse. Then, he would
feel satisfied and his mental state would be in
equilibrium if CLAIRE took his words non-literally
and accepted his worry about her. Unfortunately,
however, she takes his utterance literally and gives
him a concrete reply. What is worse, shemisunderstands his words and makes her mental
state much more unstable. Incidentally, her reply
makes his illocutionary act to be satisfied 7 but
draws him into the transactional exchange.
Therefore, WALKER’s regulatory act is notsatisfied and the dialogue comes to be inconsistent.
In consequence, he is forced to stay in the mental
state of disequilibrium.
These cases suggest that in the context ofcommunication, the participants of a dialogue musttake into account which language function the otherspeaker attempts to use, transactional orinteractional function and try to conform to thelanguage function of preceding utterance in order toprevent crush of their selection of language
functions.

3

A Tentative Conclusion

In this paper, we have demonstrated that an
unsatisfied dialogue that leads participants of a6

His utterance can be paraphrased as “I ask you whatsuit you put him in, but I do not need to know youranswer.” Thus, this is another case of self-defeating
speech act.
7
An illocutionary act of questioning is satisfied if andonly if it is answered.

dialogue into mental state of disequilibrium is a
result of an unsatisfied regulation by one of theparticipants of the dialogue that brings about
dialogical inconsistency between participants’
selection of language function, either transaction orinteraction, in the sequence of exchanges. A
regulatory maxim of manner such as BE AWARE
OF THE LANGUAGE FUNCTION EMPLOYEDBY THE OTHER PARTY can be proposed toprevent unintentional and incidental discursiveinconsistencies. This maxim, however, shall not be
proposed as a special remedy for possible
discursive inconsistencies but can be given as an
aid with which we can decrease the possibility ofthe discursive inconsistence and possible
disequilibrium. Needless to say, discursive
responsibility is mainly on our shoulder.
References
Brown, G. and Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis.
Cambridge: CUP.
Fogel, A. (1993).Developing Through Relationships
Origins of Communication, Self, andCulture, Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago
Press.
Fravell, J.H. (1963). The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget. New York: D. Van
Nostrand Company.
Goffman, E. (1972). Interaction Ritual: Essay on
Face-to-Face Behaviour. Hammondsworth:Penguin.
Kubo, S. and Suzuki, M. (2007). Politeness andRegulation. Kyoto: Koyo Shobo.
Piaget, J. (1970). Piaget’s Theory. In Mussen, P. H.
(Ed.). (1970). Carmichael’s manual of childpsychology (3rd ed.): Vol.1, 703-732. New
York: John Wily & Sons.
Vanderveken, D. (1994). Principles of Speech Act
Theory [Cahiers d’Épistémologie, 9402].
Montréal: Université du Québec à Montréal.
Vanderveken, D. (1999). Illocutionary Logic andDiscourse Typology [Cahiers d’Épistémologie, 9912]. Montréal: Université du Québec àMontréal.
Vanderveken, D. and S. Kubo (2002). Essays in
Speech Act Theory. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Vygotsky, L. (1986 [1934]). Thought and Language.
Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.
Watson, R. (1989). Monologue, Dialogue, andRegulation. In K. Nelson (ed.) Narratives
from the Crib. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
Watts, R. J. (2003) Politeness. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Japanese Students’ New Perceptions about using English as a
Lingua Franca
Setsuko Oda

English Language Program, International Christian University
setsukoo@icu.ac.jp

Abstract

say they want to be Japanese teachers. “Japanese

The present study explores current Japaneseteachers” here mean those who teach Japanese to

students' perceptions about the ownership of

speakers of other languages, I once asked one ofEnglish. To see to what extend the students actuallysuch students why he is interested in teachinguse English in their daily lives, they were asked toJapanese instead of English (He was very eager towrite a report about where, when and with whom

learn English), and his answer was that he considers

they use English. To examine what their perceptions

that teaching English is beyond his scope because

are about the ownership of English, in-depth

he does not think he can teach cultural aspects ofinterviews were conducted with selected students.

English, being a non-native speaker of English.

Findings include: (1) many students do have

Considering that he is exposed in the English

opportunities to actually use English as a means ofstudies at the university’s English intensive

communication in all four skills. (2) students areprogram taught mainly by native speaker teachersquite relaxed and realistic about using English. (3)mostly from the UK and US, it may be considered

students

theas an indication of his American-British centric

The

view.

are

not

overlyinterested

British-American native English model.

inMoreover,Western-orientation

of

the

author considers the students' seemingly new

Japanese society must also be a factor contributing

perceptions about English as a desirable factor

to his view.

which will contribute to raising their awareness of

Such a view is certainly problematic in today’s

their current status as one of the owners of English

world where English is widely used as a means ofin today's global communication.

global communication, as Matsuda (2003) sees it(See also Smith, 1983), and that it is suggested that

Keywords

students should have more contact with other

English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), the ownership ofcultures at the personal level, especially withEnglish, Internet, Par-time jobs

cultures other than American and Europeans(Matsuda, 2003).

Introduction
At my university, I come across more students who

On the other hand, with the demand for English
being as big as ever (Phillipson, 1992), the use of

English for many students is no longer a

They are not particularly interested in learning

fashionable touch to their conversation (Stanlaw,

English but seems to see the important role it plays

1987), but seems to be almost a bare necessity to

in today’s world.

survive through life.
The present study attempts to explore Japanese

1.2

Data Collection

university students’ perceptions about the use of

Data were collected from two sources. One is fromEnglish. By presenting data about their actual use of

writtenEnglish and their attitudes towards using English, I

experience of using English outside the school

demonstratereal

setting. All 32 students submitted reports. They

communication outside of the school by using

were asked to write about in what situations andEnglish seem to help students understand thatwith whom they use English in their daily lives.

English is no more than a tool for communication

They were also asked to write about their use ofand help raise their awareness of having an equal

English on the internet.

thatparticipatinginreports

toinvestigate

thestudents’

status among all users of English. I argue for the

The other source of data collection was

importance of this awareness while suggesting ainterviews. Four students (3 male, 1 female) werepossible drawback of decreased enthusiasm to learn

selected for in-depth interviews following theand absorb the English language as a result of theirsubmission of written reposts.

decreased interest in British and American cultures,and suggest alternative ways to enhance their2.

motivation.

Nine students answered that they use it at their jobs.,

Results and Discussion

mainly with Chinese and Americans. The jobs here

1.

The Study

are dominantly the one in the food service business,

1.1

Participants

namely restaurants and bars. The university situatedParticipants are 32 university students, agedin Yokohama with its Japan’s largest harbor, it is no

between 19 to 27, (28 males and 4 females)

surprise that students are exposed to daily contact

enrolled at a university in Yokohama. Their majors

with people from other cultures.

are either environmental studies or information

The number of international residents intechnology. The admission to the university is not

Yokohama is high, and it is also a sight-seeing spot

very competitive though it is not among the least

which attract both domestic/international travelers.

competitive. Students’ computer literacy is high.

Moreover, we cannot overlook the existence of an

They are all enrolled in the English reading course

American military base. Also, right next totaught by the author. The university does not place a

Yokohama is an American navy base town,

particular importance on the English studies and the

Yokosuka.

English requirement is only one year. The

Five students answered that they had an

participants are taking the course as an elective.

experience of being asked by no-Japanese people inEnglish to show them the directions. One student

necessary information. The students’ interests

said that a foreign-looking man spoke to him inrange from environmental issues to Hawaiian

English on the streets. Three students answered that

aloha-shirts and body-piercing. It is amazing

they have family friends who speak English.

that websites featuring diverse interests are

From the students’ responses, it may be said that

established by experts in each field and that the

English is no longer a foreign language for thesestudents are readily communicate with thosestudents. It is part of their lives. More than half

website managers via email, on-line chatting,students have experiences of using English in Japan.

and by bulletin board posts.

Only two students explicitly answered they talked

Interview data revealed even more. Out ofwith Americans. Three students answered that they

the four students interviewed, there was one

interacted with Chinese, and the rest of the students

female student who seems to have a view that

did not specify the nationality and just said “people

has been considered to be wide-spread among

form other countries”. It was worth noting that noJapanese, which positions native-English model

participants expressed feelings of fear or anxiety in

as a superior code which all English users

interacting

peopleinEnglish.

One

should aim for (Matsuda, 2001). She repeatedly

be

that

becausemany

said that she is very unconfident about using

interactions occur as a communication between

English and her TOEIC scores are low and that

customers (non-Japanese) and service providers

her problem was that she hardly has a chance to(participants). This might have given them aspeak English.

interpretation

with
may

professional identity and their priority may be on

The other three male students, all highly

conveying necessary message, rather than speaking

competent in computer use, revealed a completely

flawless English and therefore were not very

different

nervous about what kind of English they speak.

experienced in using and downloading different

visage.

One

of

them

seem

very

Next, I discuss the students’ use of English inkinds of software. He was very happy to share withon-line communication. All 32 students answeredme some of his vast knowledge about computer andthat they use English on the internet. Some of thethe internet, impressing me by saying that now heways to use it were creating their own websites,

feels the need to study some Chinese because theobtaining information from websites, emailing touse of Chinese on-line is ever increasing. To him,

non-Japanese friends, chatting with Korean andEnglish is functioning just as a tool for accessing

Chinese people while playing an on-line game andthe information he needs and he seems to see nootherspurpose in learning English more than necessary, let

It is evident, from these findings, that thealone emulating a native English model.

students use English on-line out of necessity

Another male student interviewed confessedsolely as a means of communication. They

that he is heavily addicted to on-line games,

search through different websites to obtainspending hours and hours playing it. He was theone who said that while playing a game he enjoys

students are many who have daily contact withchatting with the other players and observers fromEnglish users outside the school whether on-line or

China and Korea using English. He said that heoff-line. However, caution is needed for those whosometimes uses English at his job, adding that heno longer see important in improving more

has no problem communicating using broken

accuracy in their English. They view English only

English. He is not particularly interested in overseas

as a tool for communication and are satisfied astravel, and that as long as he is in Japan it is okay tolong as they are understood and stop making further

speak broken English.

efforts for a better command of English. Moreover,Yet another student, male, is a mature student

because English is part of their everyday life andaged 27. He has an extensive experience of work,

they do not see it as something exotic ortraveling and others before starting at the university.

international even to the point that they lose their

He says his best friend is French who speaks decent

motivation and enthusiasm. It is definitely the kindJapanese. Interestingly, they decided that theyof enthusiasm that the older generation Japanese

would use English when they communicate. They

were feeling. It may be considered a development

email each other often, and every now and then they

but at the same time it is a new challenge forengage in conversation using free Skype internet

English teachers in that we now need to identify

telephone system. He is very interested in

how else we can motivate students. Indeed it is abody-piercing, and collects information on thechallenge, but may be a welcome challenge.

internet extensively to keep up-to-date with its
advanced techniques. He said that he wants toReferences

improve his English more, and his model would be

Matsuda, A. (2003). The ownership of Englishes in

American English. Being asked why, he answered

Japanese secondary schools. World Englishes,that it seems to be the norm. This view seems

22, 4,483-496.

realistic and may not be interpreted as an indicationof his inclination for American culture. Asked toPhillipson, R. (1992). The native speaker’s burden?.
ELT Journal, 46,1, 12-18.

develop on his views towards different varieties ofSmith, L. E. (1983). (Ed.). Readings in English as

English, he went on to say that if he decides to go

an international language. Oxford, England:and stay in New Zealand he would like to learn the

Pergamon.

New Zealand variety. He went to New Zealand as a

Stanlaw,

J.

(1987).

JapaneseandEnglish:high school student to participate in a Boy Scouts’

borrowing and contact. World Englishes, 6, 2,

Jamboree assembly.

93-109.

In sum, the students today seem to havedeveloping perceptions about the use of English andmore and more students are no longer victims of theAmerican-British

centric

view.

Among

such

Analysis of Kenyan English Textbooks
Seongchan Kim

Songkonghoe University
sckim@mail.skhu.ac.kr

Abstract
English is learnt throughout the Primary school in Kenya. In Standard one to three (first grade to third grade),
it is taught as a subject, while Swahili is used as the medium of instruction. In standard four to eight it istaught as a subject and used as the medium of instruction in other subjects (Primary Education Syllabus,
2002). From Standard 1 through 3 pupils have five English classes (a class of 30 minutes) a week. Standard 4
through 8 pupils have seven English classes (a class of 35 minutes) a week. Due to lack of electrical devices
and other facilities in Kenyan classes, textbooks play a crucial role in English education. Teachers and pupils
heavily depend on English textbooks for English education. In order to find out facts regarding English
education in Kenya, it is essential to analyze English textbooks.
This study examines Kenyan English textbooks (from S 1 through S 8). In Kenyan English syllabus, theemphasis is on the acquisition of communicative competence and not simply on the passing of examinations.
And this is reflected in Kenyan English textbooks. Lessons are arranged according to various themes rather
than specific grammar points. In this regard, it can be said that Kenyan English textbooks adopt
communicative approach. In terms of the four skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening), all four skills areincluded in English textbooks. However, their proportion is not even. Reading is very much emphasized and,
therefore, occupy pages the most. There are some speaking, listening, and writing tasks, but not many. Since
English is the medium of instruction in Kenyan English classes, these three areas are practised throughvarious classroom activities.
This paper will analyze Kenyan English textbooks in detail. And it will shed some light on Kenyan
English education in general and show some ways to improve it. It will also provide some suggestions forbetter English education in other countries.

Keywords
Textbook, English education, Kenya

A Detailed Analysis of Teacher Feedback to University-level L2 Writing
and Students’ Reception and Preferences
Kahoko Matsumoto1 and Tama Kumamoto2

1

Tokai University, 2Nagoya University of Foreign Studies

mkahoko@za.cyberhome.ne.jp, kumamoto@nufs.ac.jp

Abstract
This study aims to accomplish two purposes; first, adetailed quantitative and qualitative analyses of themethods and manners by which Japanese university
teachers actually give feedback to their students’
writing, and secondly, a questionnaire evaluation
conducted on how various types of feedback indifferent textual aspects are received by students
and what their true needs and preferences are.

Keywords
Teaching English writing, feedback, Japanese
university students

Introduction
In this ICT-driven, globalizing world, English,
especially its writing mode, has become a dominantmedium of communication in all venues,(Warschauer, 2000), thus greater importance has
been placed on English writing education. However,there has not been an established, reliable methodof evaluation of or feedback-giving to students’
writing which benefits students as well as rewards
teachers’ time and effort. In our last study(Matsumoto & Kumamoto, 2006), we looked into
inter-rater variability in an attempt to seek an
evaluation that best fits university students in EFL
situations. In the present study, we have tried toelucidate actual students’ reception or preferencesof different types of feedback based on actual datacollected from eight raters of various backgrounds.

1

Methodology

This is a quantitative and qualitative questionnaire
survey, using actual feedback samples collectedfrom eight writing teachers of various backgrounds
who reviewed three English argumentative essays
written by students. The questionnaire asked
students their preferred type(s) of feedback
retrieved from real feedback samples.
1.1
Subjects
The subjects are 100 students who have taken oneof four writing classes taught at three different
universities in Japan; and eight teachers of English:
two native English speaker teachers (NESs) in
TESOL, two NESs in areas other than TESOL(Non-TESOL), two Japanese teachers (JTs) in
TESOL, and two JTs in non-TESOL areas.
1.2
Research Design
In the first phase of the study, feedback samples
were collected from the eight teachers and thecharacteristics of each group (NES-TESOL,
NES-non-TESOL, JT-TESOL, and JT-non-TESOL)
were analyzed. Looking at these samples, students
were instructed to fill in a questionnaire prepared inJapanese, which asked their preferences in teacher
feedback. The results of the questionnaire wereanalyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively.

2

Results

1. A great variety was found among the ways theteachers gave feedback. Teachers in TESOL tended
to comment on all the five areas (content,
organization, language use, grammar, andmechanics), while non-TESOL teachers did not;they rather commented on areas that they think
were more important than others. Among the NESs,
non-TESOL teachers gave more feedback than
TESOL teachers, while among the JTs, TESOL
teachers gave more feedback than non-TESOL
teachers.
2. The order of students’ most wanted feedback
areas was first, Language Use, followed by Content,
Organization, Grammar, and last, Mechanics. Those
who preferred feedback in Content andOrganization over the other three areas wanted
paragraph-level comments more than summative or
sentence-level ones.
3. The students’ most preferred way of feedback on
Language Use and Grammar was to receive indirectindication or instruction. However, as for Grammar,
the number of students who wanted the direct

correction was the largest over other types of
feedback.
4. Among the three feedback samples that showed
different amounts of feedback, the majority of thestudents preferred the one with more comments
than others. However, when facing the complete
samples with different types of feedback, students’
responses contradicted with their choices in othersections that asked preferences in respective areas.

3

Discussion

The conspicuous difference of this study fromsimilar inquiries is that students chose theirpreferred types of feedback with actual samples infront of them. In the past studies of our own andother researchers, students answered thequestionnaires, envisaging the types of feedback
based on either the description given or on theirpast experience.
1. The preferences exhibited by students in thisstudy differed from our previous study of similar
nature (Kumamoto, et al., 2004), in which most
students valued feedback on Language Use or
Grammar more highly than that on Content andOrganization.
2. However, when facing the complete feedback
samples produced by three teachers, anoverwhelming number of students preferred thesample with the largest amount of feedback with a
lot of direct correction. This turned out to be
self-contradictory; when being asked about thetypes of feedback they wanted, the most preferred
one was indirect instruction rather than direct
correction. This probably shows the tendency of thestudents to rely on or seek help from teachers.
3. It seems that the students themselves are in theprocess of establishing their own learning styles
that fit their individual characteristics. Thus, someresults showed their tendency to be moreautonomous while others rather underscored theirtendency to be dependent on teachers.

4

Implications

It seems that more research is needed to coverdifferent types of teachers as well as students.
Probably there will not be any prescriptive or
canonical way of giving feedback; we have to findthe best ways that fit to the learner characteristics ofdifferent students. Also, in the future, studies on
writing feedback should try to relate the types of
feedback to the actual improvement of students’
writing. In one of our previous studies (Matsumoto,et al., 2003), the students showed greater
improvements through self-revision than justreturning the students’ essays with teacher feedback
and without revision. It is possible that some typesof feedback will readily lead to improvement whileothers can be dispensed by tapping the students’autonomy.
References
Kumamoto, T., Matsumoto, K., Kamimura, T., & Oi,
K. (2004). Beliefs about and expectationsof feedback on EFL writing: A comparisonof the views of students and teachers inJapan. JACET Bulletin, 38, 79-95.
Matsumoto, K. & Kumamoto, T. (2007). A study onrater-related variables in the evaluation of
L2 writing. Proceedings of the 11th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 104-115. (Available asof
10/29/2007athttp://paaljapan.org/resources/proceedings/
PAAL11/pdfs/09.pdf)
Matsumoto, K., Kumamoto, T., Oi, K., &Kamimura, T. (2003). The effect of
rewriting and teacher feedback in theteaching of writing for Japanese students.
Language Education and Technology, 40,
101-120.
Warschauer, M. (2000). The changing global
economy and the future of English teaching.
TESOL Quarterly, 34, 511-535.

Comparing L2 Writers’ Degrees of Preference for Writing and L1
Use by Proficiency
Eun-Mi Yang
General Education Division, Kkottongnae Hyundo University of Social Welfare
emyang@kkot.ac.kr

Abstract
In this study, I explore and compare the English
writing of Korean university students by their L2
writing proficiency. It focuses on the two aspects inthe students' L2 writing by proficiency: therelationship between the students' degree ofpreference for L1 and L2 writing and their L2
writing proficiency; the use of different L1 use
strategy including written and mental translation.
Questionnaires and subsequent interviews wereadministered to 72 students in three different L2
writing proficiency levels. The results revealed thatthe degree of the students' preference for L1 writing
has a strong correlation with the degree of their L2
writing preference. Furthermore, the correlation
between the preference for L1 writing was very
high with their L2 writing proficiency. As for the
students' L1 use behavior, it was found to play amajor role during writing in L2 with showing slightdifferences by L2 writing proficiency. In terms ofthe translation strategies, as the students' writing
ability developed, they employed strategies
differently, from using the written L1-to-L2
translation, to mental L1-to-L2 translation, andfinally to direct L2 construction.

In addition, with reference to L1 use in L2
writing, what differences Korean EFL students
demonstrate in the writing process of L2 writing by
their L2 writing proficiency have not yet been muchstudied. Little attention has been paid to the
behaviors of L1 use in the process of L2 writing bya relatively large number of students in different
proficiency levels. In this context, the second aimof the present study is to add to this literature by
exploring the characteristics of Korean university
students’ L2 writing process focusing on their useof L1. Therefore, it is consequential to carry out aquantitative study to get to more generalized
consensus on describing the nature of L1 use by
Korean EFL writers. The following researchquestions were formulated and they guided thisstudy:
1. Is there a relationship between the students'
degrees of preference for L1 writing and L2
writing? How is the relationship between the
degrees of preference for L1 writing and the
proficiency of L2 writing? And does the students'
self-rating on their writing ability on L1/L2 have arelationship with their actual L2 writing
proficiency?

Keywords
L2 writing process/writing strategies/L1 use in L2
writing/preference for L1 and L2 writing

Introduction
The previous studies on L1 transfer in writing
mostly investigated the transfer effects in the
cognitive domain and found the positive effects ofthe transfer. However, students' attitude toward L1
writing in affective domain has not yet been theinterests of the researchers, and in this context, it
might be meaningful and provocative to include thisissue in the discourse regarding L1 transfer.
Therefore, one of the aims of this study is to see theL1 transfer effect in the affective domain, by
examining the relationship of the degree ofpreference for L1 and L2 writing and the level ofL2 writing proficiency.

2. Does the writing process of the students vary inaccordance with their L2 writing proficiency? How
and when do the students use L1 in their L2 writing
process?
How do they use the translation
strategy?

1

Methods

The 72 Korean university students were divided
into three groups--high proficiency, medium
proficiency, and low proficiency--by theirproficiency levels based on the assessment result of
their writing samples. The writing samples wereread and holistically assessed for their overallproficiency level by the researcher and another
English teacher on a 10-point scale. The scores
were assigned by considering five features--content,
organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics.
After the two instructors finished scoring thesubjects' essays individually, the researcher added
up each subject's two scores from both instructors
and the mean was recorded as a final mark. Theinter-rater reliability was .88. The students' scores
ranged from 3 to a maximum of 9 out of 10 points.
The students who attained a score of 7 points andabove were distributed into a group of higher
proficiency writers (HP), those who attained 5 or 6
points were distributed into a group of medium
proficiency writers (MP), and those who received 3
or 4 points were distributed into a group of low
proficiency writers (LP). The means of the scores ofHP, MP, and LP were 8.2, 5.4, and 3.8 respectively,
and the total mean was 5.6.
All the quantitative items in Part 2 and 3 of thequestionnaire were tallied and summed. As asubsequent investigation, responses on all items
among the HP, MP, and LP writers were separately
tabulated and drew comparisons to explore
similarities and differences. Correlation tests andchi-square tests regarding some items were run
afterwards using SPSS 12.0 to determine thestatistical significance.
Despite some doubts on the validity of this typeof retrospective questionnaire, the questionnairemethod was adopted for its appropriateness in thiskind of study which requires quantitative analysis
for a relatively large number of students.
Furthermore, to make up for the shortcoming of thewritten retrospective accounts, the students wereasked to fill out the questionnaire immediately after
their journal writing, and follow-up interviews with20 students were conducted as well in case thequestionnaire needed a supplementary explanation.

2
2.1

Results and Discussion

Correlations between Writing Preference
and Proficiency
To examine the L1 transfer in affective domain, thestudents were asked to answer the question if they
liked writing in L1. In general, those who enjoy
their writing have a higher chance of being
successful writers acquiring efficient writing
strategies. And the efficient composing strategies in
L1 are supposed to be transferred to the process ofwriting in L2, and there are many studies which
provided the evidence for the transfer effect of L1
strategies (eg., Carson & Kuehn, 1992; Cumming,
1989, 1990; Kang Mi-Jeong, 2007; Lee & Krashen,
2002; Sasaki & Hirose, 1996). According to thoserelated studies, the successful writers in L1 are
expected to have a better chance to become
successful writers in L2 as well. So the result ofcorrelation between the degrees of preference forL1 writing and L2 writing could allow us to predictthe positive strategy transfer of L1 to L2 writing.

Table 1: Degrees of Preference for L1 Writing by L2 Writing
Proficiency"I like writing in Korean."
L2
very
Writing neverhardly so soa little
Total
much
Level
2
14
4
4
1
25
LP
(8.0%) (56.0%) (16.0%) (16.0%) (4.0%) (100%)
2
13
7
5
1
28
MP
(7.1%) (46.4%) (25.0%) (17.9%) (3.6%) (100%)
0
0
5
10
4
19
HP
(0%)
(0%) (26.3%) (52.6%) (21.1%) (100%)
4
27
16
19
6
72
Total
(5.6%) (37.5%) (22.2%) (26.4%) (8.3%) (100%)x²=23.897, degree of freedom=8, p=.002
Table 2: Degrees of Preference for L2 Writing by L2
Writing Proficiency"I like writing in English."L2
veryhardly so soa little
Total
Writing never
much
Level
4
8
7
5
1
25
LP
(16.0%) (32.0%) (28.0%) (20.0%) (4.0%) (100%)
4
13
6
5
0
28
MP
(14.3%) (46.4%) (21.4%) (17.9%) (0%) (100%)
0
3
5
11
0
19
HP
(0%) (15.8%) (26.3%) (57.9%) (0%) (100%)
8
24
18
21
1
72
Total
(11.1%) (33.3%) (25.0%) (29.2%) (1.4%) (100%)x²=15.561, degree of freedom=8, p=.049

Among the HP group students 73.7 percent (14out of 19 students) answered they enjoy writing in
Korean, while just 20 percent out of the LP groupstudents (5 among 25 students) liked writing in
Korean as in Table 1. A similar relation was foundbetween the degrees of L2 writing preference andL2 writing proficiency as in Table 2. However, it
was interesting that the students' L2 writing
proficiency was a little better predicted by theirpreference for L1 writing than preference for L2
writing.
To measure the degrees of the correlation
between the variables, Pearson's correlation
coefficient was used. The students who liked L1
writing mostly answered they liked L2 writing too,and the correlation (r=.665) was high with thesignificance at the .01 level. The degrees of L1 andL2 writing preference of the students were also
correlated with their L2 writing proficiency atthe .01 (r=.486) and .05 level respectively (r=.269).
That is, the high percentage of the students who
expressed their strong preference for L1 writing
enjoyed L2 writing as well (r=.665), but thecorrelation between the degrees of students'
preference for L2 writing and their L2 writing
proficiency was not high (r=.269). In sum, we canreason from this evidence that the students' degreeof preference for L1 writing has a strong correlation
with their L2 writing proficiency and can play animportant role of a predictor of the students' L2
writing proficiency level.

2.2 L1 Use in L2 Writing Process
To explore and compare the overall writing processof the students by proficiency, they were asked torecord the steps they took when they wrote thejournal. On the questionnaire sheet, I gave them anexample of four steps when writing with someexamples in each step: task examining, idea
generation, writing, and checking or revising. They
were also informed that the idea generation step
might include brainstorming, jotting down ideas,
key words writing, outlining, meaning map drawing,
or chart drawing. In addition, they were instructedthat the checking and revising step could include
correcting overall organization, grammar, word
choice, the length of the writing, etc.
Most of the students recorded the similar
writing process which includes task examination,idea generation and organization, text generation,and text revising regardless their proficiency levels.
The students' records showed that they went
through various idea generation or organization
methods before text generation without regard totheir writing proficiency. All of them said they took
the final revising step except for one student in MP
group and two students in LP group. The amount oftime they spent on each step was not asked or
measured in this survey.
The students were also requested to record ifthey used Korean and/or English in each step of
their writing process. Most of the students in the HP
group stated they used L1 and L2 together and went
through frequent code switching in the beginningstages, such as task examining and idea generation(brainstorming, key words or expressions writing,or outlining), while the students in the MP and LP
group showed very limited reliance on L2 in the
beginning stages as seen in Table 3.
Table 3: The Use of L1 and L2 in Idea Generation Step
In idea generation
step"I used Korean"*"I used English"**LP(n=18)
18(100%)
0 (0%)

MPHP
Total (n=60)(n=23) (n=19)23
17
58 (96.7%)(100%) (89.5%)
812
20 (33.3%)(34.8%) (63.2%)*.x²=4.465, p=.107,**. x²=16.487, p=.000

As for the L1 use in the idea generation step, allof the students in MP and LP group and 17 out of
19 HP group students (89.5%) answered they used
Korean as in Table 3. On the other hand, as for theuse of L2 in the idea generation step, 12 out of 19
HP group students (63.2%) stated they used English,
8 out of 23 MP group students (34.8%) answered
they sometimes used English, too, while no one outof 18 LP group students (0%) said they used
English. So, the students' L1 and L2 use behaviors
during the idea generation stage can be summarizedthat as the students' proficiency level goes up, theratio of the students who used L1 shows a veryslight decrease, while those who used L2 shows astatistically significant increase.
Moving on to the text generation step, thedifference among three different proficiency groups
was obvious with the behaviors of Korean writing
first before English writing. Although most of the
HP group students used L1 in their idea generation
steps (17 out of 19 students), it is interesting to findthat most of them did not enjoy a written translation
strategy when they had to write an English text.
Table 4: L1 Writing First before L2 Writing in Text Generation
Step
In text generation
step"I wrote in L1 first"

LP
HP
Total
MP (n=23)(n=18)(n=19) (n=60)
17
21
4
42
(94.4%) (91.3%) (21.1%) (66.7%)x²=31.769, p=.000

Only 4 out of 19 HP group students answered they
had generated the English text after they wrote it inKorean first in the text generation step as in Table 4.
And one student said that he used a translation
strategy when he had to write rather complicatedsentences only, with writing them in Korean first.
In case of the 2 students in the HP group, theyanswered that they generated an English text byswitching some of the sentences which at firstoccurred in their mind in Korean into English. Thatis, they thought sentences in Korean a lot andfrequently switched them while writing in English.
Although these students did not go through a step ofwriting a Korean text before their English text
generation, it is speculated that they used atranslation strategy in order to conceptualize theirideas in L2 in their mind as a problem-solving
strategy just as the students had done in
Myung-Hye Huh's (2001, 2002) studies. The
students stated in the interview that it was easier forthem to conceptualize, express and develop theirideas in L1.
On the contrary to the HP group students (just 4
out of 19 HP group students (16.7%) wrote in
Korean first), most of the MP and LP groupstudents used a written translation strategy when
they had to write an English text: 21 out of 23 MP
group students (91.3%) and 17 out of 18 LP groupstudents (94.4%) answered they had written in
Korean first before they wrote an English text.
Interestingly, some of the students in the MP and
LP group answered that they wrote a text in Korean
first and then rewrote it into easy Korean sentencesin order to be able to translate them easily into
English. They explained about this behavior in theinterview that they wanted to translate all the text
they generated in Korean into English, but theirdeficiency of the English ability led them to use thisstrategy. They also stated that it was difficult or
impossible to write their thoughts in L2 directly
which had occurred in their mind in L1. In order tokeep the conceptualized ideas until they finish their
L2 composition, it was necessary for them to write
a Korean text first which is the product of their idea
conceptualization. It can be said that they employed
the L1 writing and rewriting strategies ascompensatory strategies mainly to solve out the
problems from their limited L2 linguistic resources.
The result indicated that the linguistic gap between
the students' cognitive level and their L2
proficiency level for conceptualizing their ideas inL2 led them to write through L1-to-L2 translation
strategy.

3Conclusion and Implication

The present study examined the relationshipbetween the degree of students' preference for
writing and students' L2 writing proficiency. It was
found that the correlation between the degrees ofpreference for L1 writing and L2 writing was strong.
Moreover, the higher the degree of preference forL1 writing, the more proficient writing ability thestudents demonstrated.
The current study also investigated thedifferences of L1 use behaviors in L2 writing of thestudents in three different L2 proficiency levels.
The findings of this study indicate that the students
in the lower level tended to more often rely on their
L1. In the beginning steps of their writing process,such as task examination and idea organization, L1
was used by most students of the three different
proficiency levels. The result verifies the findingsof the previous researches on L1 use by L2
proficiency as shown in Wang and Wen (2002) andin Yeon Hee Choi and Jieun Lee (2006). The
students' heavy reliance on the L1-to-L2 translation
strategy was apparent among lower proficiency
groups: Over 90% of the MP and LP group students
employed the written translation strategy, whichshows large disparity from the HP group students,
only 21.5% of whom used the same writtentranslation strategy. The results, therefore, suggestthat as the students' L2 composition ability develops,
their L2 writing behavior evolves from written
L1-to-L2 translation pattern to mental L1-to-L2
translation pattern and finally to direct L2
construction pattern.
The findings of this study imply that the effort
to make the writing practice an enjoyable one isimportant both in L1 and L2. Such an affective
domain should not be neglected, since it could
directly affect the development of writing skills. In
addition, the result of this study suggests that L2
writing of EFL students can be benefited from their
L1 writing strategies. That is, students' ability to use

world knowledge, reasoning skills, organization
skills, etc. which were acquired from L1 writing
practice could be applied to L2 writing process.
Moreover, a practical implication can be drawn
from this study that L2 writing instructors do notneed to inhibit the students' use of L1, especially for
those who have limited L2 linguistic knowledge.
The L1-to-L2 translation strategy should beunderstood as a compensatory and problem-solving
strategy for those in a lower L2 proficiency level.
And efforts should be provided to develop the
methods to help the students use this strategy more
efficiently.
References
Cohen, A. D. & Brooks-Carson, A. (2001).
Research on direct versus translated writing:Students' strategies and their results. The
Modern Language Journal, 85, 169-188.
Cumming, A. (1989). Writing expertise andsecond-language proficiency. Language
Learning, 39, 81-141.
Cumming, A. (1990). Metalinguistic and ideational
thinking in second language composing.
Written Communication, 7, 482-511.
Friendlander, A. (1990). Composing in English:
Effects of a first language on writing in
English as a second language. In B. Kroll(Ed.), Second language writing: Research
insights for the classroom (pp. 109-125).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lim, Jeongwan. (2006). Korean EFL writers'
composing process: An exploratory study ofcollege students. English Language &Literature Teaching, 12(2), 127-152.
Kang, Mi-Jeong. (2007). Effects of first language
on second language writing. STEM Journal,8(1), 95-118.
Kobayashi, H., & Rinneert, C. (1992). Effects offirst language on second language writing:Translantion versus direct composition.
Language Learning, 42, 183-215.
Lee, S. Y., & Krashen, S. (2003). Writer's block ina Chinese sample. Perceptual & Motor
Skills, 97, 537-542.
Sasaki, M., & Hirose, K. (1996). Explanatory
variables for EFL students' expository
writing. Language Learning, 46(1),137-174.
Wang, W., & Wen, Q. (2002). L1 use in the L2composing process: An exploratory study of
16 Chinese EFL writers. Journal of Second
Language Writing, 11, 225-246.
Choi, Yeon Hee & Lee, Jieun. (2006). L1 use in L2
writing process of Korean EFL students.
English Teaching, 61(1), 205-225.

An Analysis of Recreational Email Messages
Chan Ai Nyet and Rajeswary A. Sargunan

Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya
janecan99@yahoo.com, rajesapp@um.edu.my

Abstract
This study focuses on one form ofComputer-mediated Communication (CMC) that is,email. As email is a silent mode of communication,a wide range of communicative strategies (CSs) is
employed by email users. Therefore, this study
explores the various types of CSs employed bymale and female teenagers when communicatingwith their friends inthewebsite –www.friendster.com. The reasons for employing thevarious CSs and influence of gender on the use of
CSs will also be discussed.
A total of 123 email messages form the corpus
for this study were contributed by 12 teenage
students. Two instruments (interview questions andquestionnaire) were developed for the collection of
information and data. A modified taxonomy of CSs
was drawn based on Segerstad’s study on CMC
language. A mixed methodology design thatcombines both quantitative and qualitative
approaches is used in study. Simple frequency counton the occurrence of CSs employed by both maleand female samples was used to analyse the data. A
pilot test was conducted on 2 samples (1 male and 1
female) to test the feasibility of the researchquestions, research methods and the taxonomy.
Then, a detailed discussion on the salient CSs,
reasons for employing the various CSs andinfluence of gender on the used of CSs is presented.

Keywords
E-mail, Communicative Strategies

Introduction
Computer-mediated Communication (CMC) has
become a popular medium for communication withthe emergence of the Internet and development incomputer science. Email, which is one of the waysof CMC, has a new fascinating hybrid of language.
“Netspeak” (Crystal’s term) is neither spoken nor
written language which means it adapts certain
features of speech as well as writing toaccommodate the new medium. Besides, otherfeatures that are neither speech- nor writing-like,
non-standardised, playful, highly deviant from thelanguage rules, tolerant of typographic and spelling
errors, and ‘new words’, are typical in e-mail(Crystal, 2001). Email users have to adapt theirlanguage creatively to suit this silent mode ofcommunication. Therefore, CSs are employed
consciously or intentionally in the course ofcommunication to convey ideas as effective as
possible. It is thus the aim of this study to identify
the CSs used to compose emails by male andfemale teenagers, explain the reasons for using
certain CSs and examine the influence of gender on
the use of CSs.
This paper is divided into the following
sections: a discussion on CSs and taxonomy ofCSs for e-mail messages and gender andcommunication
strategies;
theresearchmethodology employed in this study; and a
description and analysis of the use of CSs andreasons for the employment of various CSs.

1

CSs And A Taxonomy Of CSs For
E-Mail Messages

When emailers experience discrepancy between
their communicative intentions and their limited
communicative resources, they resort toproblem-solving devices known as communication
strategies (CSs) or known as strategic competence.
CSs are conscious or unconscious processes whichpeople make use of in using a language. They are
considered important tools for communicators inboth FTF and CMC as these strategies can help
them get their intended messages across.
As e-mail has few established norms ofinteraction and there is no specific guide on thecommon standards or expectations for email users
when they join the online culture, therefore,
emailers create their styles and language based on
their knowledge and experience of related or
pre-existing genres (Mulholland,1999). This “third
medium” of online language variety is in its
evolving process of having its own systematic rules
to suit the new circumstances (Crystal, 2001).
In her study on CMC language, Segerstad(2002) has developed a taxonomy of linguisticfeatures which have been found to be characteristic

of emails. Based on her taxonomy, a modified
taxonomy has been reproduced to suit my study on
CSs employed by teenagers when composing
e-mails. The 5 categories in my modified taxonomy
include:1. Orthography
2. Vocabulary
3. Paralinguistics and Graphics
4. Syntactic Features
5. Discourse and Text

2

GenderStrategies

Communication

andGender differences in speech is an expectation
imposed on the society that is, we either behave as aman or woman in accepted forms in communication.
Lakoff (1973) reveals that men and women do not
speak different languages. Generally, there are somecharacteristics of both sexes in FTF communication.
Men speak in a faster, higher, rougher and direct
tone without much hesitation. Whilst, women speakby using tag questions, qualifiers and fillers so as tosoften their speech and thus, they avoid direct roughand threatening language. Women also tend to
speak more slowly and clearly.
One feature of women’s conversational pattern
studied by Hirschmann (1973) and Coates (1986a)
is minimal responses (cited in Holmes (1986).
Hirschmann found that women have a greater
tendency of using minimal responses such as“mm-hmm” and “uh-huh” in conversations thanmen do and attributed this to women’s
supportiveness in interactions. Beside that,
Hirschmann also discovered greater female use of
the “fillers” (e.g. uhm, well, you know),“qualifiers” (eg. maybe, sort of, I think) and the“affirmative” responses (eg. yeah) as markers of
supportiveness as well. These features are also usedby men but they appear less in their conversation.
A noticeable difference in the language used in
CMC shows that “men and women haverecognizably different styles in posting to theInternet” and that “women and men have different
communicative ethics” Herring (1994). She also
proposes that such differences are the result of thedifferences of culturisation and integration into
society.
As there have been contrasting styles andfeatures in both FTF and online communication
between the two sexes as well as the paucity ofwork done in the area of gender influence on CSs
used in communication, it is hoped that the present
study will reveal the influence of gender on the useof CSs especially in email context.

3

Research Method

This study examines a corpus of 123 e-mailmessages sent by 12 teenagers to their friends in thewebsite, www.friendster.com for recreational
purposes.
Two sets of instruments were used in this study.
Interviews 1 and 2 were aimed to garner personal
information and seek clarifications on the content
email messages as well as the reasons for using thedifferent
communicative
strategies.
The
questionnaire was employed to elicit samples’
views on the use of various communicative
strategies.
The data was manually tabulated by using
frequency count based on the linguistic features of
email listed in the modified taxonomy.

4

Data Analysis

The analysis is generally divided into 3 parts:
 frequency distribution of the various typesof CSs used
 reasons for employing the various CSs,and
 frequency of occurrence of each strategy
type for each gender.
References
Crystal, D. (2001) Language and the Internet,
Cambridge: CUP
Segerstad, Y.H. (2002) Use and Adaptation of
Written Language to the Conditions ofComputer-MediatedCommunication,
Doctoral Dissertation for the degree ofDoctor of Philosophy, Department ofLinguistics, Göteborg University, Sweden.
Angell, D. & Heslop B (1994) The Elements Of
Emails, New York: Addison-Wesley.

Enhancing EFL Vocabulary Learning via Web-based Concordancing
SystemKuo, Fang-rong
Language Center, National United University
gklwj111@gmail.com
combining systematic attention to the acquisition of

Abstract
\With

the

developmentin

both grammar and vocabulary is considered much

(CALL),

more effective. This fuller appreciation of thestudents who are learning English as a foreignimportance of vocabulary teaching gives rise to alanguage (EFL) are allowed to control the pace andnumber of questions concerning the way in which it

the sequencing of instructional events and theirshould be selected and presented for learning.

components. The integration of technology into

Clearly, activities need to offer learners something

curricula has changed the teaching methodology

more to study than mere words and definitions.

drastically as well as students’ learning styles. The

Using a concordance program for finding the word inauthors adapted a web-based concordancing system

question, learners may be instructed to search in

to examine whether students can improve theirlarge electronic databases of authentic L2 texts forknowledge of the confusing English expressions by

examples of the words just learned which best

searching and observing the examples in various

illustrate their meaning and usage. An exercise suchcontexts from the corpus. Data were collected in theas this refreshes the learner's awareness of the word,form of pre- and post- test of vocabulary items

its meaning and how it is used. It is a useful exercise

selected in the study and through questionnaires

which also enables the teacher to assess whether the

regarding their perceptions of the system. In general,

learner has retained the words in question. Also,

they responded a positive feedback in using it as arepeated exposure to the recently learned words intool in EFL learning if they can get assistance fromshort texts, in combination with words thatthe teacher.

frequently co-occur with them in authentic L2

computer-assisted

languageoftechnology

learning

material will stimulate further consolidation. The

Keywords

advantage for exposure to rich linguistic input at the

EFL, concordancer, vocabulary learninglearning stage was demonstrated in Cobb's (1999)
study of computerized activities for vocabulary
learning

Introduction
The language teaching profession has come toinparticipants

twoformats,

one

that

involvedinexamining

multiplesentence

realize that in foreign language teaching, aexamples of a target word in use (a concordance),

grammar-oriented approach is not, to understate theand another that offered a definition accompanied bycase,achievea single sentence example. The study showed that

communicative competence. An integrated approachlearners were more able to transfer newly acquired

the

most

efficientwaytoknowledge of a word to a novel context if it had beenstudied in the concordance condition. Rich andvaried input is also crucial in providing opportunities

1.2

Instrument and Procedure
An online concordancer was adopted tofor the "expanded rehearsal" mentioned by Sökmen

examinewhether students

can improvetheir(1997). Rehearsal is recognized as a key factor in

knowledge of the confusing English expressions by

explicit vocabulary learning (Ellis, 1994; Hulstijn,

searching and observing the examples in various2001), and computerized exercises clearly serve

contexts. The resources included concordance,varying individual rehearsal needs well since learners

dictionary, cloze-builder, hypertext, and a databasecan work on activities independently without taking

with interactive self-quizzing feature (all freely

up valuable class time.

available at www.lextutor.ca). The present study

Much of the literature on the use of corpora
in language teaching relates to courses foradvanced and highly motivated students (e.g.,

adopted mainly the concordancer as a learning tool
for students to use. Prior to the learning session, a
pre-testwasadministered

to check students’

Johns, 1991a, 1991b; Levy, 1992; Stevens,
1991). So, when contemplating the introductionof work with corpora into the lower level EFL

knowledge about the words investigated in the study

learners, teachers should be aware of the need to
tailor the experience to quite a different target
group, for whom English is usually a subject tostruggle with rather than a foreign language tothey did not know of such searching engines before

learn and whose intentions for its use are lessambitious.

interest from a list which did not include the words

In this paper, we investigated how low level

how to use all the functions of the tool. The process

students could benefit from such searching engine

familiarized students with a variety of research-based

and whether new word knowledge was acquired instrategies for learning and retaining new vocabulary.

the experimental course, especially focusing on their

They did this both by skimming sequentially and byerrors on verb collocation patterns and prepositions.

searching on words they thought might be present.

in the first week. Then the online concordancer was
introduced to the students, all of them reporting that
this class. After the introduction and guidance infamiliarizing with the above online concordancer,
students were asked to choose any two words oftested in present study to confirm that they all knew

Two exercises regarding the confusing English usage

Methodology
Subjects

were then designed and students were asked to

One hundred and ten Taiwanese technicalHowever, for students with very low English

college students whose first language was Mandarin

proficiency, neither in problem-solving nor in

Chinese participated in this study. They had beentreasure-hunting work did we seek to engage them inlearning English as a foreign language for three years

free exploration without a predetermined aim. On thein junior high school and three years in vocational

contrary, there were always defined goals in thehigh school. According to the education system indesigned exercises for them to achieve: to find out

Taiwan, vocational high schools emphasize a lot on

how to phrase something specific in a given text.

professional skills with much more time allocated toSome tips were even provided to confine the number

the skills training. On the contrary, English as aof examples so students did not feel frustrated insubject receives relatively little attention and thedealing with the numerous sentences and be more

students’ proficiency is considered to be very low.

confidential to solve the problem and figure out the1.
1.1

complete the tasks on the second and third week.

answers with the data observed. On the fourth week,survey with a questionnaire and class discussion was

the post-test parallel to the pre-test was administered

held. Responses to the questions were scaled at theand a post survey with a questionnaire and classfollowing levels: strongly disagree (1 point), disagree,

discussion was held thereafter.

neutral, agree, and strongly agree (5 point). Table 2
shows the results of the questionnaire.

2.

Table 2. Students’ Perception toward Using theResults and Discussion
Our aim was to provide these students with an

Online Concordancer

online concordancer to use primarily as a reference

QuestionsMeansresource in EFL learning, particularly on vocabulary

1. Concordancer can help me distinguish

3.86

aspect. The scores from the above two tests wereverbs such as make/do, say/tell.

collected as data for statistical analyses, carried out

2. Concordancer can help me distinguishwith the SPSS X statistical software package. T-test

similar words such as after/behind.

was conducted to capture the differences of the

3. Concordancer can help me improve myscores between the pre-test and post-test. Table 1

vocabulary knowledge.

shows the results of the statistical analyses, in which

4. Concordancer can be a useful tool insignificant difference was found in t-test, i.e. students

English learning.

improved their vocabulary knowledge after the

5. Using the concordancer with teacher’s

learning session via the utilization of concordancer

assistance is an effective learning method.

searching and observation. We found that the6. Working with computer makes mystudents made many successful investigations,learning process more active.

3.65
3.55
3.95
3.92
3.71

demonstrating a certain ability to work by analogy.
In other words, such data-driven corpus research

In general, students responded to the questions

device proved to be an effective learning tool evenpositively, regarding the conconrdancer as a usefulfor low level EFL learners.

resource in terms of language learning. Nevertheless,

Table 1. T test of the means between pre-test andmost of them reported all at loss with so much data

post-test

all in English at the first sight. Only after the

Pre-test (N=110) Post-test
14.84 (3.02)(

T test18.04 (2.65) -11.184

p-valueguidance and instruction from the teacher did they*.000

feel more confident in focusing on specific): standard deviation

information and figuring out the answers from the

From our observation, we recognized thatabundant examples. In conclusion, they reflected aduring corpus investigations by language learners,

positive feedback in using it as a tool in EFL learning

there was considerable room for error due to lack ofif they can get assistance from the teacher. Therefore,knowledge of the target language. However, we were

for low level learners the online concordancer can beconvinced

a more effective tool with the counseling from the

that

the

students

could

developappropriate research habits such as incorporatingteacher.

observation and techniques in corpus searching aswell as logical reasoning in the process ofproblem-solving.

3.

Conclusion

To investigate the students’ perception andIn sum, the results of our experimentation so far

attitudes toward the effectiveness of using the online

are positive and augur well for the further

concordancer in learning English vocabulary, a postdevelopment of on-line activities that offer rich inputand encourage deeper processing. We can point to alearning of languages (pp. 211-282). London:

number of findings:

Harcourt & Brace.

First, the experimental course has proved its

Hulstijn, J. H. (2001). Intentional and incidental

feasibility. The computer-based materials weresecondusable and able to handle the volume of vocabulary

reappraisal

processing that researchers have long argued was

automaticity. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Cognition

possible, but which we believe is only practical in aand second language instruction (pp. 258-286).

networked context where students share their words

Cambridge, England: Cambridge U. Press.

and not every instance of processing or rehearsal

Johns, T. (1991a). Should you be persuaded: Twomust pass through a teacher.

samples

Furthermore, the learners showed good interest

languageofofvocabulary
elaboration,

data-driven

learning:
rehearsal

learningaandmaterials.

English Language Research Journal, 4, 1-16.

in deeper processing of new words on at least someJohns, T. (1991b). From printout to handout:

occasions. Deeper learning is encouraged byGrammar and vocabulary teaching in the context

providing them with opportunities to meet words inof data-driven learning. English Language

novel contexts through the concordance.

Research Journal, 4, 27-45.

In addition, we took up Sökmen's challenge to

Levy, M. (1992). Integrating computer-assisted

consider the "world of the Internet as a source for

language learning into a writing course. CAELL

meaningful vocabulary activities" (p. 257). The

Journal, 3(1), 17-27.

Internet is more than a source; it is also a medium
through which to learn.

Sökmen, A. J. (1997). Current trends in teaching
second language vocabulary. In N. Schmitt & M.

To wrap up, one corpus-based approach to

McCarthy,(Eds.), Vocabulary:on-line vocabulary acquisition has shown itself

acquisition

andviable. And yet, we feel there is at least as much

Cambridge, England: Cambridge U. Press.

work in front of us as behind us. Sökmen has set

Stevens, V. (1991). Classroom concordancing:ambitious goals for research and activity design; it

Vocabulary materials derived from relevant,will take a great deal of energy and dedication toauthentic text. English for Special Purposes

meet them. We expect that an apprenticeship

Journal, 10, 35-46.

oriented

towardthedevelopmentof"corpusresearch" skills will not only help students make themost of corpora but will also benefit other areas of
their language learning as well, enhancing theircapabilities with other reference tools in particular.

References
Cobb, T. (1999). Breadth and depth of vocabularyacquisition

withhands-onconcordancing.

Computer Assisted Language Learning, 12(4),345-360.
Ellis, N. (1994). Vocabulary acquisition: The
implicit ins and outs of explicit cognitive
mediation. In N. Ellis (Ed.), Implicit and explicit

pedagogy(pp.

Description,
237-257).

Possibilities and Effectiveness of Collaborative Language Learning
in a Multicultural Distance Class over Broadband Networks
Yuri Nishihori

Information Initiative Center, Hokkaido University
yuri@iic.hokudai.ac.jp

Abstract
The main objectives of this project are to
implement high-quality, high-fidelity environments
over long-distance broadband networks, and to help
students of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) in
Asia to have better chances for mutual
understanding using a common language. Results
were gathered by the analysis of a questionnaire
given to the participants who attended thismultilateral, synchronous class.

Keywords
CALL, collaborative learning, TEFL, videoconferencing

Introduction
The network technology has enabled us to realize
multi-point connections on the Internet using
videoconferencing systems that are blended withclassroom activities in a TEFL situation. Assessing
the effectiveness of CSCL (Computer Support for
Collaborative Learning), however, has not beensurveyed enough to facilitate multicultural language
learning. Our project investigates how amulticultural distance class can be facilitatedbetween China, Korea, Thailand and Japan via ahigh-quality video conferencing system andinteractive communication tools.

12004 & 2006) and to integrate technologies andlearning flow into classroom activities (Barr, 2004),(Roblyer, 2005).

2

Project Description

2.1
Distance Class Overview
This project was implemented in an English writingclass at Hokkaido University in Japan from 2000 to2007 with an emphasis on computer-mediatedcommunication. About 25 participants, who weremainly freshmen at the Faculty of Engineering,
took part in the experimental class from 13: 30 to
14: 30 on the Tuesdays of each year. In the case of athree-point connection, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University (12: 30 to 13: 30) and Ewha Women’s
University (13: 30 to 14: 30) participated in theexperiment as shown in Fig. 1. The class was
conducted with students from Thammasart
University in Thailand in addition to the students
from China and Korea for the four-point connection
in 2006.
Hokkaido
University
Japan
Ewha
Women’s
University

Literature Review

The development of IP networks made it possible
for us to send all phases of voice, images and text
data, simultaneously and inexpensively, facilitating
language classes in a global setting (Simonson et al.,2005). Much data has been accumulated between
educational institutions in two countries, and anumber of studies have been conducted in this area
(Warschauer & Kern, 2000; Fernandez et al., 2001;
Kishida et al., 2003; Yamada et al., 2006). For
multilateral institutions, however, it is still achallenge to develop educational software on theInternet. It is also important to accumulate data inorder to evaluate what kind of benefits this network
enlargement can give to students (Nishihori et al.,Kor eaShanghai
Jiaotong
University
Chi naThammasart
University
Thai l andFigure 1: Network Configuration

Three universities were connected using an Internet
connection between Korea and China, and between
Japan and China, in addition to the high-speed
network for academic research between JGN2 in
Japan and KOREN in Korea.
2.2
System Configuration
One of the most important features of a videoconferencing system for distance learning is the
fidelity of its reproduced images and sound, whichis instrumental in creating a high-fidelity
environment. This made our experimental goals
three-fold as listed below:
a. to enable life-sized communicationb. to use a wide field angle for the shooting camera
without the use of panningc. to construct high-quality video-conferencing overthe IP transmission system using consumer
camcorders, consumer PCs, and software

3.2

Questionnaire 2 (Students’ Reaction in
the Multicultural Class)
For the detailed analysis to be able to capture thetendencies in the students’ reactions, specifically forthis multicultural class, PCA (principal component
analysis) (Jolliffe, 2002) was employed in our study
in order to obtain this multi-dimensional data. In
order to grasp the correlations within a multilateralcontext, a number of correlated variables weretransformed into a small number of uncorrelated
variables.
3.3

Questionnaire 3 (Differences from
Two-country to Three-country Projects)
Regarding the data for measuring the difference
between 2-country and 3-country projects, ananonymous questionnaire was distributed to theJapanese students who participated in both classes.
They awarded a numerical score from five (verymuch) to one (not at all) on the five-point Likert
scale from questions Q1 to Q6.

Along with the main face-to-face activity, twoother activities were organized for this class:Chat’n’Debate, which is a chat discussion, and(Multi-)Culture Box, which is an on-the-spot
questionnaire with voting and comments. The text
data of both activities which was displayed on thelarge screen in front of the class played ameaningful role, serving as a medium to channel
the collected opinions and feelings of other classes.
The participants were not just exchanging theiropinions, but were connected interactively and thiswas instrumental in fostering a sense of belonging
among them.

3

Research Methodology

This paper discusses different pedagogical effects
concerning learners’ awareness as to the usefulnessof this type of distance class, as well as
multicultural understanding.
3.1
Questionnaire 1 (Usefulness in Five
Perspectives)
We measured the students’ perceived usefulness of
this type of multilateral distance class from five
perspectives; whether this class was (1) enjoyable,(2) informative, (3) better than ordinary language
classes, (4) preferable in terms of its activities and(5) successful in meeting students’ expectations.
After the experimental class, an anonymousquestionnaire in English was distributed to each setof students. They awarded a numerical score fromfive (strongly agree) to one (strongly disagree) on
the five-point Likert scale.

Q1: Were you aware of being watched (orlistened to) by the other class(es)? Q2: Did you
learn anything? Q3: Did you make efforts towatch the other class(es)? Q4: Did you makeefforts to listen to others? Q5: Did you makeefforts to actively participate? Q6: Did you
make efforts to watch either of the otherclasses equally? Q7: How many countries doyou think should participate? (1. two 2. three
3. four 4. more than five) Q8: Which format
do you prefer? (1. chat only 2. only screen
images 3. both of them 4. neither of them)
There were 22 valid answers received in thethree-point connection and 23 in the two-pointconnection.

4

Research Findings

From questionnaire 1, the most important finding isthat there was a high degree of unanimity among
participants: they were very positive in actively
involving themselves in the real-time exchange of
opinions.
5.00

4.82
4.55
4.25

4.50
4.004.09

4.73
4.504.55

4.82
4.134.18

4.00

4.364.18
3.42

HokudaiShanghai
Seoul

3.00
2.00
1.00
0.00
1.The class was
fun!

2.The class was
informative.

3.I learned
4.A language class 5.Overall, did thesomething that I should include this class meet yourexpectations?
would not have in a kind of activity
regular classroom.
more often.

Figure 2: Questionnaire Results

From questionnaire 2, we obtained the following
data by applying the PCA analysis using a plot of
the new data points.
-1

0

1

JPN
Jap

1

KorKOR
ea
q2

q4
q3

0

0.0

q1

-2

-0.6

-0.4

q5

-1

-0.2

PC2

0.2

0.4

-2

CHN
Ch
in
-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0.0

0.2

0.4

PC1

Figure 3: PCA Analysis
According to the above plot and labels of each PC,
we can conclude that Japanese students found themultilateral class informative, but not so enjoyable;
Chinese students found it not so enjoyable, but
meeting their expectations; Korean students foundit enjoyable on the whole. In this way, we can grasp
an overall picture of the reactions in each country,
and these occur simultaneously in a multilateralclass. It is quite essential to capture the transientdifferences in the attitude of students among
multilateral classes.
From the data used to measure the differences
between two-country and three-country projects, anumber of important results were obtained. Figure 4
indicates that there is a significant difference in theefforts made to actively participate in the case of
the three-country connection when we compare it to
the two-country connection. (t=2.453; df=43;
p<0.05) This data indicates that the three-country
connection has a more positive impact in thefollowing areas: (a) awareness of being watched (orlistened to) by other class(es), (b) efforts to watch
other class(es), and (c) efforts to participate
actively.

It is important to foster student participation in theclass, considering the class’s purpose ofcross-cultural communication. More important iswhat students actually learn from this environment.
There is no significant difference between the two
types of connections. However, we can see a
difference between the two groups of students in thethree-point connection. This will be explained bycomparing the attitude of the two groups of students
to the class; namely, those who answered that theylearned much and those who answered that theylearned less based on Question 2. (a) was the
positive (high) evaluation group: PE group, and (b)was the negative (low) evaluation group: NE group
Figure 5 shows that the PE group participated in theclass more actively than the NE group. In particular,
there is a valid significance concerning Question 1.
(t=2.441; df=18; p<0.05)
5
m
e
4
a
n
s
c
o
r
e

3

PE group2

NE group

1
Q1

Q3

Q4

Q5

quest ion

Figure 5: Comparison of Evaluation by the
Difference of Awareness to Learning
Figure 5 shows that there are many students in the
NE group who chose the answer “chat only”,
whereas in the PE group many students chose theanswer both “chat and visual images”. Most of thestudents backed their answers up with the reason: a.
“It gives us information” in the sub-question of Q8.
chat
NE groupvisual images
both of them
PE group
not decided
0%

5
m
e
a 4
n
s
c
o
r
e

50%

100%

Figure 6 : Visual Images vs. Chat3
2 countries

2

3 countries

1
Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q5

quest ionsFigure 4: Comparison of the Mean Score from Q1-Q5

From the above analysis, the characteristics of theNE group are shown as follows: (a) less motivation
to meet classes in more countries than at present,(b) less awareness of the difference between
two-point and three-point connections, and (c) lessawareness of other countries by watching visual
images.

Examining the students’ reaction to thecollaborative space, Multi-Culture box, theJapanese students, faced with the question: “Whatwere you most interested in during the class offour-country project”, answered as follows.
Table 1 Interesting Items
im a gech a tvot in g
ot h ern o a n swert ot a l

39%㧔9 per son s㧕
0%㧔0 per son 㧕
57%㧔13 per son s㧕
0%㧔0 per son 㧕4%㧔1 per son 㧕100%㧔23 per son s㧕Scr een View

Cu lt u r e Box(colla bor a t ion )There were 57% students who chose Multi-Culture
Box. These students illustrated the reasons in moredetail than other students with much consideration
to their partners in other countries. This indicatesthat interactive devices such as this Multi-Culture
Box create a collaborative classroom, which fosters
a sense of belonging, albeit within a virtual settings.

5

Conclusions and Further Considerations

We described the experimental class and discussed
how the use of a high-quality video-conferencing
system, a chat system, and a web-based voting
system promoted the establishment of effective
multilateral environments. Our study has also
shown that the three-country connection motivatedstudents
toparticipateincross-culturalcommunication more so than with the two-country
connection. According to our survey, the classroom
setting in the multi-point connection will have apositive impact in cross-cultural communication on
those who are highly aware of learning.
It is certain that the utilization of videoconferencing using multi-point connections is ofgreat importance to create global classes on theInternet. The above discussion leads us to theconclusion that interactive online collaborative
activities impacted students’ understanding of themeaningfulness of multicultural language learning.
The results of our study will advance current
knowledge and elicit protocols required to support
effective multicultural language learning whenworking as legitimate, peripheral participants (Lave& Wenger, 1991) in a global setting. We plan tofurther develop a system that supports multicultural
language learning in global network environments.
Further investigation and evaluation will benecessary in order to develop multi-pointconnections with a much more detailed survey tolearners’ awareness corresponding to more
expanded network environments.

Acknowledgements
This study is supported by Grant-in-Aid for
Scientific Research (B) No. 17300275 from Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).
References
Barr, D. (2004). ICT-Integrating Computers in
Teaching: Creating a Computer-based
Language Learning Environment. Peter Lang
Publishing.
Fernandez, D., Garcia, A. B., Larrabeiti, D.,Azcorra, A., Pacyna, P., & Papir, Z. (2001).
Multimedia Services for Distant Work andEducation in an IP/ATM Environment. IEEE
Multimedia, 8(3), 68-77.
Jolliffe, I.T. (2002) Principal Component Analysis,
Springer-Verlag
Kishida, T., Maeda, K., & Kohno, E.
(2003).Realization of Active Collaboration in
Distance-Learning on the Internet. Informationand Systems in Education, 2, 77-84.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning:
legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Nishihori, Y., Nagaoka, K., Nishinaga, N., Tanaka,
K., Yamamoto, Y., Sato, H., Harada, M.,
Shen, R., Feng, J., & Kang, M.J.(2006).
Enabling a Multilateral Distance Class between
China, Korea and Japan: Effective Utilizationof Networking Technologies, (eds.) Mizuguchi,R., Dillenbourg, P., & Zhu, Z., Learning by
Effective
UtilizationofTechnologies:
Facilitating
Intercultural
Understanding,383-386. IOS Press.
Nishihori, Y., Nishinaga, N., Nagaoka, K., Tanaka,
K., Okabe, S., &Yamamoto, Y. (2004).
Enabling Cross-Cultural Learning Communities- Collaborative Networking Technologies andtheir Pedagogical Implications -, The Journal of
Information and Systems in Education, Vol.3,
No.1, 2004, 57-66.
Roblyer, M.D. (2005). Integrating Educational
Technology into Teaching.
Prentice Hall,
fourth edition.
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S.E., Albright, M.J. ,& Zvacek, S. (2005). Teaching and Learning
at a Distance: Foundations of Distance
Education. Prentice Hall; third edition.
Warschauer, M. & Kern, R.㧔2000㧕. Network-based
Language Learning: Concepts and Practice.
Cambridge Univ. Press.
Yamada, M., & Akahori, K.(2006). Presenting
Information
toAssistLearners
inLearner-centered Communicative Language
Learning Using Videoconferencing. The
Journal of Information and Systems in
Education, Vol.5, No.1, 5-16.

Analysis of Verbal Processes in Medical Research Articles
Afsaneh Dehnad
Faculty of foreign languages, University of Tehran, School of medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences
afsanehdehnad@yahoo.com

Abstract
Highly empirical and objective state of medical
research articles constrains writers of these texts to
use limited and certain number of Verbal processes.
This study tries to identify Verbal processes
quantitatively and interpret them qualitatively interms of frequency, active versus passive, human
Sayers versus human like Sayers and tense.

Keywords
Verbal processes, Human Sayers, Human like
Sayers, Active vs. Passive, tense

Introduction
Verbal clauses represent processes of saying,commending, offering and stating. They include
different modes of saying and even semiotic
processes such as show and indicate.
Halliday and Mattiessen (2004) discuss that
Verbal processes have different uses, for example,
they have an important role in academic discourse,
making it possible to quote and report from various
scholars while at the same time indicating thewriter's stance with verbs like point out, suggest,
claim and assert (p.253).
Interestingly, the "hard facts" in scientific texts
are mainly expressed by certain Verbal processes
which may have human or human like Sayers. The
writers of scientific texts and research articles use
limited and specific verbs to fulfill theircommunicative purposes.

1

Purpose of the study

The purpose of this study is to identify the Verbal
processes used in research articles in a credible
medical journal, New England, which exclusively
publishes experimental research studies.
2
Data
Five articles, published between 2005 and 2007,
from a medical journal, New England, which isavailable on Medline, were selected. These fivearticles provided a corpus of 28020 words which
comprised 1260 processes. Of these 1260
processes, about 112 were of Verbal processes.

3

MethodThe Verbal processes were identified and analyzed
in different parts of the article. The approach toanalysis of texts were explanatory, nonexperimental, quantitative and interpretive. The
processes were interpreted and discussed by threeraters who are ESP teachers and agreement of%95.2 was gained.

4

results

The findings of this study are presented in 4
categories; frequency and distribution of verbal
processes, human versus human like, active versus
passive and tens.
4.1
frequency and distribution
From the corpus of 28020 words, 1286 processes
were identified. From this body of processes, 112(%8.70) were Verbal which makes a relatively low
percentage as compared with other processes. The
following table shows Verbal processes incomparison with other processes.
Table 1: frequency of Verbal processes as comparewith other processes
Material496%36.46
Relational 509%39.58
Mental175%13.6
Verbal112%8.70
Existential 19%1.5
Behavioral 2
There was an attempt to identify the typical Verbal
processes used in different parts. As the table shows
the range of verbs used in these five articles islimited and seems to be specific to this genre.
If we exclude those Verbal processes occurring
once, there will be 12 processes with a relatively
frequent occurrence. As table 2 shows, theprocesses lack empathy and are intentionally used
to express the objective state of the work (comparethem with for example, insist).
Table 2: typical verbs with their frequency
Indicate
20
Assign14
Suggest10
Report9
Show
7
Define5Predict
4
Denote3AgreeConfirm
Ask
Describe222
2

in active voice and often topicalized. It could be
implied that the doer of the action is not asimportant as the action, the outcome or findings.

References
4.2
Human versus human like Sayers
The Verbal processes may have human or human
like Sayers. The findings of this study indicate thatthe number of Verbal processes with human Sayers
is comparable with human like Sayers (% 52.67
and %40.17). However, there were certain verbs
like denote, show and indicate which are
exclusively used with human like Sayers. On theother hand, there are processes that are only usedwith human Sayers.
These processes are agree, define, describe andassign.
4.3 Active versus passive voice
The findings of this study show that active voice(%60.71) was used more than passive (%36.60).
Interestingly, active voice processes were often
accompanied by human like Sayers. There were 45
active voice verbs with human like Sayers while
this figure was only 16 for human Sayers. On theother hand, there were 40 passive verbs with human
Sayers.
4.4 Past tense versus present tense
Two types of tense were used in these articles, pastand present tense, with a few cases of present
perfect.
In abstract part, the background of the study isexpressed in present tense while the method is inpast tense.
In introduction part, the primary tense is present orpresent perfect. The method part and results are
expressed in past tense. However, the tables ordiagrams are explained by present tense. Whenreferring to the method or procedures, past tense isused in discussion.
In results and discussion, whenever the writerrefers to a table or figure or view, present tense isused, while discussing the methods requires the useof past tense.
5 Discussion
The low percentage of Verbal processes (%.8)
compared with other processes indicate the low
potential of research articles for personal
interaction. In this genre, people are not the main
Sayers but the trials, data, findings and results
convey the message. This could be a possible
reason for not mentioning the human Sayers
explicitly and using passive voice.
Contrary to this, the human like Sayers are used

Babbaii, E, Ansary, H. (2002). On the Effect of
Disciplinary Variation on Transitivity. AsianEFL journal.
Chen, L. (2005). Transitivity in media Texts. IRAL
43.
Halliday, M.A. (2004). An introduction tofunctional grammar. Oxford University Press.
Martin, J.R. Mattiessen.
C.M.M, Painter, c.(1997). Functional Grammar,
Hodder Headline Group.
Thompson, G.(1997). Introducing functional
grammar. Hodder Headline Group.

The Effect of Noneuse of EFL Learners’ L1 by an Instructor inClassrooms
Chiyo Myojin

Core Studies Department, Kochi University of Technology

myojin.chiyo@kochi-tech.ac.jp

This study examines the effect of the variation ofteacher talk on EFL learners' performance,
especially the one related to listening
comprehension skills, by chronologically observing
a Japanese first language (L1) instructor'sclassrooms at a university.

almost-English-only class before, and how they felt
about their current English classes where more than
90% of teacher talk consisted of English.
Hypothesis: An increase in the use of English by the
instructor in the classroom will result in the
improvement
inthelearners’listening
comprehension skills.

Keywords

1

teacher talk, first language, EFL classrooms,
listening
comprehension
skills,utterances,functions

For the investigation into the students' performance,
the same listening comprehension test wasadministered individually to Group A and Group B,
once at the beginning of the quarter, and again at
the end of the quarter after fifteen hours' lessons (i.e.
seven weeks later); however, the important point
was that the degrees of exposure to English wereintentionally designed to be different in the twogroups: that is, Group A students were exposed to
53% English and 47% Japanese, whereas Group B
students were exposed to 93% English and 7%
Japanese. The same test was given to both groups
and each student's test results were analyzed. As forEnglish and Japanese teacher talk, the instructor
was videotaped in a natural setting during twocomplete one-hour lessons during the quarter; one
with Group A and one with Group B. Then, data
were collected from observations of the videos andanalysis of written transcriptions of the videos.

Abstract

Introduction
It has always been an interesting question how
much effect the variation of teacher talk in EFL
classrooms on learners’ performance, especially on
listening comprehension skills. Of greater interest
to EFL classroom researchers is the question
whether or not instructors should use their learners'
L1 in EFL classrooms, especially in culturally
homogeneous environments such as Japan where
the majority is monolingual. However, there is little
discussion on the issue of whether instructors’ useof their learners’ L1 in EFL classrooms would be
more helpful for the learners’ acquisition of English
or whether an English-only teaching environment
would be more efficient in EFL classrooms.
Therefore, my study examined the effect ofthe variation of teacher talk on EFL learners’
performance, especially the one related to listening
comprehension skills, by chronologically observing
a Japanese L1 instructor’s classrooms at auniversity. Is it really the case that the more English
an instructor uses as teacher talk in classrooms, themore the students' English listening comprehension
skills will improve within only a few months, orwill there be no effect on the students’ listening
comprehension skills even after they have been
exposed to 90% English in class? In addition, I
conducted a survey of student opinions of four
English classes, where more than 90% of teacher
talk consisted of English. The survey inquired
whether or not the students had experienced such an

2

Methodology

Findings and discussion

2.1
Teacher Talk Results
The results of the observation of the instructors
teacher talk in the one-hour lessons show that the
instructor spoke English 93% of the total teacher
talk time with Group B, but only 53% with Group A.
The data also indicate that the proportions ofEnglish Explanations and Directions used forGroup B are twice and almost three times as high,respectively, as for Group A. On the other hand, theinstructor used about seven times and eight times asmuch Japanese for both Explanations andDirections, respectively, with Group A as withGroup B.

2.2
Students’ Score Results
The results indicate that there were eight students inGroup B who were able to scores their second test
over 20% more than their first test, whereas there
were only two students in Group A for such
improvement. Comparing the mean scores of thefirst and second tests by both groups, the meanscore of the second test performed by Group B is
32% higher than that of the 1st test, while theimprovement by Group A is only 10%.
Next, the mean scores of the two tests by partwere analyzed for both of the group. From theseresults, it was found that both groups showed a lot
more improvement in their performance for the
shorter conversation-style questions in Parts I and II
than for the longer statement-type questions in Part
III. Group B’s performance for Parts I and II was
improved by as much as 50% on average, although
the improvement for Part III was only 16%. For theGroup A’s performance, the increase in Parts I andII was 16%, but only 5% for Part III.
2.3
Survey Results
With the English Classes’ Survey, the results
indicate that most of the students had very few
opportunities (42% for "almost never" and 26% for"never") to be exposed to English teacher talk inclassrooms in high school. The survey results also
show that, even though nearly 70% of the students
had not been accustomed to English-only
environments like that at the university, 57% of thestudents now felt comfortable in such a classroom
setting, 35% were not sure about it, and only 6%
could not enjoy the class. To the question of "Howdid or do you feel in class?", 55% of the students
chose the answer of "In the beginning, I was
nervous, but now I am more relaxed". Regarding
the question on whether they think English-onlyclasses help them to learn English, 93% of thestudents thought they were helpful. The comparison
between the learners' comprehension ability ofteacher talk based upon the survey's self-report andthe answers of the question about helpfulness ofEnglish was also investigated. The findings
demonstrate that the more the students understandteacher talk, the more they believe that
English-only classes are helpful.

3

Conclusion

This experimental study investigated how mucheffect the nonuse of Japanese learners' L1 by an
instructor in an EFL classroom had on the students’listening comprehension skills. The findings of thisstudy have led to several conclusions:First, the less Japanese and the more English an
instructor used for teacher talk in EFL classrooms,

the more the learners' listening comprehension
skills of English were improved after only twomonths' lessons.
Second, the effectiveness of the learners'
listening comprehension skills was found to
improve in short conversation exercises to a greater
extent than in long statement-style conversation
exercises.
Finally, it seems to be the case that a great
number of the students who had never, or almost
never had, an opportunity to listen to 90% English
teacher talk were able to improve their listening
comprehension skills, even in quite a short period,
once they had an opportunity to be exposed toplenty of English teacher talk in classrooms at theuniversity. Therefore, my study seems to confirm
the hypothesis that increasing the amount ofEnglish teacher talk leads to the improvement in
students’ English listening comprehension skills.
However, since this study did not investigate theeffectiveness of a 100% English-only learning
environment, we still do not know whether or not it
might lead to a greater improvement in learners’
English skills than in a learning environment where
less English is used. Further research on this will beneeded in order to determine the most effective EFL
learning environment to enable Japanese students toimprove their listening comprehension skills.

Extensive Reading of Authentic Materials and Graded Readers in an
EFL context
Paul Suh
Institute of Foreign Language Studies, Korea University
pauls@korea.ac.kr

Abstract

competency, this paper suggests that ER can serve

Extensive reading instruction in an EFL context,

as one of core approaches or play a key

especially, at the university level has been neglectedsupplemental role in realizing

in Korea. This study examines extensive reading

English reading program.

more fruitfulapproach in the university English reading classes.

Simply, extensive reading is a way of

While most Korean high school graduates arelearning a new language in which students read amostly accustomed to intensive reading approach,lot of rather easy material that they have chosen.

they are unfamiliar with the extensive reading

Most of learning takes place out of classroom

approach.

because they read independently at their own time

Although, many studies indicate thebenefits and advantages of extensive reading, manyand place.

The reading either authentic(textschools and instructors at the Korean universities

written for native speaker in its original form) or

still hesitate and refrain from adopting ER approach

graded readers(texts simplified for non-native

into their reading curriculum.

Therefore, thisreaders) is read at their comfortable pace but rather

study investigates extensive reading approach using

fast trying to capture the general meaning of theboth authentic materials and graded readers in thecontents with minimal usage of dictionary to look

English reading and Practical English classes.

up unknown words.
Moreover, ER is more effective when students are

Keywords

allowed to select their own reading material ofextensive reading, authentic materials, gradedinterests, and when it is carried out over a sustained

readers, EFL, korean university

period.
Many studies support the claim that ER canIntroduction and Literature review

develop and improve learners’ ability in reading

With so many apparent benefits attached tocomprehension and vocabulary development, while

extensive reading, it is quite amazing andhelping learners to be motivated to read extensively

disappointing at the same time that such a little

in the new language and build confidence in dealing

attention has been given to ER in Korea.

with longer texts.

Most

Korean students in secondary and even in higher
education as well, spend enormous time dwelling1

and struggling with English grammar, translating,This study has been carried out for four semesters

and reading, but only to be disappointed with theirof varying English reading and Practical English

slow progress in learning English.

In an attempt

reading classes at Korea university, and elsewhere.

to reduce their frustration in the pursuit of English

Several methods were used including pre-test andResearch methods

post-test, questionnaire, interviews, and student

Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Korea

diaries to answer relevant questions: 1) extensive

University, Seoul, Korea.

reading improves reading comprehension ability 2)
whether ER helps in the vocabulary development 3)
benefits gained and difficulties encountered fromextensive reading of authentic texts and graded
readers 4) and whether ER approach motivates EFL
learners to read more materials in the target
language and whether they would recommend toother students.

2

Results and conclusion

Results indicate that students of extensive reading
instruction performed significantly higher in the
post-test which measured reading comprehension
ability and vocabulary than the students of regularintensive reading classes who were not introduced
to the extensive reading program.

Similar results

were found for the Practical English classes as well.
Moreover,students

who

participated

in

the

extensive reading expressed far more motivationand interests in continuing learning the target
language, and especially showed interests to readeven after the semester was finished.

3

References

Ahn, B., & Shin I. (2006). The effects of different
types of extensive reading materials on
reading amount, attitude, and motivation.
English Teaching, 61(1), 67-87.
Alshamrani, Hassan M. (2003).

The attitudes andbeliefs of ESL students about extensive
reading of authentic texts.
doctoral dissertation.

UnpublishedIndiana Universityof Pennsylvania, Penn.
Bell, T. (2001).

Extensive reading: speed

And comprehension. The Reading Matrix,
1(1), 15-28.
Shin, K. (2002).

Extensive reading approach

focused on foreign language acquisition.

Learning English through social issues: Ways to develop ESL
learners’ social and cognitive strategies
Lin Ruffell

English Langauge Teaching Unit, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
linruffell@cuhk.edu.hk

Abstract
The use of social issues as a source of teachingmaterial has long been popular among ESL teachers.
It is especially compatible with a content-based ortheme-based approach. Social issues provide thecontent which can motivate learners’ interest,
inspire thinking as well as stimulating interactions.
Newspaper articles, in particular, are a rich sourceof reading texts with updated, authentic information
relevant to students’ everyday life.
The many advantages of using social issues forsecond language teaching were recognized by theHong Kong Education Bureau, as they proposed a
New Senior Secondary (NSS) Curriculum to be
implemented in 2009. There will be a Compulsory
Part and an Elective Part in the new curriculum, andone of the elective modules is “Learning English
through Social Issues”. As social issues arethought-provoking and often controversial, they aresuitable for higher-level learners. With proper
scaffolding from teachers, learners are able todevelop cognitive and social strategies throughsocial issues.
This paper explores ways to teach English throughsocial issues. The focus is on how materials basedon social issues can be designed and adopted tohelp learners develop cognitive and social strategies
effectively.

Keywords
Social issues, issues-based teaching, content-basedteaching, language acquisition, cognitive learning,
language awareness, metalinguistic knowledge

Introduction
The use of social issues in ESL/EFL is not new toEnglish language teachers. Social issues provide
varied and rich contents for teaching materials.
Students learn the target language throughexploring social issues, thus developing their otherskills simultaneously. Learning English throughsocial issues is common in content-based
instruction (CBI). In Hong Kong, English language
teachers often use social issues as the teachingcontent, especially for higher level learners. In 2004,
the Hong Kong Education Bureau proposed a New
Senior Secondary (NSS) Curriculum to be
implemented in 2009, in which one of the elective
modules to be taught formally is “Learning English
through Social Issues”. The inclusion of thiselective module in the NSS Curriculum does imply
the recognition of social issues as a source of input
for effective language learning, in which it helps
enhance students’ language skills and generic skills.
This paper explores how the use of social issues fits
in the social and cognitive approaches to language
teaching by examining the relevant theories, andillustrating how social issues can be effectively
used in the English language classroom.

1. Social issues as a source of input
Learners benefit from learning through social issues,
which
are
thought-provoking
and
often
controversial. Through exploring and researching
into social issues, learners “will learn to defineissues/problems, analyse information, understandthe arguments and use of language in the texts…,
and express their points of view about the issues
through speaking and writing” (Curriculum
Development
Council
and
Hong
Kong
Examinations and Assessment Authority, 2007,p.44). From the social and cognitive perspectives oflanguage learning, social issues stimulate bothindividual thoughts and group interaction.
Through analyzing texts on social issues, such as
newspaper articles, students’ language awareness israised. Interaction takes place when students haveto clarify, justify, argue or refute points of view. All
these can help enhance learners’ social andcognitive skills.

2. Natural language acquisition throughsocial issues
Like other materials used in CBI, social issues areoften used to help focus learners’ attention tomeaning, while they are acquiring and developing
their language skills subconsciously through thecontent. They provide the context and purpose oflearning, thus facilitating acquisition. The richvariety and source of social issues can engage
learners deeply in the meaning, as they are often
relevant to everyday life. When well-chosen, social
issues are interesting and thought-provoking.
Language acquisition takes place throughcomprehensible input and negotiation of meaning.
(Krashen, 1985, Lightbrown & Spada, 1993). For
higher-level learners, social issues enhance their
Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP)(Cummins, 1981), which is essential for academic
language use.

3. Cognitive learning through social issues
Learning English through social issues does not
only foster natural language acquisition. It alsoenhances cognitive learning. The rich sources oftexts on social issues found in the media such as
newspapers, both spoken and written, are usefulmaterials for raising learners’ language awarenessas well as metalinguistic knowledge. Teachers canselect varied genres and consciously focus learners’
attention on the linguistic features of different
modes of writing and text types. Through noticing,the input provided by the varied texts caneventually be internalized if appropriate teachingstrategies are used (Schmidt, 1993; Ellis 1994).
Apart from linguistic awareness, learning English
through social issues also enables learners toacquire generic skills, in particular critical thinking,communication, collaboration, problem-solving andstudy skills.

4.

Selection of materials and teachingstrategies

To make teaching and learning effective, teachers
should select the kinds of issues which suit theirlearners. Some criteria of selection of social issues
can be adopted to ensure that the issues chosen are
current, interesting and relevant to learners, The
information of the issues has to be easily available
through accessible channels. For learners ofdifferent levels, teachers can select materials ofvaried complexity. Many activities based on social
issues can be designed, such as identifying social
issues and their impacts, language awarenessactivities like identifying structural and linguisticfeatures/modes of writing in different genres,thematic vocabulary building, primary andsecondary research, defining and explaining social
issues, reflecting on and expressing viewpoints
from different perspectives, discussion and debating,role play, writing different genres, oral presentation,and so on. The list is not exhaustive.

5. Conclusion
Learning English through social issues is aneffective way to foster natural language acquisition,
as it provides the content for learning, which
focuses on meaning. At the same time, learners arealso able to deepen their language awareness whenlearning from a variety of texts. To make the bestuse of social issues to teach English, teachers
should carefully select interesting materials andpitch them at the right levels of the target learners.
Learning
activities
shouldbedesigned
appropriately to enable natural acquisition andcognitive learning to take place.

References
Cummins, J. (1981). The role of primary language
development in promoting educational successfor language minority students. In Schoolingand language minority students: A theoreticalframework (pp. 3-49). Los Angeles: California
State University.
Curriculum Development Council and Hong Kong
Examinations and Assessment Authority.
(2007). English language curriculum andassessment guide (Secondary 4-6). HongKong: Government Logistics Department.
Ellis, N. (eds). 1994. Implicit and explicit learningof languages. San Diego: Academic Press.
Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues
and implications. New York: Longman.
Lightbrown, P.M. & Spada, N. (1993). How
languages are learned. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Schmidt, R. 1993. Deconstructing consciousness
in search of useful definitions for applied
linguistics. In J. Hulstiyn and R, Schmidt(eds). Consciousness in second language
Learning. AILA Review 11.

Current Perceptions and Beliefs Among
Incoming College Students towards Learning English—
A Case Study in National United University
Hsiao-fang Cheng

Language Center, National United University
hfcheng@nuu.edu.tw

Abstract
Beliefs and attitudes toward English and its culture
influence student’s intention, motivation andsuccess. The purpose of the present study is toinvestigate the perceptions and attitudes of recent
incoming college students (freshmen) concerning
English as a required course and a measure forgraduation. Two hundred and eighty-seven
freshmen enrolled in National United University in
Taiwan participated in this study. The participants
were classified into two major groups of learners
according to their educational background: The firstgroup consisted of regular high school graduates,
and the second was composed of technical andvocational high school graduates. A survey with
five-Likert scale was conducted to collect data. The
results
illustrated
that
career-driven
andinstrumental clusters were found to have asignificantly positive motivational effect. Studentschange their attitude from unfavorable to favorable
toward English learning because they can perceive
the incoming value and the positive outcome. It is
hoped that the exploration of students’ evolving
beliefs and concerns will provide teachers with
sufficient
information
toimprovetheteaching-learning process through the developmentof timely, meaningful, and responsive English
learning environments.

Keywords
perceptions, motivation, attitude, measure forgraduation

Introduction
An increasing number of universities in Taiwan
have already implemented a policy of using English
proficiency as the measure for graduation; therefore,
it is necessary to learn the student’s perceptions andattitudes toward such kind of requirement.
According to Fishbein (1963), human beings areusually quite rational and make systematic use of
the information available to them. They consider

the implications of their actions before they decideto engage or not engage in a given behavior. In
terms of English learning, a person who believes
that learning English will lead to mostly positive
outcomes will hold a favorable attitude, while aperson who believes that learning English will leadto mostly negative outcomes will hold an
unfavorable attitude. There is no doubt thatstudents’ attitudes toward English learning areclosely related to their beliefs and perceptions,motivation and intention, and above all, theireffectiveness and success in the classroom (Horwitz,1988). There will not always be perfectcorrespondence between intention, motivation, andbehavior (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). Barring
unforeseen events, a person will usually act inaccordance with his or her intention. Strong
intention and favorable attitudes resulting frommotivational domain, indisputably, can lead to theimmediate determinant of the action.
Although knowledge of a person’s perceptions
and attitudes can tell us little as to whether he/shewill perform some particular behavior, it can tell us
something about her overall pattern of behavior.
Therefore, it is necessary to investigate students’
perceptions and beliefs concerning English learning,with which teachers can design language curriculaand materials meeting students’ needs in terms ofcourse offerings, classroom instruction, maintaining
students’ motivation and retention (Tse, 2000).
Roberts (1992) conducted a study on students’
perception of the importance of foreign language
study and found that culture and business wereranked as the most important reasons to study
foreign languages. Relatively similar findings wererevealed in Ely’s survey of freshmen university
students of Spanish. Ely (1986) classified his
findings into three motivational clusters: anintegrative culture-driven cluster, an instrumental or
career-driven, and a third requirement cluster. The
culture and career clusters were found to have asignificant positive motivational effect, whereas therequirement cluster possessed a weak negative
relationship to motivation. Price & Gascoigne(2006) reviewed 155 essay answers to the questionon why students should and why students should
not be required to study a foreign language. They
classified the statements given by the 155 first-yearcollege students from University of Nebraska into
pro and con categories. The top three pro responses
are cultural understanding, individual job/career
success, and broadening of personal perspective.
Among the con categories, the most commonly
cited reasons for not studying a foreign language
was that the students simply did not find it
necessary, or “no need”. Eight percent of theanti-foreign language study statements lamented thefact the language requirements are imposed against
one’s will. The findings of Ely’s (1986) aresubstantially consistent with those of Price andGascoigne’s (2006).
This study attempts to investigate what
motivational clusters motivate Chinese college
students to learn English. The research question
posed in this study is: What perceptions andattitudes do incoming college students in Taiwan
possess concerning English learning and English
requirement? In general, what, if anything,
motivates them most to study English? The goal ofthis study is to understand students’ perceptions ofand attitudes toward English learning and English
requirement so as to help English teachers develop
approaches and create an educational environmentthat is conductive to success (Roberts, 1992; Tse,
2000).

1

Method1.1
Participants
Two hundred and eighty-nine freshmen participatedin this study. Half of them, graduates of senior highschools, had English classes six hours a week in thepast three years. However, the rest, graduates ofvocational and industrial high schools, had English
classes only two hours a week in the past three
years. Though they have studied English in schoolfor more than seven years, the total amount of timethey have been exposed to English varies greatly.
Therefore, their English proficiency ranges fromelementary to advanced level. They are majoring inboth Management and Technology and Science.
Their average age is 18.1 years old.
1.2
Instrument
The instrument used in this study is a 40-question
survey with 5-Likert scale. The survey questions
were developed by the researcher and revised by theother two English teachers, based on the findings ofRoberts (1992), Ely(1986), and Price & Gascoigne(2006). The questions were pilot-studied by a groupof 50 students of the same English proficiency leveland major as the participants. The first manuscript
contained 50 survey questions; after the pilot study
ten questions of ambiguity and irrelevance weredeleted.
1.3
Procedure
All the participants filled out the questionnaire in
the first class hour, without interpretation or
explanation. The collected data were analyzed andclassified employing SPSS package.

Result and Discussion
2
The results showed that career-driven andinstrumental incentives significantly influence
students’ desire to learn English. Among this groupof participants, integrative motivation, such as
interest in foreign languages, culture, society, did
not seem to play such an important role as
instrumental one.
Future career is of the first and foremost
concern to the participants. Of the forty survey
questions, questions ranked as top 1 through 15 areclosely related to career-driven clusters. More than
82% of the participants believed that a mastery ofEnglish would make them an ideal candidate for avariety of interesting and profitable jobs, morecompetitive in their future career, and mostimportant of all, lead a more colorful and valuable
life. They could perceive the value of mastering
English, which in turn, would motivate them to agreat extent.
Apart from career-driven factors, instrumental
motivation ranked as the second factor affecting
students’ English learning. Eighty-five percent of
the participants thought that giving awards would
force them to study English harder, whereas 81%
thought that the implementation of English
proficiency as a measure for graduation together
with social pressure and value motivate them tospend more time on English learning.
Less then 60% of the participants said theylearn English because they are interested in theforeign culture, history or society. In other words,
most learners are not internally motivated, so their
persistence in learning is worth doubting. Morethan 70% of the participants took English classes
because it is a required course. However, when
asked whether or not they will take other English
elective courses in the next three years, 78% ofthem said that they had intention to take more
English classes.
When asked what they thought of theimplementation of English proficiency as a measurefor graduation, 76% of the participants thought it isnecessary and it will enable them to get a better job
or scholarship. Even though 71% of them thought
they would feel pressurized, 81% of them statedthat they would study harder to attain thedesignated goal and 75% of them thought taking theEnglish proficiency test is a meaningful challenge.
To conclude, participants hold a favorable attitude
toward the requirement of English proficiency forgraduation.
This study also found that external variables,such as social pressure, awards, students’ priorexperiences and sense of success influence theirmotivation to learn English to a great extent. About
85% of the participants thought offering an award
to those whose English proficiency reaches theIntermediate level or above will encourage more
students to take the proficiency test. More than 80%of them believed that the mastery of English has
become a consensus among people in Taiwan.
About 70% of the participants thought that they had
bad experiences in learning English and had
experienced a sense of loss. More than 70% of theparticipants revealed that they might completely
lose interest in learning if they dislike the teacher.
When asked if they are interested in learning
foreign languages, 59% of the participants said yes.
More than 71% of them said that they learn English
because they want to communicate with foreigners,
acquire new knowledge and broaden their horizon.
Only 54% of them said that they learn English
because they want to understand foreign culture,
history, society, literature and so on. Under suchcircumstances, more than 89% of them said thatthey had an intention to take more elective English
courses in college; however, how many of them willtake actual action is worth investigating.

3

Suggestion
Implication

andPedagogical

Mastering a foreign language needs a lotof time, effort, attention and persistence(Tremblay and Gardner, 1995). In this study,
more than 75% of the participants thought it
is necessary to implement a measure forgraduation based on students’ English
proficiency, which will undoubtedly enhance
theirglobalcompetitiveness
andcommunication.
However,they
felt
pressurized to reach the required proficiency
level for graduation. It will be fascinating tostudy what students do to balance thepressure and the requirement and, mostimportant of all, what role persistence andeffort play in the course of learning.
Drawing on the findings, EFL teachers can do thefollowing to improve the teaching-learning process.

First, encourage students to be an automatic
self-motivated learner. To upgrade their English,
they have to keep on learning. Second, give rewards
to those who progress quickly.

4

Limitation

Only a small group of Chinese college students
participated in this study. The findings can not be
generalized. It would be interesting to replicate thestudy and also enlarge it by extending learner
variables. The results might be different from thestudy done or at the very least, more informative.
References
Ajzen, Icek, & Fishbein, Martin. (1980).
Understanding attitudes and predicting
social behavior. NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Ely, C. (1986). Language learning motivation: A
descriptive causal analysis. Modern
Language Journal, 70, 28-35.
Fishbein, M. (1963). An investigation of therelationships between beliefs about anobject and the attitude toward that object.
Human Relations, 16, 233-240.
Horwitz, E. (1988). The beliefs about language
learning of beginning foreign language
students. Modern Language Journal, 72,
283-294.
Price, J. & Gascoigne, C. (2006). Current
perceptions and beliefs among incomingcollege students towards foreign language
study and language requirements. Foreign
Language Annals, 39 (3), 383-394.
Roberts, L. P. (1992). Attitudes of entering
university freshmen toward foreign
language study: A descriptive analysis.
Modern Language Journal, 76, 275-283.
Tremblay, P. R. & Gardner, R. C. (1995).
Expanding the motivation construct inlanguage learning. Modern Language
Journal, 79(4), 505-520.
Tse, L. (2000). Student perceptions of foreign
language study: A qualitative analysis offoreign language autobiographies. Modern
Language Journal, 84, 69-84.
Appendix
Appendix A. Result of Survey Questions in theOrder of ImportanceNo
1

Question
20. I think offering anaward of NT$1,000
to those whose
English proficiency
reachestheIntermediate level
or
above
will
encourage
more

Mean
4.25

SD
2.44

students to take theproficiency test.
2

3

4

13. I think achieving
intermediate level
of
Englishproficiency
willenhancemycompetitive abilities
in my future career.
47. If I can speak English
fluently, I will be an
ideal candidate for agreat variety ofjobs.
37. I am taking English

4.24

0.83
13

4.16

0.77
14

4.12

0.82

courses just because I
feel I will be able to
have

15

more

opportunities to finda better job with agood command of
English.
5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

34. I am taking English
courses just because
I feel English is
helpful for myfuture career.
45. I feel that the masteryof English
has
become a consensus
among people in
Taiwan.
48. If I can speak English
fluently, I will havemore opportunities
to travel abroad on
business.
49. If I can speak English
fluently, I will havemore opportunities
to increase my own
financial profits.
50. I feel as long as I can
get my meaningacross, it doesn’t
matter if I make a
few mistakes when
speaking English.
39. I am taking English
courses because I
feel I will be morecompetitive with agood command of
English.
12. I think imposing theintermediate level
of
Englishproficiency as themeasurefor
graduation
will
force me to spend
more
time
on
English learning.
46. I think that the

4.10

0.82
16

4.10

2.55

4.09

0.77

4.05

0.80

17

18

4.05

0.75
19

4.05

0.87
20

4.04

0.88

3.92

0.85

mastery of English
will make me lead a
valuableandcolorful life in the
future.
14. I think it is necessary
to provide a seriesofpreparatory
courses for English
certificate
inadditiontofreshman English.
18. I think an English
certificateofintermediate level is
indispensableforgettingascholarshiporgetting a higher pay.
24. I think it is necessary
to incorporate adefinitegoal,
obtainingacertificate
ofEnglish proficiency,
into
Englishinstruction
incollege.
36. I take English
courses
mainlybecause I want tolearn about thecurrent intellectual
trends of the world
and thus broaden
my worldview.
38. I am taking English
courses because I
believelearning
English should be
part
of
a
well-roundededucation.
35. I am taking English
courses because I
would
like
to
communicate or talkwith foreigners.
33. The major reason fortakingEnglishcourses for me is toimprove my gradesin other academic
subjects.
28. I take English
courses
mainlybecauseI
aminterested
inlearning
foreignlanguages.

3.89

0.91

3.84

0.90

3.83

0.84

3.7

0.92

3.68

0.93

3.55

1.01

3.39

1.01

2.96

1.04

Communication Apprehension and Willingness to Communicate
Rieko Matsuoka1 and Ian Smith2

1

School of Nursing, National College of Nursing, 2Independent Researcher
matsuokar@adm.ncn.ac.jp

Abstract
The main purposes of this study are (a) to identify
the constructs that may generate communication
apprehension and to investigate how they influencecommunication apprehension and reduce the levelof willingness to communicate, and (b) to explore
the basic mentality underlying these constructs.
The data was obtained from semi-structured
interviews with 10 Japanese female college students
and one Vietnamese male student who provided acontrast for the data from the Japanese students.
The study suggests that constructs such as
perfectionism, competitiveness, Japanese mores,
and face-protecting orientation may generatecommunication apprehension and the basic
mentality
underlying
them
may
be
other-directedness.

Keywords
Communication apprehension, willingness tocommunicate, other-directedness, perfectionism,
comptetitiveness,face-protecting
orientation,
Japanese mores, Japanese sense of self.

1. Introduction
In a globalised society, English has gained thestatus of international ‘lingua franca’ and has
become a necessary skill for being a member of theinternational community. In such a milieu, it isnecessary for Japanese learners of English to have asufficiently high level of willingness tocommunicate in English. The focal point of thisstudy is the sample of serious learners of English
who have a sufficient level of English proficiency
and an eagerness to communicate in English but
who
have
not
alwayshad
successfulcommunication experiences. It should help us, as
language teaching professionals, to identify thefactors that may impede their communication
behaviour.
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 before others, as Young(1991)
has
also
observed.
Accordingly,
communication apprehension is likely to be a
primary reason for the avoidance or disruption ofcommunication.
The notion of willingness to communicate wasoriginally developed in the field of first language
communication study by McCroskey and Richmond(1987), and is defined as the intention to initiate andto engage in communication when the opportunity
is given (McCroskey, 1997). This concept may be
useful in elucidating why even serious learners witha high competence in English and high motivation
have failed to communicate comfortably in English.
Other-directedness is the other key term in thepresent study because it may generate or affectcommunication apprehension, as was suggested in
the previous quantitative study (Matsuoka, 2006).
The concept of other-directedness is mainly derived
from two sources; Kuwayama (1994), who
maintains that the Japanese sense of self isembedded in ‘reference other orientation’, andLebra (2004), who postulates that Japanese people
sense their self as ‘subject I’ – the unique individual
self – and as ‘object me’ – the social self, which isaffected by others. Other-directedness refers to
the mental sensitivity towards the outside world or
towards others.
In the Japanese socio-cultural context, certain
cultural norms, valuing reticence in particular, mayhinder some English learners from actively
verbalizing their thoughts and feelings, even when
they desire to communicate and their proficiency
level is sufficient. Exploring the workings and thefactors of communication apprehension will benecessary for serious learners of English to raise
their level of WTC and to feel comfortable inexpressing themselves in English.
Two research questions for this study wereposited.
(a) What constructs may generatecommunication apprehension, and how do theyaffect communication apprehension and reduce thelevel of willingness to communicate? Also, (b) whatis the core mentality underlying these constructs

and how is it formed?

communication apprehension and also affects thelevel or strength of communication apprehension.

2. Methods

The essence of other-directedness is too much‘concern’ or worry about how other people aroundthem or the ‘public’ (seken in Japanese) may
perceive the individuals. Consequently, thementality of other-directedness may form
group-oriented and shame-oriented or face-oriented
cultures, manifested as competitiveness andperfectionism, which were indicated by theJapanese participants in the present study. The
Japanese more of valuing reticence may also be
formed by other-directedness in the form of thegroup-oriented mentality because it is believed thatless verbalization or even silence should be valued
in creating harmony and in avoiding direct conflictin Japan. It is generally believed in Japan thatsayingnothingis
betterthancausing
misunderstandings or trouble by saying something.
Another factor of valuing reticence is found in thenotion of the high-context society (Hall, 1976),
where very little is coded in verbal messages
because most of the information is already known,
which may also have been generated by agroup-oriented, sharing culture.

2.1 Participants
Ten female Japanese undergraduate students
majoring in nursing at a national university and one
male Vietnamese college student participated.
2.2 Procedures
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with theparticipants, who had voluntarily agreed toparticipate after a complete description andexplanation of the present study were given.
Interviews with each participant lasted from 30
minutes to one hour, and were not audio or video
taped.
All the information gained from theparticipants was written in note form immediately
after each interview session was completed.

3. Findings and Discussion
In order to answer the research question (a), firstly
the data was scrutinized and categorized in an
inductive manner. As a result, four constructs,
which are a) competitiveness, b) perfectionism, c)
face-protecting orientation and d) valuing reticence(one of the Japanese socio-cultural mores) weredetected and identified for discussion in this study.
The data from the Japanese female
undergraduate students illustrate the so-called ‘good
student mentality’, manifested as competitivenessand / or perfectionism; in contrast with the datafrom the Vietnamese boy, who seemingly cannot
afford to be either competitive or perfect. This
interpretation seems to contradict the previous study(Young, 1991), suggesting that students whobelieve their language skills are not strong enoughare likely to have higher language anxiety. However,in the Japanese context, among strong, diligent
students with an adequate language proficiency
there is a tendency to have competitiveness and / orperfectionism. In addition, the Japanese more ofvaluing reticence was projected and seemed to
produce a reluctance to communicate or an
avoidance of communication and to raisecommunication apprehension, which consequently
reduced the second-language willingness tocommunicate. The effort to maintain face orface-protected orientation was also revealed.
Regarding the research question (b),other-directedness, which was found to be anindicator of communication apprehension in theprevious study (Matsuoka, 2006), will be examined
as a candidate for the core mentality underlying the
aforementioned constructs. This is based on the
beliefthat
other-directedness
generates

4. Concluding remarks
This study indicated that communication
apprehension derived from other-directedness is
manifested as competitiveness, perfectionism,
maintaining face and valuing reticence, which inpractice have reduced the level of L2 WTC amongserious learners of English. In exploring the factors
affecting the level of communication apprehension,
the causes or factors generating other-directedness,
which was found to be an indicator ofcommunication apprehension in the previous study(Matsuoka, 2006), were discussed; and the Japanesesense of self related to socio-cultural factors, suchas social preoccupation and relationality incommunication, was considered as the basic
mentality producing other-directedness.
With the results of the present study in mind,
some pedagogical implications from previous
research can be provided as possible methods for
reducing the level of communication apprehension
and for raising the level of willingness tocommunicate in English.
Selected References
Kuwayama, T. (1992). The reference otherorientation. In N. R. Rosenberger (Ed.), Japanesesense of self (pp. 121-151). New York: CUP
Matsuoka, R. (2006). Japanese college students’Willingness to Communicate in English. Doctoral
Dissertation. Philadelphia: Temple University

An Inquiry into Strategies for Elementary English Teachers’ Professional
Development
Chiou-hui Chou

National Hsinchu University of Education, Taiwan
joyce@mail.nhcue.edu.tw

Abstract
This study attempted to explore about the strategies
that English teachers have experienced in theirprofessional life. A survey method was used togather the data. A follow-up focus interview was
conducted. The interview data were gathered tosupplement the survey data and to assist in
examining teachers’ experiences of participating in
the activities for their professional development.
This study finds that the major types of teachers’
participated professional learning activities were
held by the bureau of education in their county, themost frequently participated topics were on English
teaching techniques, and their motivations forparticipating in activities were mostly for theirindividual interests. The top priorities for their
future professional learning activities are on topics
of increasing individual English competency,
improving English teaching techniques, and finding
solutions to help students to increase their weakEnglish. This study then offers pedagogicalsuggestions and implications for teacher educators,
researchers, and policy makers in elementary
education.

Keywords
elementary English teachers, elementary English
teaching, teachers’ professional development

1. Introduction
Recently elementary teachers’ professional
development has been a focus in teacher educationand teacher training in Asia. However, few studies
have focused on English teachers’ professional
development in rural elementary schools. Teachers
in rural areas need more efforts, resources, andassistance to pursue their professional knowledge inlearning to teach English. There are a lot of
obstacles in elementary English instruction. A lot ofteachers indicate that teaching English takes a lot ofefforts. Besides, a lot of teaching pressure comesfrom children’s parents, students’ variation of
language proficiency and classroom management.
Teachers in rural areas face more difficulties as theycannot have good living environments andsufficient educational resources. This study
attempted to explore about the strategies andactivities that teachers have experienced in theirprofessional life. It aims to go to the next step to set
up a model that can help teachers develop theirprofessional knowledge in teaching English,
particularly in remote elementary schools.
English language teachers in Taiwan havealways been expected to keep up to date with theknowledge in the field, to take on the change in the
educational system and to meet the needs of theschool policy. Guided by the Nine-year Integrated
Curriculum, to maintain higher professional
standards, many elementary school teachers
participate in a variety of training programs,
including summer and weekend workshops. Mostof the teachers have pressure in updating theirknowledge and theory in English teaching,theory-into-practice, assessment, and increasing
individual language proficiency. To cope with thepressure, they participate in activities andworkshops to seek for comfort and achievement intheir life-long professional development. Thisphenomenon of teachers’ pressure and learning is
not just found in Taiwan. As Richards and Farrell(2005) indicate, in recent years, language teachers
in many parts of the world have also expressed agreat interest in their own professional development.
Thus, a growing interest has been in action researchfor practitioners to solve their own problems.
However, there are also other activities that can be
implemented in assisting teachers’ professional
development. This study set out to explore about
strategies and activities to assist in-service English
teachers in elementary schools for their professional
development.

2. Literature review
Professional development is the motive for learning
more about teaching and for seeking greater
fulfillment as a practitioner. Teachers need todevelop attitudes, skills, and confidence to frame
their own agendas and to fulfill their professional

goals. Richards and Farrell (2005) indicate, manythings can be learned from self-observation andcritical reflection, while many cannot such as
subject matter knowledge, pedagogical expertise,and understanding of curriculum and materials.
Therefore, professional development should go
beyond personal and individual reflection. It can
include exploring new trends and theories inlanguage teaching.
On discussing language teachers’ professional
development towards teacher’s own personal goals,
Richards and Farrell (2005) state that many
language teachers are generally interested in
keeping up to date with theory and practice in thefield, in improving their teaching skills so that they
feel more confident about what they teach andachieve better results with their students. They may
also be interested in clarifying and understanding
their principles, beliefs, and values. From this pointof view, a number of areas for second language
teachers’ professional knowledge development may
be identified as follows: (a) subject-matterknowledge such as English grammar, TESOL
methodology, and other areas that are relevant tolanguage teaching, (b) pedagogical expertise,namely the mastery of teaching language skills, (c)self-awareness including knowledge of oneself as ateacher, knowledge of ones’ principles, and values,
strength, and weakness, (d) understanding oflearners such as learning styles, learners’ problems
and difficulties and ways of making content moreaccessible to learners, (e) understanding ofmaterials and curriculum, (f) career advancement
such as acquisition of the knowledge and expertisenecessary for personal advancement and promotion(Richards & Farrell, 2005).

3. Methodology
The study first used a survey method to gather the
information from the English teachers in remoteelementary schools in the researchers’ county andthen it approached seven English teachers from thesample to have a focus-group interview. The survey
was distributed by mail to 25 schools, 42 teachers.
Thirty-two questionnaires were returned fromindividuals. A response rate of 78.6% was achieved.
The questionnaire asked about teachers’
background information, their years of teaching
English, their experiences of and motivations forparticipating in professional learning activities, andtheir future needs of types of professional learning
activities. There are also two open-ended questions
for them to write about their experiences ofparticipating in any activities of teacher study
groups.

4. Findings and discussion
There are eight male teachers and twenty-threefemale teachers in this study. More than half of theteachers (56.25%) have less than five years ofteaching experience. Most of the teachers (81.3%)
have less than five years of English teaching atelementary schools. The result of the English
teachers in these remote elementary schools
indicates that only half of the teachers are certified
teachers and these teachers might have long-term
teaching commitment in the schools while almost
half of the teachers might be teaching at theseschools based on a short-term contract. Teachers’
most frequently participated activity design washeld and offered by the bureau of education in theircounty (59.4%). Next, activities held by elementary
schools were ranked second (46.9%). Thenworkshops and training programs held by
publishers was ranked third (43.8%). As to theactivities or programs held by universities, teachers’
participation rate was low. It might be thatparticipation in credited-programs takes a long
period of time to finish the courses and teachers
might not have the commitment to finish them.
Fourth, these teachers’ transportation time to theneighboring universities was long so they might nothave the willingness to participate in credit-courses,
certificate programs, or relevant activities that takes
longer time.
When teachers were asked about their pastexperiences of participating in English teaching andteacher training activities, the most frequently cited
five types are ranked as follows: teaching Phonics(62.5), using games in English instruction (59.4%),
using storytelling in English instruction (53.2%),
using drama in English instruction (50%), and using
English picture storybooks in instruction (43.8%).
This result has some interesting findings. It echoes
the results of open-ended questions and the resultsof the interview data, which indicates teachers’
needs for survival teaching strategies andinteresting teaching techniques to motivate students
to learn English. First, teaching Phonics is the basic
component in elementary English instruction so it is
not surprising that teachers cited this topic as themost frequently participated topics, which is part oftheir basic survival skills. Second, incorporating
games in English lessons is usually one component
in the lesson plan as the wrap-up of a lesson during
teacher’s training courses. And the purpose ofgames is to create motivating learning atmosphereand to guide the students to learn with fun so it was
ranked second on the topic list. Third, topics ofusing storytelling, picture storybooks, and drama in
English instruction are popular for teachers, whichindicate that these types of materials can create
interesting and fun learning atmosphere too. Inaddition, these types of texts might include
authentic materials. Still, in current elementary
English education, the objectives and purpose ofEnglish learning are vague for students as well as
students so teachers need to prepare different typesof learning activities to guide the students to learn
pleasantly. Therefore, these training activities wereranked on the top choices.
When the teachers were asked what type oflearning activity they are interested to participate in
the future, the most frequently cited topic forteachers’ future professional development activities
is on the item of improving English teaching
techniques (75%). The second frequently cited topic
is on the item of preparing for GEPT
high-intermediate course (62.5%) and improving
teachers’ individual English oral proficiency(62.5%). Teachers also indicate that they would liketo attend short-term programs abroad to improvetheir English proficiency and to attend workshops
on how to improve students’ weak language
proficiency and to narrow their competence gaps.
These results first show that teachers still feel theneed to learn more about English teaching
techniques and they want to seek for resources tostrengthen their teaching abilities. Second, as nearly
half of the teachers in the sample were not
identified as qualified English teachers. Thus, they
hoped to take courses such as preparing for passing
GEPT (General English proficiency Test in Taiwan)
high-intermediate test so that they could bepromoted to be as qualified English teachers. Third,
most teachers wanted to improve their speaking
proficiency. This result shows the positive aspect as
to English teachers’ learning. EFL teachers aroundthe world always feel the need to improve theirspoken ability. The teachers in this sample also
showed this phenomenon. In addition, elementary
English education mainly focuses on teaching
students speaking and listening abilities so theseteachers need to use the language naturally in theclassroom. They don’t want to see their own
English ability rusted. Therefore, in the future whenoffering English training courses or activities, theinstitutes and governments can consider this type ofprograms or courses as the top priority. The top fivechoices indicate that professional knowledge
development courses and programs for elementary
English teachers should first support teachers’
specific teaching needs for their day-to-day
classroom activities.
Respondents were given some room in thequestionnaire to write some additional comments
regarding their experiences of participating inteacher study groups or programs during the past
few years and their experiences of learning to be an
English teacher. Important issues from comments

along with the interview data are selected for report
here. First, no teachers in the sample had theexperience of working with educators or researchers
in their projects. Only a few teachers wrote about
their experiences of participating in a teacher
discussion group arranged by the bureau of
education in the county, which was partly required
during the year before the stud. The program
required each school to send one representative
teacher to attend one subject area every month on a
Wednesday afternoon as scheduled. The teachers
were not clear about the purpose of why the training
program was initiated. Some of the participants inthis study were assigned as the English
representative teacher for their school. Threeparticipants in this study had good discussion
experience because their group had awell-organized leader to assign topics for leading
the discussion. One teacher wrote that she gained alot from the discussion group and she increased herteaching techniques and learned some tips fromother teachers. Also, they could share teaching
resources and exchange materials with one another.
A couple of teachers indicated that their groups did
not have a well-organized schedule and topic.
Therefore, they thought this discussion groupprogram was dismissed without a good ending andbeneficial support for some teachers. Second, someteachers stated that they felt insufficient in theirsubject matter knowledge. This phenomenon was
not just indicated in these teachers. Each summer,
there are teachers participating in our university’ssummer courses for their in-service teacher training
and learning. In Taiwan, in order to follow theNine-Year-Integrated Curriculum, teachers inelementary schools need to keep up to date with thesubject knowledge. English teachers might need topursuer more knowledge because English courses
still have a lot of room for improvement as part oflanguage arts in elementary education. Moreover,English teachers also need to develop individual
good language skills not just subject matterknowledge and pedagogical knowledge.

5. Conclusion
This study has conducted a whole-scale survey andthorough examination on this group of elementaryteachers’ professional knowledge development.
These teachers’ past experiences of and futureneeds for professional development provide
researchers, educators, and policy makers a more
focused analysis of the complex issues associatedwith professional development. It was this type ofissue that is relevant to teachers’ choices of theirprofessional development activities and their needs
for their every-day classroom activities that formed
the basis of this study. Hence, this study finds thatthe key to English teachers’ professional
development is the attention to their individual
learning requirements. Guskey (1995) states
professional development may be viewed as anintegral part of a teacher’s career cycle. It is “aself-directed journey to find meaning andappreciation in one’s work, or a structured effort tokeep professions abreast of advances in their field”(Guskey, 1995, p.126). The result of the study
coincides with the literature that teachers’ motive
for learning is more about teaching and for seeking
greater fulfillment as a practitioner.
This study finds that the activities for English
teachers’ professional development should bedesigned to enhance their general professional
knowledge, to increase their English proficiency, toimprove their pedagogical knowledge and skills,
and to validate their attitudes towards teaching andlearning, which in turn can contribute to students’learning. The following conclusions are made: First,
professional learning activities should be designed
to help teachers develop attitudes, skills, andconfidence to frame their own identifies and tofulfill their professional goals. Activities to help
teachers reflect on their beliefs and attitudes and toclear their thoughts should be arranged for
discussion and idea exchange. Second, English
teachers’ professional learning activities should
help teachers pursue more about their subject matterknowledge and pedagogical expertise. Teachers’
most concerned achievement in English teaching isthat they can have great fulfillment in English
teaching. Thus, they need great teaching techniques
to execute their learned knowledge. Activities forteachers to exchange experiences and ideas andshare resources should be provided. Third, if
possible, the bureau of education or ministry ofeducation can provide opportunities for teachers totakeshort-term
Englishprogramsin
English-speaking countries in summer or wintervacations. Or the government can provide grants forteachers with great commitment to English teaching
to study abroad. Teachers need to update theirknowledge and keep increasing their English
proficiency. Fourth, teachers all need to keep up
with changes and explore trends and theories inlanguage teaching. As Richards and Farrell (2005)
state, many language teachers are generallyinterested in keeping up to date with theory andpractice in the field, in improving their teachingskills so that they feel more confident about what
they teach and achieve better results with theirstudents. At the same time, some knowledge suchas subject matter knowledge, pedagogical expertise,and understanding of curriculum and materials canbe gained through workshops and programs fromhigher-level institutes. Therefore, teachers should

be guided to know that some professional
development should go beyond personal andindividual reflection. Fifth, the delivery designs ofEnglish teachers’ professional development shouldemphasize the development of learning experiencesthat are efficient and effective in producing teacher
learning. Surveying the needs for practitioners canresult in better teacher participation and training
effectiveness. In addition, for teachers in remoteelementary schools, the physical location of thein-service training programs and courses should be
convenient for them. As the participants from theinterview suggested, selecting a convenientconvention center for this group of teachers can bea better solution to increase participation rate. Also,
elementary schools in neighboring communities canform an ally and propose the needs for theirlearning; schools can take turns holding the training
programs.
Last, there is no best method of teaching andteachers just need to keep up with the knowledge
and theory and to achieve their professional goal.
Thus, teachers need to develop attitudes, skills, andconfidence to frame their own agendas and to fulfill
their professional goals. Owston (1998) defines
professional development as a continuous,
sustained process centered around the problems
teachers face in the classroom. It must build uponteachers’ knowledge and understanding of theirstudents, and dynamics of their classrooms. Owston
further enhances the definition by emphasizing theneed to move away from a one-size-fits-all
approach and move toward a tailored professional
development program. Such a program would
address the teacher’s background, experiences,
aspirations, and needs. Therefore, this study hopes
to offer some insights for researchers, educators,
and policy makers when designing professional
development activities for English teachers inremote elementary schools as well as elementary
schools nationally and internationally.

6. References
Guskey, T. R. (1995). Professional development ineducation: In search of optimal mix. In T. R.
Guskey & M. Huberman (Eds.), Professional
development in education: New paradigms andpractices (pp. 114-131). New York: Teachers
College Press.
Owston, R. (1998). Making the link: Teacher
professional development on the Internet.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Richards, J. C., & Farrell, T. S. C. (2005).
Professional development for language
teachers: Strategies for teacher learning.
Cambridge University Press.

English Acquisition through NNS-NNS Interaction in EFL
Context
Bok-Myung Chang

Department of English, Namseoul University
bmchang@nsu.ac.kr

Abstract
This study is to investigate the concept and thegoals of Cross-Cultural Distance Learning(henceforth, CCDL) project, and especially toanalyze the data from the Namseoul-Waseda CCDL
Project (henceforth, NWCCDLP). The main
purposes of this study are: the first is to identify theconcept of CCDL, the second is to analyze the datafrom NWCCDLP, and the third is to suggest ways
to utilize CCDLP as a tool for cultivating English
competence for non-native speakers.

Keywords
Cross-Cultural Distance Learning, Non-Native
Speakers, Communicative Competence, English
Acquisition, Interaction
EFL Context

1

Introduction

This work aimed to identify the necessity of thenotion of “World English” and apply this notion to
English education situations. Also this work
concentrated on the NWCCDLP and collected data
thorough the questionnaires from the students who
participated in NWCCDLP from the second
semester, 2005 to the second semester, 2007. From
the data analysis, it can be inferred that we need to
set up a notion of World English in order to help the
young students adjust to the globalized world.
NWCCDLP can play a very essential role inidentifying the world English notion and acquiring
English through NNS-NNS interaction in EFL
contexts.

2

World English Acquisition

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 Ⅱ
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
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.”3

NNS-NNS
CCDL

Interaction

through

From the start of the second semester, 2005,
Namseoul University participated in Namseoul –Waseda Universities Cross-Cultural Distance
Learning Project (NWCCDLP). This project
consists of two parts, one is the video chatting
activities, and the other is a video conferencing
lecture. For the video chatting activities, Namseoul
University students made partners with students
from Waseda University and made an appointment

to meet in cyber space through the “Live On”
program. During this activity, most students fromboth universities met for one hour a week, and they
had to record all their interactions through text chatand submit them as a report for the course.
The video conferencing lecture was based on
the
theme
of
“WorldEnglishesand
Miscommunications,”in
which
Namseoul
Univ.(Korea), Waseda Univ.(Japan), Hudan
Univ.(China),
andHannamUniv.(Korea)
participated every Thursday from 14:40 to 16:10.
Every student must study the lecture in advancethrough an on-demand lecture series on the Web.
During the lecture, every student must participate in
the course by listening and speaking only inEnglish,Through these two parts of NWCCLDP(thevideo chatting activities and the video conferencing
lecture), the students can practice their English
proficiency and experience the cultural difference
and understanding by staying in touch anddiscussing World English with NNS in EFL
contexts. So this project can be judged as a very
useful tool for practicing English, understanding
cultural differences between foreign countries, andestablishing the norm for Asian English as one partof World English. Based on the results of thequestionnaires, it can be concluded that thefollowing are the most important findings from thisresearch. The first thing is that most students werevery impressed with the possibility of being able toget in touch with students and cultures in foreigncountries. The second is that they could develop
their English proficiency through NWCCDLP. The
third is that they wish to participate in NWCCDLP
again if possible, and they think this project
activated the interests in cultural understanding andworld English.

4

Conclusions

1) The first thing is that most students were very
impressed with the possibility of being able to get
in touch with students and cultures in foreigncountries through CCDL program.
2) The second is that they could develop theirEnglish proficiency through CCDL.
3) The third is that they wish to participate in
CCDL program again if possible, and they think
this project activated the interests in cultural
understanding and world English.
4) The results of the questionnaire for theparticipants in NWCCDLP make the point clear that
Korean learners to realize it is more important toparticipate in the discussion and express their ideas
and opinions than being silent until your English
becomes perfect, which never comes after all.

References
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),241-261
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Teachers’ Manual Vol.1,39-46. Tokyo: CCDL
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From Corpus to L2 Vocabulary Curriculum: Some Limitations of a
Data-driven Approach
Arthur McNeill

Department of Education Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University
amcneill@hkbu.edu.hk

Abstract
This paper examines the usefulness of frequency
data about English words when designing a
vocabulary curriculum for schools. It provides therationale, methodology and initial outcomes of acollaborative project conducted with the Hong
Kong Education Bureau (EDB). The project aims todevelop an English vocabulary curriculum for thetwelve years of free education in Hong Kong, witha view to bringing about expansion in students’vocabulary knowledge. The first part of the project
aims to identify the English words which students
might be expected to know by the end of each of
the four Key Stages (Years 3, 6, 9 and 12). Potential
vocabulary items were selected according to theirfrequency of occurrence in the British National
Corpus (BNC) and the General Service List ofEnglish Words (GSL), then subjected to scrutiny byteacher representatives of the four Key Stages.
Each Key Stage was represented by a sample of 70
teachers, all of whom took part in a simple
decision-making task. The teachers rejected far
more of the potential items than was anticipated,which prompted this re-examination of frequency
as a starting point in vocabulary curriculum design.

Keywords
Vocabulary; corpus; curriculum

1.

Introduction

In order to promote higher English vocabulary
targets for Hong Kong school leavers, theEducation Bureau has undertaken a study of the
vocabulary needs of Hong Kong primary andsecondary students, with a view to developing an
English vocabulary curriculum for primary andsecondary education. It was agreed at the outset thatthe four wordlists that would form the basis of the
new curriculum would be compiled with reference
to the following sources: (a) frequency data about
English words, (b) teachers’ views about the mostsuitable vocabulary for their students, and (c) thethemes and topics recommended in the official
Curriculum Guides (CGs). It was assumed that thefrequency of occurrence of English words would bea reasonably good guide as to the order in which
they might be introduced within the new curriculum,with the most frequent words being taught first.
However, although the various multi-million-word
corpora of English provide valuable insights into
vocabulary use by native speakers, for the purposeof compiling wordlists for L2 learners, frequency
information needs to be reconciled withconsiderations such as the age, interests and needsof learners, as well as the usefulness of words
within the learner’s own situation.

Targets and Principles
2.
The immediate aim of the project was to produce an
English wordlist for each of the four Key Stages.
The wordlists would consist of the vocabulary items
which students might be expected to know by thetime they reach the end of the respective Key Stage
(i.e., Primary 3, Primary 6, Secondary 3 andSecondary 6).
2.1
Targets
The 5,000 word threshold identified by Laufer(1992) was taken as the minimum target to bereached by Hong Kong students by the end of
secondary school. While higher targets are desirable
and were considered, it was recognized that 5,000
words represented a substantial increase in
vocabulary size for the majority of students. Since
most school leavers currently know fewer than
3,000 English words (Chui 2005), raising the
vocabulary target to 5,000 represents a genuine
challenge for both students and teachers.
Recent studies of the vocabulary size of educatednative English speakers (e.g. Goulden, Nation andRead, 1990) suggest that they know about 17,000
word families. Estimates of vocabulary size are
generally based on the frequency of occurrence ofindividual words in the language. The Vocabulary
Levels Test (Laufer and Nation, 1999), is widelyused to measure the size of learners’ English
vocabulary and was the main instrument used inChui’s (2005) study of Hong Kong students. The
test is arranged in sections according to frequency.
It is proposed that the target 5,000 words should belearned over a period of twelve years. The first
2,000 words are to be covered by the end of the six
years of primary education, with a further 3,000
words reserved for secondary school. The targets
for the four Key Stages are shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Proposed vocabulary targets by Key StageKS1

Key Stage
Target(no. of words)
1000

Cumulative
Target(no. of words)
1000

KS2

1000

2000

KS3

1500

3500

KS4

1500

5000

2.2
Principles
2.2.1“Knowing” a word
As with all vocabulary studies, the notion“knowing” a word needed to be clarified at theoutset. For the purposes of the present wordlists,
students are expected to recognize the words when
they meet them in written and spoken texts and toknow their meanings. They are not expected to havea full productive command of all of the items.
Traditionally, second language (L2) vocabularyknowledge has been regarded as consisting of two
types: (a) receptive (or ‘passive’) knowledge, wherelearners recognize and understand words when theycome across them, and (b) productive (or ‘active’)knowledge, where learners are able to use words inspeaking and writing, with correct control ofcollocation, register and word-grammar. It is
assumed that, for most learners, receptive
vocabulary is considerably larger than productive
vocabulary. The key considerations within mostapproaches to specifying vocabulary knowledge areform and meaning (e.g. Meara 1990). For the
purposes of the present project, it is proposed thatknowledge of form and meaning should be assumed
for all words included in the lists, as described inTable 2.
Table 2: Word knowledge assumed for each item
Type ofknowledge
Form
Meaning

Details
written and spoken; the most frequentmorphological variations
one meaning introduced at a time;
additional meanings = ‘new’ items

2.2.2

General,academicandtechnical
vocabulary
Selecting the vocabulary for a mainstream English
curriculum required careful consideration of anumber of factors regarding the most appropriate
type of lexis. It was agreed that the target
vocabulary should consist of both general andacademic English words. Since the word lists wereintended to guide only the English curriculum, i.e.
English as a school subject, technical vocabulary
was not included. Students studying at English
medium (EMI) schools have the opportunity toacquire some technical English lexis in their content
courses. However, it is assumed that English as aschool subject will address students’ English
language needs in general and academic contexts.
3.
Frequency as a guiding principle
It can be useful, both for teaching and assessment
purposes, to group English words according to theirlevel of frequency within the language. Suchfrequency data are now readily available from thevarious English language corpora and word lists.
Reference points when selecting items for the Hong
Kong word lists were the British National Corpus(BNC) and A General Service List of English Words(GSL) (West 1953). The latter contains around2,000 word families and is regarded as the classic
list of the 2,000 most useful words for second
language learners. The BNC is a 100 million wordcollection of samples of written and spoken
language from a wide range of sources, designed torepresent a wide cross-section of current British
English, both spoken and written. For details of the
corpus and how it may be used in language
education, see Burnard (1995) and Aston &Burnard (1998). The 4000 most frequent words
from BNC were considered for inclusion in the
Hong Kong lists.
It was also decided to include all 570 items of The
Academic Wordlist (AWL) (Coxhead 2000). This list
consists of non-technical words which occur
frequently across disciplines in academic texts andare considered fundamental to the study of an
English-medium undergraduate degree.

Methodology
4.
4.1
Teacher input
An important element in identifying suitablevocabulary was the input of teachers. It wasrecognized that teachers who are very familiar witha particular Key Stage are possibly the mostvaluable source of expertise concerning the
vocabulary needs of their students. While data from
BNC and GSL provided helpful indications about
the usefulness of words from a frequency

perspective, teachers were believed to be in a better
position to judge the suitability of vocabulary items
in terms of their relevance and accessibility tostudents at different stages of their personal andcognitive development.
A sample of at least 70 teachers from each of thefour Key Stages took part in a decision-making task
which required them to scrutinize potential
vocabulary items, selected on the basis of frequency,
and to say whether they recommended their
inclusion in a word list for the Key Stage they
represented. The teacher decision-making task took
place at the beginning of the compilation of awordlist and provided the base of the list. The KS1teachers were asked to consider the 2000 words of
GSL. Their decisions were then reviewed bymembers of the project team. Items which weregenerally welcomed by the teachers were accepted
for the list, while those which were overwhelmingly
rejected were kept for the decision-making task forteachers from the next Key Stage. A schematic
representation of the vocabulary selection
procedure is shown in Figure 1.
When the project team reviewed the selections
made by the teachers, they referred to the topics andthemes recommended in the Curriculum Guides andsupplemented the selections, where appropriate,with relevant items. Four corpora were also
compiled, one for each Key Stage, based on thelanguage of the most popular approved English
textbooks. When selecting words for a Key Stage,
the project team also referred to the textbook corpus
to check on the vocabulary content of the existingteaching materials.
4.2
Data gathering
The teacher decision-making tasks took the form ofa checklist. Each teacher was given analphabetically arranged list of words and asked toindicate, using the “YES/NO” principle, which of
the words they believed students should know by
the end of the respective Key Stage. For Key Stages
1 and 2, teachers were given the option ofcompleting the task on-line or marking theirdecisions on a hard copy of the checklist. For Key
Stages 3 and 4, the teachers attended a vocabulary
seminar at the University, after which they
undertook the decision-making task in a computerlaboratory. Some focus group discussions were also
held with the teachers, where they had an
opportunity to explain their selections and raiseissues related to the wordlist compilation.

Frequency data
from
GSL/BNC/AWL

Word samples
by frequency

Teachers
select words
for own KS

Initial(incomplete)
wordlist

Textbook
corpusRejected items to
be considered fornext KS

Project teamadd
remaining
items

Topicsfrom
CGs
Completedwordlist

Figure 1: Design of the selection procedure

5.
Data Analysis
The teachers’ decisions were analyzed as follows.
For each of the words on the checklist, a score wascalculated based on the number of teachers who
recommended the word for inclusion. The words
from each task were then rank ordered indescending order according to their scores.
The project team then considered the pattern of
selections made by the teachers and looked, inparticular, at the degree of commonality. In the lightof the pattern of decisions, a cut-off point wasdetermined for accepting words for inclusion in theword list. As a general rule, when an item wasrecommended by 40% and above of the participants,
it was admitted to the word list. The team examined
the teachers’ decisions carefully and made acollective decision about the levels of consensus
and their significance.
Once the words selected by the teachers had been
confirmed for inclusion, the project team set about
the task of supplementing the list, in keeping withthe principles elaborated above, to bring it up to thetarget level set for the Key Stage.

6.
Discussion
Not surprisingly, there was little resistance on thepart of the teachers to accepting GSL words. Thereappears to be little controversy about the usefulnessof the first 2000 English words. However, many of
the items were considered unsuitable for younger
learners and were introduced at higher levels. By
contrast, there was much less enthusiasm for manyof the items which appear at the 3000 and 4000
frequency levels of BNC.
Teachers were often surprised to find so many
prefixes and abbreviations in the corpus.
Abbreviations such as semi, mini, multi, micro, arch,
Euro, poly, and mega are now used as independent
words in modern English. Abbreviations such as MP,
ID, PM, UN and WHO also appear frequently.
Opinions were divided about whether such items
should be part of a Hong Kong wordlist.
The teachers were also struck by the colloquial
character of many of the BNC items. Some
examples are reproduced in Table 3.
Table 3: BNC words judged to be too colloquial
baffle; boo; blob; buck; clobber; fiddle; eve;grumble; grotty; hassle; fuss; tumble; wobble;
potter; dodgy; swap; poke; cop; buzz; whack

Another set of words was widely rejected because
their use was believed to be restricted to UK (seeTable 4).
Table 4: BNC words judged to be “too British”
bobby; dodgy; dole; heck; lass; plonk; posh;
innit; shilling; tuppence; kiddy; owt

7.

Conclusion

The use of the BNC corpus was, at first sight,
attractive because of its spoken component. The
word lists need to contain vocabulary which is usedin spoken as well as written English. However,
because the language is representative ofcontemporary usage in UK, a large number of thewords were considered inappropriate in the S.E.
Asian context because they are possibly restricted
to users of colloquial British English. Consequently,
some editing of the BNC frequency lists was
required before presenting the vocabulary to theteachers. The teachers’ subsequent rejection of somany of the BNC items was disappointing.
However, the exercise impressed upon us the extent
to which the English lexicon is changing and how

different varieties of English represent aninteresting challenge where the compilation of“local” wordlists is concerned.
References
Aston, G. & Burnard, L. (1998) The BNC Handbook.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press(The) British National Corpus, Version 2 (BNC
World) (2001). Distributed by Oxford
University Computing Service on behalf of
BNC Consortium. URL:
http: //www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/
Burnard, L. (ed.) (1995) Users Reference Guide for
the British National Corpus. Oxford: OUCS
Chui, S.Y. (2005) An Investigation of the English
Vocabulary Knowledge of University Students
in Hong Kong. Unpublished M.Phil. thesis.
Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong
Kong
Coxhead, A. (2000) A new Academic Word List.
TESOL Quarterly, 34, 2: 213-238
Goulden, R., Nation, P. & Read, J. (1990) How
large can a receptive vocabulary be? Applied
Linguistics, 11: 341-363
Laufer, B. (1992) How much lexis is necessary forreading comprehension? In Arnaud, P.J.L. andBéjoint, H. (eds.) Vocabulary and Applied
Linguistics. London: Macmillan 126-132
Laufer, B. & Nation, P. (1999) A vocabulary size
test of controlled productive ability. Language
Testing, 16:36-55
Meara, P. (1990) A note on passive vocabulary.
Second Language Research, 6,2: 150-154
West, M. (1953) A General Service List of English
Words, London: Longman, Green & Co.

An Effectively Teaching Reading Using Literary Worksin the EFL Context
Jongbok Lee

School of Education, Mokwon University
jblee@mokwon.ac.kr

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine certain
possibility of teaching English reading
comprehension using literary or narrative texts
for young learners of EFL settings with specialreference to story grammar. Story grammarmeans that all the literary texts have certain
patterns as literary rules such as character,setting, problem, event, conflict, action,
resolution, and theme. In this sense, story
grammar is a pedagogical approach to teachingforeign language using literary texts. By training
story grammar to young beginning readers we
can expect that they can get good appetites forliterary works as reading material. That is
because literary text has much interesting
sensibility in human mind. At last they can begood readers of literary works for their lives

Keywords
story grammar, literary works, teaching reading,
young learners

Introduction
Not only elementary and secondary school students
but even university students lack contact or
exposure to literary works until their English
proficiency reaches an advanced level. However,literary writings not only provide food for the souland stimulate the human sensitivity, but use alanguage each with its own unique style and artistic
sense, and are thus being recognized as very good
linguistic materials in learning a foreign language.
Therefore, foreign language teachers should
encourage their students to come into contact withand read as many literary writings as possible fromthe early stage of language learning, in order to set
the framework for a more refined language use as
well as to help foster their personal character.
The reason that literary texts, despite theirsuperiority as foreign language learning materials,
are not being widely used is that teaching methods
and activities using literary works have not been
sufficiently introduced, not to mention the lack ofsystematic study in this area. Recently, however,there has been active research and practice in othercountries including the United States regarding theteaching of foreign languages based on literary
writings. An example is the reader-response theory,
which is an approach used to understand thepsychological characteristics of the reader as alanguage learner when encountered with a literary
work, stressing the psychological process involved.
Also gaining awareness is the story grammar, which
provides a strategy for cognitive literacy byallowing the reader to go beyond the passive
meaning of the text whereby they are simply
converting the meanings of sentences andparagraphs of a literary text into their mothertongue, to give vitality to the text as if it weremoving dynamically as an organic structure(Ripley & Blair, 1989).
Most literary stories follow a regular patternbased on certain literary rules. Therefore, the use ofliterary works, when accompanied by anunderstanding and training on story grammar, will
enable a more in-depth learning of language. The
purpose of this paper is to seek an effective
teaching-learning method using the story grammar
in the education of English as a foreign language,especially with regard to reading and writing
activities. This paper will therefore focus onunderstanding the story grammar and how it isused.

1. Literature and ELT
There have been broad consideration about
appropriate instructional materials with thedevelopment of the theory of reading
comprehension in English education. Also, inteaching ESL authenticity in texts and activities. As
a result, a large number of ESL programs are using
authentic literary works from the beginning stage ofthe study as well as to adult learning programs.
Literary works provides benefits to learners such as
creative thinking skills, lots of vocabulary,
performing risk taking using target language(McKay, 1982; Preston, 1982; Povey, 1972; Spack,1985; McConochie, 1985).
Literary texts make learners opportunity to be
exposed to authentic language materials through thechance to use it in contextualized situations. So, it
plays a dynamic role in understanding andfunctioning the language to the learners. Students
can develope their linguistic ability associating
more abstract area through reading literary texts（Brumfit & Carter, 1991).
Moreover, reading, literature enables learners
to develope reading proficiency both in intensive
reading and reading for fun(Constantino, 1994;
Krashen, 1989; McKay, 1982). Once Grammartranslation method was popular with approaching togreat literary works of the target culture as a goal of
language learning. After then, theoretical base to theliterary text in reading bound for functional
approach. Literary texts should be taught withdifferent approach to change instructional goals inreading literature(Harper, 1988).
Akyel and Yalcin(1990) insists that EFL
teachers make their students exposed to literature toachieve their linguistic and cultural goals and todevelope their literary ability. However, there aremany teachers who have much anxiety in dealing
with literary text in oral and written competency interms of methods and techniques. Moreover someteachers would think that literary text is not good todevelope students' language proficiency. Still many
students show their attitude in believing that literarytext can be a good connection to their foreign
language proficiency. Some students who havegreat English proficiency regard using literaryworks as a positive way. On the other hand, many
students think of literary works as too long to readand difficult to understand（Liaw, 2001).
According to Martin and Lauri(1993), some
EFL students feel that reading literature isn't helpful
to achieve their fundamental goals. When they
approach reading literary works they use for their
special purposes such as vocabulary items,
grammatical functions, and useful idioms, orreading aloud to practice pronunciation. Thistendency was applied in the approach for rotememory in linguistic device（Harper, 1988; Ryder,1986).
Therefore even good literary works can be justlinguistic data to the non literary learners. Because
language and culture could be waned in the processof creating literature(Cook, 1991). Main conflict in
the use of literary work can be raised when they
don't have clear reason to use that material or didn't
use appropriate methodology. Nevertheless, using
literary works in modern language education
provide authentic, meaningful contexts and creative
thinking skills. As a result, it will be helpful toimagination and emotional development as well as

good linguistic experience.

2. Story Grammar and Reading
Comprehension
Story grammar is a study on the interactive
conceptualization of reading. It is based on theconceptualization whereby the reader becomes
consciously aware of the text structure. According
to this conceptualization, reading comprehension isa process of mutual interactions or mutual exchangeof transactions or thoughts between the reader andthe text (Harris & Hodges, 1995).
A literary text not only acts on the humancognitive function but also appeals to the affective
aspect so that it has a lasting effect on the reader’smind. When the reader learns to enjoy reading aforeign language engraving the text in his or her
mind, its effect will also last through his or her life.
When using a text with such affective value inlinguistic learning, a strategic study is needed inorder to understand the characteristics and uniquestructure of the text.
Study results show that teaching learners astrategy that focuses on the text structure not only
strengthens their understanding of the text but also
improves their ability to remember the information
provided by the text (Taylor & Beach, 1984;
Berkowiz, 1986). Therefore, learners need to learn
how to read different texts. Also, they should learn
different strategies depending on the type of the text
(Beach & Appleman, 1984).
Cooper (1986) presents a concise concept ofstory grammar. According to his model, a story
consists of several different episodes, each of which
includes a setting, characters, events, actions, and aconclusion of the events.
The instruction of story grammar starts with
explicitly providing the concept of story grammar
including the setting, characters, events, actions,conclusion, and theme. A strategy that can be usedby the teacher is to distinguish the story intomeaningful episodes, develop questions to promote
understanding, and guide the silent reading anddiscussions. These questions can help students
focus on the relevant elements of the story. The
results of the study indicate that questions focusedon the story flow help learners to improve theirunderstanding of the story (Beck, 1984; Leu &Kinzer, 1995).
Amer(1992) studied the effects of story
grammar with 6th grade EFL students inunderstanding a descriptive text. The results of thestudy showed that having direct guidance on story
grammar helped the EFL students identify the flowof the episodes in the story as well as understandthe meta-structure of the story. The students
developed a mental representation of the story, orthe story schema, which helped them concentrateon the central theme and remove any unnecessary
details.

3. Reading Instruction Using Story
Grammar
The problem one runs into when trying to use
literary works with beginner-level English learners
is that such learners tend to feel that literary
writings are difficult, mainly due to their sentences,sentence structures, vocabulary, and culturaldifferences (Bernhardt, 1991).
To try to overcome such grammatical, lexicaland cultural difficulties simply by superficial
understanding of the text is bound to have
limitations. Given such unique characteristics ofliterary works, the use of story grammar can beeffective as a top-down approach to learning ofreading.
In order to effectively explain story grammar,
the teacher may use a visual or graphic
representation. The visual or graphic representationof a text structure helps the learners understand andremember important information about the text.
Furthermore, when they learn how to build and use
a visual or graphic representation, they will know
which parts of the text are important and how theideal and concept are interrelated, thereby learning
the strategy of reading (Vacca & Vacca, 1999).
Figure 1. Story Map
Characters

Figure 2. Character Map
Trait of Character:
Trait of the character1:
Trait of the character2:
Trait of the character3:_____________________________________________

A variant of the story map is the story frame,
which can be used as a post-reading activity to test
whether the students understand the story grammar.
The story frame focuses on the story structure
rather than on the specific contents Cudd &Roberts, 1987), and adopts the process of filling
the gaps. Rather than just taking out one word froma sentence, it picks out a key phrase or clause froma paragraph to emphasize the important aspects ofthe story or to summarize the story. Fig. 3 is an
example of a story frame (Fowleer, 1982).
Figure 3. Story Frame (Fowleer, 1982)
In this story, the problem starts when_________.
After that_________________________________.
Next,____________________________________.
Then,____________________________________.
The problem ends with______________________.
The use of visual tools such as an OHP or beam
projector is very helpful in story mapping. These
tools can help with metacognitive recognition of thestory elements within a text.
The following shows a typical set of story
mapping procedures that may be used in an EFL
class:

Setting

Problems

EventsProblem solving

Theme or lesson

The representative tools of story grammar are
the character map (Fig.2) and the story map (Fig. 1),
which comprise the two representative formats usedfor visual representation of a story’s key ingredients(Willis, 2002).

1) Select the text that includes the essential
elements for a story map.
2) For beginners, the teacher should read the text
aloud. While the students are filling in appropriate
information in the story map, stop at key points todiscuss the information.
3) The teacher may ask questions relevant to thestory map to emphasize the key elements of thestory.
4) Specific questions on the story map elements
may lead to specific questions on the contents.
5) As the students’ level of understanding increases,
a less structured story may be introduced toenhance their critical thinking capability.
6) The students may be advised to use the story
mapping format for writing their own stories.

4. Conclusion
Story grammar is a suitable learning method forbeginner-level language learners such as elementary
school students. It is originally a strategy forcognitive literacy used in the learning of reading in
the native language, and is generally known to be
useful when applied to beginner-level foreignlanguage learners. As discussed above, story
grammar aims to improve the reading
comprehension by providing the learners with thestory framework when they are reading the story.
Although the use of story grammar is likely tohave many limitations in situations like ours where
English is learned as a foreign language, if wedevelop teaching-learning models and pursue
teaching methods more proactively, it will surely
help improve the reading ability as well as provide
learners with a rich cultural experience from theearly stage of learning a foreign language.
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Narrative Poem in a College-Level ESOL Class”.
TESOL Quarterly, 19, (1985): 125-136.
McKay, S. “Literature in the ESL Classroom”. TESOL
Quarterly, 16, (1982): 529-536.
Povey, J. “Literature in TESL program: The Language
and the Culture”. In H. Allen & R. Campbell (Eds.),
Teaching English as a Second Language. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1972.
Preston, W. “Poetry Ideas in Teaching Literature andWriting to Foreign Students”. TESOL Quarterly, 16,(1982): 489-502.
Ripley, W. and T. Blair.(1989). Reading diagnoses
and remediation, Merril Publiching Company.
Ryder, F. "Surf and Turf: How Not to Get Washed Awayby the Tide: How to Hold Our Ground in
Literature". ADFL Bulletin, 17, (1986): 31-34.
Spack, R. "Literature, Reading, Writing, and the ESL
Student". TESOL Quarterly, 19, (1985): 703-725.
Taylor, M. and R. Beach (1984). ‘The effects oftext structure instruction on middle-gradestudents’ comprehension and production of
expository text’. Reading Research Quarterly,
19, 134- 146.

The Interlanguage of Thai Undergraduate Students Majoring in English:
The Use of Verb Phrase
Suthida Soontornwipat
Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University
Suthida_6@hotmail.com

Abstract
This study investigates the use of verb phrases in theinterlanguage of Thai undergraduate students
majoring in English. This study is a combination ofcross-sectional and longitudinal interlanguage study.
The data was collected from ten writing assignmentsof 2 groups of students with different proficiency
levels, the high and the low over a period of one
academic year. The results show that the high andlow proficiency groups use verb phrases with noun
complements (V+NP) more than verb phrases withverb complements (V+VP). This may due to thesimilarity of the syntactic patterns in Thai andEnglish in the use of the former type of verb phrase.
There are more deviant forms in the use of verb
phrases with verb complements in both groups. This
may due to the differences in the use of verb phrases
with verb complements in the two languages. The
study also investigates the developmental aspect of
the interlanguage of the students in the two groups.
The interlanguage feature that is commonly found in
the two groups is the unstable or the spiral feature. It
can be divided into two types. The first spiralfeature is the unstable feature where the problem
exists at the beginning but the learners acquire theproblematic syntactic feature in the target language
towards the end. The second spiral feature is theunstable feature where the problematic featureexists throughout the processes of learning. Thisspiral feature exhibits the transitional stage of thelearners’ linguistic competence in their L2
acquisition.

Keywords
interlanguage, verb phrase, spiral feature,developmental aspect1.

target language but instead this language systemfalls between the two; it is a system based upon thebest attempt of each learner to produce the target
language based on their own state of development.
The system that a learner constructs on his way tothe mastery of a target language have been variously
referred to as ‘idiosyncratic dialect’ (Corder,1971),‘approximative system’ (Nemser,1971), and‘interlanguage’ (Selinker,1972). Selinker proposed
the term ‘interlanguage’ or IL to refer to thesystematic knowledge of an L2, which is
independent of both the learner’s L1 and the target
language. Selinker (1988:29-32) also argues that
there are five principal processes involved inlearners’ interlanguage, i.e., language transfer,transfer of training, strategies of second language
learning,
strategies
ofsecondlanguagecommunication, and overgeneralization of the target
language. Moreover, the learners’ interlanguage
may be fossilized. Fossilization is a phenomenon inwhich language learners may ‘tend to keep in theirinterlanguage relative to a particular target language
no matter what the age of the learners are how much
explanation and instruction they receive in the target
language’ (Selinker, 1988:28). In Thailand, there arestudies about Thai learners’ language. Most of thestudies focus on learners’ errors (Pongpairoj 2002;
Suwattananand, Engchuan, and Soranastaporn2005). This study attempts to explore the learners’
problems within the IL theoretical framework. The
3 main objectives are (a) to examine the use of verb
phrases of Thai undergraduate students majoring in
English with two different proficiency levels, (b) tofind out the strategies influencing theirinterlanguage, and (c) to investigate theirdevelopmental aspect in the use of verb phrases inEnglish.

Introduction

In language learning, learners create an
approximative language system between their L1and L2, known as an interlanguage. Learners’
interlanguage provides important insights into theprocess of second language acquisition. It indicatesthat learning activity is taking place in the learners,
and also shows us that the learner is developing on
his or her way toward the target language. Learners
form their own linguistic system. This is neither thesystem of the native language nor the system of the2.

Methodology

2.1
Subjects
The subjects in this study are 30 students selectedfrom 120 first year students of the Faculty of Liberal
Arts, Huachiew Chalermprakiet University. All ofthem were asked to take the HCU entrance
examination. Based on their HCU scores, the 30
highest scored students and 30 lowest scoredstudents were selected in the first round. These 60
students were asked to take CU TEP

(Chulalongkorn University Test of English
Proficiency). Out of these 60 students, 30 students
were selected according to CU TEP scores. Fifteen
students with highest English proficiency score are
selected as the high group, and 15 students withlowest English proficiency score are selected as the
low group. The students in the high proficiency
group obtained an average score of 463 (497-434) inthe CU TEP equaling to TOEFL scores, and thestudents in the low proficiency group obtained anaverage score of 413 (428-380). The interlanguage
corpus was built from the ten writing assignments
given to these two groups of students during one
academic year. The total number of the written
assignments with ten different topics is 300 piecesof essay: 150 for the high group and 150 for the lowgroup.

2.2

Data Analysis

In analyzing the data, the papers were read.
Mistakes and errors or deviant forms of each subject
were identified. Both the target–like forms anddeviant forms in the use of verb phrase found ineach subject from assignment 1 to 10 were recorded
in order to investigate the developmental aspect of
the interlanguage of the students in the two groups.
The causes of each deviant form were also
explained.

3.

Results

3.1
The use of verb phrases
There are totally 1,645 verb phrase usages found in
the written work of the high and low proficiency
groups: 972 found in the high proficiency group and673 found in the low proficiency group. This paper
will discuss only the problems in terms of thesyntactic structure of the verb phrases. Others
problem in terms of tenses, subject verb agreement,
and others will not be discussed here.
The use of verb phrases found in the data is of
2 types (1) the use of verb with noun phrase
complement (V+NP) and the use of verb with verb
phrase complement (V+VP) (Jacobs andRosenbaum, 1968: 193-198). The high and low
proficiency groups produced both target-like forms(TL) and deviant forms (DV) in both types of verb
phrase. Table 1 exhibits the number of verb phrases
with noun phrase complements and the number ofverb phrases with verb complements in the high andlow proficiency groups. The total numbers of verb
phrase usages of the two groups are also given.

Table 1: Number of verb phrase usages in the highand low proficiency groups
V+ NP

High
(TL)

807
(95%)

(DV)

44
(11%)
537
(94%)

Low
(TL)
(DV)

32
(6%)

Total
851
(88%)

Total
569
(85%)

V+ VP
complements

Total
VP

Total
121
(12%)

972

110
(91%)
11
(9%)
83
(80%)

Total
104
(15%)

(100%)

673(100%)

21(20%)

Table 1 above shows that both groups of subjects
use verb phrases with noun phrase complements(V+NP) more than verb phrases with verb phrase
complements (V+VP). The students in the highproficiency group account for 851 (88 %) V+NP
and 121 (12%) V+VP in their writings, while thestudents in the low proficiency group account for
569 (85%) V+NP and 104 (15%) V+VP in theirwritings. This may due to the similarity of thesyntactic patterns in Thai and English in the useof the V+NP verb phrase that facilitates thestudent use of their verb phrase constructions.
In terms of deviant forms it is interesting to findthat the high group makes more DV in V+NP
than the low group, but the low group makes
more DV in V+VP than the high group. This
will be discussed below.
3.1.1
The use of verbs with noun phrases
The high and low proficiency groups use V+NP
more than V+VP may due to the similar syntactic
patterns in the use of verbs with noun phrases inThai and English. For example, in Thai, we say/khawR-he kinM-eat khawF-rice/ ‘He eats rice’ asin English. However, it was found that deviant
forms of V+NP both in the high and low proficient
students are the same. There is an insertion of V to
be in front the verb, e.g., ‘Some people are like Thai
food’ or ‘She is want some money’. The insertion ofverb to be shows that Thai students have
hypothesized false concepts regarding certain rules
for forming the simple present tense because all thedeviant forms found in the corpus are in the simple
present tense. These DVs are also higher in the highgroup than the low group.
3.1.2

The use of verbs with verb phrase
complements
Verb phrases with verb complements in Thai aremostly ‘v+v’ or serial verb constructions whereas inEnglish the verb phrase constructions arecomplicating especially the use of verbs with verb
phrase complements. In English, verb phrase
complements are determined by each lexical verb.
Some verbs like ‘enjoy’ and ‘practice’ are followedby ‘ing’ complements. Some verbs like ‘want’ and‘decide’ are followed by ‘infinitive with to’complements whereas the verb ‘help’ is always
followed by ‘infinitive without to’ complement. So,
the verb phrase complements can be divided into
three types: ‘ing’ complements, ‘to’ infinitive
complements, and infinitive without ‘to’complements.
From the data, it is found that the students in
the high and low proficiency groups have problems
in the use of verbs with ‘ing’ complements, and ‘to’complements. The DV of verb with infinitive
without ‘to’ complement is not found in the data. In
the use of verbs with ‘ing’ complements, the highproficiency group also has no DVs whereas the lowgroup produces both target-like and deviant forms.
For the deviant form, the low proficiency group uses
‘to’ infinitive after the verb ‘enjoy’ which takes
only ‘ing’ complement like * I enjoy to learn. The
deviant form shows that the verbal complement inEnglish is quite complex to Thai learners becausesome lexical verbs take only ‘ing’ complements
whereas some take ‘to’ infinitive complements. So,
the low group tries to over- generalize the usage of‘to’ infinitive complements as a default form evenwith the verbs taking only the ‘ing’ complements.
In the use of verbs with ‘to’ infinitive
complement, there are also some deviations. The
deviant forms found in the data of both groups are(1) the use of ‘to’ infinitive in past tense such as*When I was 13 years old, I applied to studied at
Sakonrajwittayanukul., (2) the use of ‘v+v’
construction such as *I like make juice , and the useof ‘ing’ complement after ‘to’ such as like * I lovethe sea, I like to swimming.
The use of ‘to’ infinitive in past tense wasfound only in the high group. This should be theeffect from over - generalization. Thai does not
express time and tense in the verb forms. There is
only one verb form for each verb (Luksaneeyanawin,2005). So, most Thai students attempting to betarget like will mark past tense to every verb eventhough some are in non-finite complements.
The use of ‘v+v’ is found in both the high andthe low group. This deviant form can be explainedin terms of the first language transfer because theverb phrase constructions in Thai are mostly ‘v+v’
constructions.
The use of ‘ing’ complement after ‘to’ is also
found in both groups. This deviant pattern showsthat Thai students are confused verb complements in
English so they produce a form which combine both‘to’ infinitive and ‘ing’ complement to form theconstruction.
3.2

The developmental aspect in the use ofverb phrases
This study also investigates the developmental
aspect of the interlanguage in the use of verb phrase
constructions in both groups of students. Theinterlanguage features found in both groups are theunstable or the spiral features. The spiral features
are divided into two types. The first spiral feature is
the unstable feature where the problem exists at the
beginning but finally the learners acquire theproblematic syntactic feature in the target language.
The second spiral feature is the unstable feature
where the problematic feature exists throughout one
year of learning. The first spiral feature is found inboth groups but more in the high group showing theeffect of their development to overcome theirproblematic syntactic features in the target language.
The second spiral feature is found only in the lowgroup showing that the problems may be fossilized.
More supplementary exercises may help them toovercome their problems and it is recommended forfurther research.

4.

Discussion and conclusion

It can be concluded that language learners’
problems are idiosyncratic hindering their language
development. The English verb phrase is quite
complex to Thai learners. The results show that thehigh and low proficiency students use verbs withnoun phrases in their writing more than verb phrase
complements, 88/12% in the high group and85/15% in the low group. This may due to thesimilarity of V+NP construction in the two
languages. It seems the use of V+VP in English is
problematic to Thai students as exhibited by a small
number of uses in their writings and the persistingof problems over the whole year of this research.
This may due to the fact that verb phrase
complements in English are determined by eachlexical verb and it is not rule governed. The
problems found in this study can be explained interms of L1 transfer, overgeneralization and false
concept hypothesis. L1 transfer is one of theimportant factors shaping learners’ interlanguage.
Lado (1957:1-2) posited that ‘individuals tend totransfer the forms and meanings of their native
language and culture to the foreign language andculture when attempting to speak the language andto act in the culture, and respectively whenattempting to grasp and understand the language
and the culture as practiced by natives’. Anotherfactor involving in learners’ interlanguage isovergeneralization, i.e., ‘when learners overgeneralize some grammatical rules, they tend toextend the rule beyond what is accepted in the target
language’ (Richards and Schmidt, 2002:380 cited in
Samana, 2005). False concepts hypotheses also
occur during language learning processes. It isfound that Thai students also hypothesize false
concepts in using the simple present tense. They
always insert ‘be’ before the base form of the verbs
to form the simple present tense.
The developmental aspect of interlanguage
features in this study exhibits the unstable or the
spiral features which are divided into two types. The
first spiral feature is the unstable feature where theproblem exists at the beginning but finally thelearners acquire the problematic syntactic feature in
the target language. This is found in both groups but
more in the high group. The second spiral feature is
the unstable feature where the problematic featureexists throughout the one year period of this study.
This fossilized feature is found only in the lowgroup. The analyses of the target like (TL) anddeviant (DV) forms in the learners’ interlanguage
give us a much more complete picture of thelearner’s grammar. It helps the teachers to focus on
the real problems of each student so that they canmake their students aware of the problems and assist
them with supplementary exercises and otherremedies. It is suggested that the study can also use
the analyses as the feedback to help the students tomonitor their own language development.

5.

References

Corder, S.P. (1971). Idiosyncratic Dialects andError
Analysis. International Review of Applied
Linguistics 9.
Jacob,R.A., and Rosenbaum,P.S. 1968. English
Transformational Grammar. Massachusettes:
Blaisdell.
Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics Across Cultures:
Applied Linguistics for Language Teachers.
1-2. Ann Arbor,: University of Michigan.
Nemser, W. (1971). Approximative Systems offoreign Language Learners. IRAL 9: 115-123.
Pongpairoj,N. (2002). Thai University
Undergraduates’ Errors in English Writing.
Journal Language and Linguistics.20: 66-96.
Samana,W. (2005). An Analysis of Interlanguage ofComplement Usages in Thai University
Students. MA. Thesis.EIL Graduate Program
Graduate School, Chulalongkorn University.
Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. International
Review of Applied Linguistics 10.
Selinker, L. (1988).Paper in interlanguage.In
SEAMEO Occasional papers N0.44. 28,2932.Singapore: Regional Language Centre.
Suwattananand,N.,Engchuan,S.,and
Soranastaporn,S.(2005).Error Analysis ofEnglish Learning Journals of Engineering
Students. Thoughts. 2005.Bangkok: TCG
Printing Co., LTD. 99-113.

WebsiteLuksaneeyanawin, S. (2005) www.waseda
jp/ocw/Asian Studies/9A-77 World
English Fall/.

The Gap between Commercial Textbooks and Children’s
Cognitive Development
Naomi Kakihara

Graduate School of Education, Waseda University
Cfe73260@syd.odn.ne.jp

Abstract
Although teaching English to children is still
controversy in Japan, many primary students arelearning English in various classes. It means thatvarious materials are being used based on different
syllabi. In this paper we focus on writing to
examine what an appropriate goal of writing foryoung learners.

Keywords
children, writing, cognitive development

Introduction
Now English is not a compulsory subject in public
primary schools, those who are exposed to English
in primary schools do not use any authorized
textbooks of English However, various textbooks
for young learners of English are available inordinary bookstores because English has beentaught not only in some private primary schools but
in various after school classes for a long time.
Generally those textbooks are large-sized, colorfuland picture-oriented to attract children’s help
students practice more. One of the problems may bethat publishers and /or textbook writers try to
exercise children in writing based on the content ofwhat students learn orally. The question is whether
or not children can write sentences soon after they
can say.

1

Review of Literature
T Piaget (1970) examines the experimental
facts and claims that there exists laws ofdevelopment and that development follows asequential order such that each of its stages isnecessary to the construction of the next.
Necessary factors are maturation, experience ofthe physical environment, the action of thesocial environment and equilibration. (p.719).
As far as learning, Nakagaki (1982)
describes that learning is one ofseven
cognition forms (maturation, perception,

spontaneous understanding, learning, induction,equilibration and deduction) based on Piaget’s
theory. Thus, teachers are supposed to knowthat students do not always learn what teachers
teach.
According to Okumura (1991), writing isclassified into three steps: (1) copying (2)controlled writing (3) free composition. The firststep of copying starts from the alphabet to words,
sentences and passages. When students copy
sentences, they are supposed to pay attention tosome rules of sentences such as beginning with acapital letter, putting a period and so forth. These
claims bring a question how EFL young learners
can write English.

2

Workbooks

We try to look at the two different textbooks. They
are the first ones of the series. Initial sentences ofthem are similar. They are “Hello! How are you?
I’m… “ and “Hello, I’m …” With those textbooks,
students are supposed to use Workbook A (hereafterA) and Activity sheet B (hereafter B) to practice
more.
Table 1: Excerpt from the materials
A(Unit 4 TEST)
・Look and write
1. (pen)2.(ruler)3.(book)・Look and write
1. (Yes, it is.)2. (Is it a) ruler?
(No, it isn’t.)
It’s ( an eraser.)(Is it a) pencil?
(Yes, it is.)B (Final Test)
・Listen and write.
[f j o p w]
1 m(..)p2 (..).ig
3 ( ..) an4( ..) am
5 (..) en

Table 1 is an excerpt from the parts that students are
required to write letters. A letter, a word or asentence should be written in parentheses. While A
requires that students spell the target words andwrite sentences, B’s goal of the textbook seems to
be much easier than A. Why do they differ? How
can we interpret them?

3

Writing

We try to examine the results of three different age
groups.
3.1
Subjects
Three groups of primary students responded A (Unit
4 TEST). The 6th group has five students who are 6th
graders. They voluntarily participated. The 4,5th
group has five students who are one 5th grader andfour 4th graders. They tried to respond in class.
3.2
ScoresWhen students could write an initial letter, a middle
letter or an ending letter of “pen” and “ruler”, theyearn one point. A perfect score is three. (Figure 1
and Figure 2) In writing a sentence, right word isworth one point and half point is given to eachcomma and period. (Figure 3).

Figure 1. pencorrectly. All 4th and 5th graders can is tomatch a sound with a letter. Above all, 4thgraders tried the test before, however, they
don’t seem to recognize some rules ofsentences even though they can respond thesame questions orally. In this respect,copying seems to be an appropriate activity
for them.
Despite this, 6th graders do not seem to bedifficult to write a word and a sentence. Two
possible factors to interpret it are length oflearning and age. All of the 6th groupmembers are exposed to English for someyears and took specific lessons to write. They
said they had not practiced writing
specifically before the lessons.
In thisrespect, the argument of Lightbown &Spada( 2001) that older children (for example,
10-year olds) are able to catch up very quickly
on those who began earlier (for example, at 6 or
7 years old) in programs offering only a few
hours a week of instruction seems to beplausible.
In addition, age factor is closely related withhuman’s cognitive development. Around 11, 12
years old are crucial ages. According to Piaget’s
theory, children can gradually make a deduction
from that time. Therefore, they may apply somerules of sentences and write correctly. Therefore、
we have to pay more attention to what children can
do and what children can not.

5

Figure 2. ruler

Figure 1. Yes it is4

Discussion

Cameron (2001) discusses how young
learners learn languages and argues that thelevel of the language that pupils write willlag slightly behind the level that they are
comfortable with in speaking and listening.
Figure 1,2 and 3 indicate that younger
students cannot spell even familiar words

Implication

We do not intend to emphasize the importance ofcognitive development. too much. In spending solong on writing patterns and bits of letter shapes,
they were missing out on the more holistic
experiences that also help children understand the
purpose of writing as communication. (Cameron,
2001, p.4) Teachers may not always choose the bestmaterials. If so, teachers are possible to add and/or
except something. To observe students carefully andto know some theories on children’s development
may lead to appropriate instruction on writing in
English.
References
Cameron, L (2001). Teaching Languages toYoung Learners. Cambridge: CUP.
Lightbown, P, & Spada, N.(2001) How Languages
Learned. Oxford: OUP
Piaget, J. (1970). Piaget’s Theory. P.H.Mussen(Ed.).
Carmichael's
manualofchild
psychology(3rd New York: John Wiley &Sons. ed.):Vol. 1, 703-732.

Malaysian English: What Makes It So?
Rajeswary A. Sargunan and Asha Doshi

Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya
rajesapp@um.edu.my, adoshi@um.edu.my

Abstract
Since the 1980s, research and discussion on theexistence of a Malaysian variety of English has
been recorded. The idea that a Malaysian variety ofEnglish now exists is increasingly being acceptedby all concerned with the issue of language andlinguistics, especially in South-east Asia. It waswith the aim of understanding this phenomenon
better that the Malaysian Corpus of Learner English(MACLE) project was launched at the University of
Malaya. To data, about 800,000 words have been
accumulated on the data-base, comprising essays ofmore than 500 words written by undergraduatesfrom several faculties at the University. In thispaper, I analyse a selection of this corpus todiscover the extent to which the language used by
the learners is different from Standard English interms of structure and meaning. The selection
comprises about 50,000 words written byundergraduates reading for law at the University of
Malaya. A discourse analysis approach is used toanalyze the texts, and variables such as ethnicity
and gender are taken into consideration. We attempt
to discover if there are any patterns of use that
identify features of Malaysian English.

Keywords
Malaysian English; Varieties of English

Introduction
The scene with regard to the English language in
Malaysia is one that is highly ambiguous andvacillating, a situation that proves to be extremely
challenging for anyone attempting to describe its
position or identify its form and function.
Nonetheless, it is advisable to pause at times toview the issue of whether the language as it is usedin this country now can be hailed as a Malaysianvariety (I do not think we can claim that it is‘standard English’!); we should at least stop to takestock of the language as it used here in terms of
seeing whether there are any identifiable patterns ofuse that are distinctly Malaysian. This is not merely
for purposes of nomenclature, but because of theneed to establish whether there is sufficient‘permanence’ or ‘homogeneity’ (Ferguson, 1971:30) in the language / dialect / variety in order topermit its being accepted with no inhibitions by theteaching and academic community in the country(these being the unofficial gatekeepers of whether
the code used by a person is recommended or atleast permissible!). It is thus the aim of this study toinvestigate the use of English in this country to see
if there are patterns of use that can be identified,and if there exists enough support to declare that
there is a Malaysian variety of English.
The paper is divided into the following sections: a
discussion of the concept of variety, and theexisting notions on there being a variety of
Malaysian English; the research methodology(including the corpus) employed in this study; and a
description and analysis of the use of English.

Varieties of English
1
There have been numerous definitions of varieties:
Ferguson (1971:30) in Wardough (1992:23) definesvariety as ‘any body of human speech patterns
which is sufficiently homogeneous to be analysedby available techniques of synchronic description
and which has a sufficiently large repertory ofelements and their arrangements or processes withbroad enough semantic scope to function in all
formal contexts of communication’ (italics mine). In
this context, ‘human speech patterns’ can comprisephonetic, phonological, grammatical, syntactic andsemantic features.
Hymes (1974:123) adds to this definition bybringing to attention that language boundaries
between communities are based on much more thanlinguistic
elements:
attitudes
andsocialrelationships also have a strong bearing on these(boundaries).
…Any enduring social relationship or group may
come to define itself by selection and/or creation of
linguistic features, and a difference of accent may
be as important at one boundary as a difference ofgrammar at another. Part of the creativity of users
of a language lies in the freedom to determine what
and how much linguistic difference matters…

In summary, and simply, when a code ofcommunication exhibits sufficient homogeneity inits patterns of use and is socially accepted in formal
contexts of communication, it can be classified as alanguage variety.

2

Malaysian Variety of English

According to The Encyclopedia of Malaysia:
Languages & Literature (2004:61), English in
Malaysia has been categorized into three levels: theacrolect, mesolect and basilect. The acrolect is nearnative, and not many Malaysians fall into thiscategory - only those educated in core Englishspeaking countries from early schooling up to
university may be found to speak the acrolectvariety, so only tiny percentage of Malaysians are
proficient in it. As with other similar situations, acontinuum exists between these three varieties andspeakers may code-switch between them depending
on context. Most academicians, professionals andother English-educated Malaysians, speak mesolectEnglish. Malaysian English belongs to mesolect,and it is Malaysian English that is used in dailyinteraction.
Malaysian English should not be confused with
Malaysian Colloquial English which is famously
known as Manglish or Street English, a
portmanteau of the word Malay and English
although mostly spoken by the non-Malays.
As has been stated earlier in the definition, there
are linguistic features that are peculiar to MalaysianEnglish in terms of spelling, vocabulary, phonology
and syntax, some of which have been identified inrelated research. Basically, some of the features ofMlaysian English that have been identified are:

It has components of American English, Malay,
Chinese, Indian, and other languages:
vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar.
The /t/ phoneme in words like butter is usually
not flapped (as in most forms of American
English) or realised as a glottal stop (as insomeother forms of British English,
including Cockney).

Malaysian English has also created its own
vocabulary just like any other former Britishcolonies such as Australia and New Zealand andthese words come from a variety of influences.
Typically, for words or phrases that are based onother English words, the Malaysian English speaker
may be unaware that the word or phrase is notpresent in British or American English.
Most Malaysians are adept at switching from
Manglish and Malaysian English, but are
sometimes unclear as to the differences between

Malaysian English and SABE (Standard AmericanBritish English).
As can be seen, most of the work has been done in
the area of pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary,
there is a paucity of work done in the area of syntax
and analysis at the level of discourse. This is one of
the shortcomings that the present study hopes toalleviate.

3

Research Method

This study examines a corpus of about 50,000
words that form part of a larger corpus on learner
English in Malaysia. The words have been
produced by undergraduates at the Faculty of Law,
and comprise about 100 essays of more than 500
words each written on ten topics (see Appendix A).
N-Vivo software will be used to code and analyse
the data according to the linguistic features thatappear in these essays. Language errors will not betaken into consideration: these are considered to beirrelevant to the patterns of use that are exhibited.
The data will be categorised according to the typeof linguistic features. A Malaysian variety will be
determined by whether or not a particular instanceof language use conforms to the ‘standard’. The‘standard’ in this case will be the language(English) as found in the major current dictionaries
and language teaching materials produced byestablished international publishers.

4

Data Analysis

Some examples of Malaysian English:








In my opinion, I think…
Let us think together
Most university degrees are theoretical…
Whether you agree or not with the issue
above…
There are further explanations about it…
Study skills are the most important things
when you are n the learning process…
In the courses they take…

These will eventually be categorised according to
the aspect of language they fall into.
References
Asmah
Haji
Omar
(editor)(2004).The
Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Languages &Literature
Platt, J.T. & H.Weber. (1980). English in Singapore
and Malaysia: Status, Features, Function.
Kuala Lumpur: OUP.
Wardhaugh, R. (1992). An Introduction toSociolinguistics.
(Second
Edition).
Blackwell.

Lexicalization by Malaysian Learners of English as a Second
Language
Asha Doshi and Rajeswary A. Sargunan

Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya
adoshi@um.edu.my, rajesapp@um.edu.my

Abstract
Word-formation contributes a large number oflexical items to a language and it is a manifestationof a very essential aspect of language, that ofproductivity. In the early stages of language
learning, learners are likely to adhere to norms ofword-formation, producing familiar and regular
lexical items of the language. In due course, having
internalized the processes, learners extend theirapplication in the formation of words.
This study investigates the phenomenon oflexicalization among university undergraduates intheir English essays. A sample of 50,000-100,000
words is analyzed to study the processes ofinflection and derivation of nouns and verbs inessays written by learners of English at the tertiarylevel. The various methods employed by thelearners for the noun and verb forms in the essays
are classified. In addition, nonce formations (asopposed to institutionalized forms), i.e. word forms
coined by learners “on the spur of the moment tocover some immediate use” (Bauer, 1987: 45)
applying English affixation rules will be analyzed.
The findings from the study will contribute to abetter understanding of the challenges faced bylearners of English as a second language.

Keywords
Lexicalization, derivation, inflection

Introduction
In its simplest sense lexicalization is a kind ofword-formation, where “something or somemeaning” becomes a lexical item. Traditionally,studies on word-formation have focused on existinglexemes found in dictionaries, on productive
patterns and regularities of word-formation. Ad hocor nonce-formations of lexis were not given any
attention (Lipka 1992:94). Early studies on “new”
lexemes are those by Downing (1977) and Clark
and Clark (1979). Both studies represented theexistenceof
productive
processesofword-formation resulting in new lexemes and newusages of existing lexical items. In any theoretical

discussions of word-formation processes, thephenomenon where new lexemes are coined must
be taken into account. Lipka named this process
lexicalization (1992:95).

1

Lexicalization

As lexicalization is viewed as a “notational term”,“there is no single, correct definition of the term.”(Lipka 1992:95). One dictionary definition(Mirriam-Webster 2006-2007) of lexicalization
reads:“1

2: the realization of a meaning in a single
word or morpheme rather than in agrammatical construction: the treatment of a formerly freecompound, grammatically regular,
and semantically transparent phrase
or inflected form as a formally or
semantically idiomatic expression”.

An analysis of both definitions presents at least two
aspects of lexicalization. First, lexicalization resultsin the creation of new words or morphemes
previously not found in the language. Secondly,
lexicalization results in semantic changes toexisting lexemes in the language.
Lipka defines lexicalization “as thephenomenon that a complex lexeme once coinedtends to become a single complete lexical unit, asimple lexeme” (1992:97). The process oflexicalization is a diachronic one, and an essentialcondition is that the particular complex lexeme
must be used frequently (Lipka, 1992:95). One
outcome of lexicalization is the irregularity it
introduces into the lexicon (Ibid, 1992:97). For
Kastovsky (1982 cited in Lipka 1992:95),
lexicalization results in the integration of the newform into the lexicon of the language. The newform has semantic and/or formal properties which
are different from the original constituents orword-formation patterns. Bauer (1983) and Quirk(1985) present other definitions of lexicalization,

further emphasizing it as a “notational term”.

2

Learners of English

The Malaysian society is a multi-cultural andmulti-lingual mix of some major and minor ethnic
groups that together contribute to its complex
language situation. Amidst these languages the
English language has its place. English in Malaysia
is officially accorded the status of being the second
most important language, after the national
language, bahasa Malaysia (Malay). In the
education system English is taught in all schools
throughout the country as a subject and as of 2003,
as a medium of instruction for mathematics andscience.
For all intents and purposes, the English
language has been made available to Malaysianlearners from the day they begin school right up to
the tertiary level. In reality the learners of English
are a varied lot ranging from those who use English
as a dominant language to those for whom it is aforeign language. The same complexities of
proficiency and command of English are seen in
students at universities.

3

The Study

The aim of this study is to identify instances oflexicalization in essays by learners of English fromthe Faculty of Law, University of Malaya. The dataconsists of a portion of a corpus of about 900,000
words from the MACLE project (Malaysian Corpus
of Learner English) which was started in 2004 at
the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics,
University of Malaya. A minimum of 50,000 words
are organized and analyzed using NVivo 7 software.
Lexicalization by learners will be measured
against standard English usage as presented in
English monolingual dictionaries and grammarbooks. Any form that is different from the standard
English forms will be considered instances oflexicalization. This includes the creation of newwords or morphemes previously not found in thelanguage and semantic changes to existing lexemes
in the language. Lexicalizations will not be
considered errors if they differ from standard
English usage, but examined for the value they
provide in understanding language learners’ processof learning. Frequency of occurrence of a specificlexical item will not be a criterion.

4

Data Analysis

At this stage of data analysis no conclusive findings
about lexicalization can be presented. What can be
drawn from the preliminary analysis is that
language learners do present instances oflexicalization based on the knowledge they have of,for example, affixation in English. The suffix ‘er’ toform the item “sentencer”, for example is a case inpoint. More comprehensive discussion of thefindings and conclusions will be presented at theconference.
References
Bauer, Laurie. (1983). English
Word-Formation. Cambridge Textbooks in
Linguistics
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press.
Clark, Eve V., and Herbert H. Clark.
(1979). When Nouns Surface as Verbs.
Language 55, 26-44.
Downing, Pamela. (1977). On the Creationand Use of English Compound Nouns.
Language 53, 810-842.
Lipka, Leonhard. (1992). An Outline ofEnglish Lexicology. Lexical Structure,
Word Semantics and Word-Formation.
Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum,
Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik (1985). A
Comprehensive Grammar of the English
Language. London-New York: Longman.

The Posit Text Profiling Toolset
George R. S. Weir

Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde
george.weir@cis.strath.ac.uk

Abstract
The present paper describes a software toolset
developed to assist in making textual analyses andcomparisons between and within corpora. Thissystem (Posit) aims to make the textual analysis
process as simple as possible by requiring only asingle command from the user. The adopted
approach seeks to accommodate arbitrarily large
corpora. This contrasts with many current tools thatare limited in their ability to handle very large filesizes. In the following, we detail the current
part-of-speech focus of this toolset and describe
developments in progress that will extend its
functionality to embrace vocabulary and readability
profiling.

Keywords
Text analysis, software, corpora comparisons.

Introduction
With a growing interest in the analysis of text
collections, often in order to support language
teaching (e.g., Tomlinson, 1998; Granger, et.al,
2002; Aston et al, 2004), has come a desirable
increase in available software tools. Tools such as
Wordsmith (Scott, 1998) and AntConc (Anthony,2005), offer approachable means whereby
non-computer specialists may analyse their own
data collections. More ambitious facilities are freely
available in systems such as Nooj (Silberztein,2005), and GATE (Bontcheva, 2004), which areboth under constant development. In addition,
NLTK (Bird, 2006) provides a set of programming
modules aimed mainly at teaching natural language
processing.
When faced with the task of analysing a
newspaper text corpus, with a file size exceeding
92Mb (Weir & Anagnostou, 2007), many of theexisting tools designed to run under MS-Windows
experienced problems in handling a single data fileon this scale. In consequence, we sought anapproach to analysis that would satisfactorily
manage large input files. This led us to adopt a
Unix-based scripting approach in which the input
text is processed without need for large data

structures in memory (the principal obstacle facing
the MS-Windows’ tools). A convenient advantageof the script approach is that intermediate
processing results are held in temporary files, andthis further reduces memory overheads. Thisapproach proved both powerful and highly
extensible and, as a result, the prospect of a highly
functional set of analysis tools became apparent.
The Posit Text Profiling Toolset is the term applied
to this set of analysis tools, some of which arecomplete, while others are under development.

1

The Posit Toolset Overview

In its current form, the Posit toolset targets three
related aspects of textual analysis, comprisingindividual software modules whose operation may
be combined. The first of these modules
concentrates upon parts-of-speech (POS) andperforms an analysis of a given text corpus in orderto derive statistics on the POS characteristics of that
text. This component is known as the POS Profiler.
The second module of the toolset is the
Vocabulary Profiler. Based upon the statistical data
output by the POS Profiler, the Vocabulary Profiler
can determine the relative frequency of occurrence
for vocabulary items in the selected corpus. Thisfrequency data may be compared to a reference setof frequency data (derived from the British National
Corpus) in order to pinpoint unusual word
occurrences or individual terms whose use is likely
to prove unfamiliar to English readers.
A third toolset module (presently underdevelopment) is the Readability Profiler. This
software component will focus on text readability,
based upon the statistical analyses from the POS
profiler and the frequency data from the vocabulary
profiler. In keeping with our research in this area,
this module will go beyond current ‘simplistic’readability metrics, and apply more sophisticatedanalyses that include factors such as word
commonality (Weir & Ritchie, 2007) and average
collocation frequency (Anagnostou & Weir, 2007).
In the following sections, we focus attention on
the nature and operation of the POS Profiler
component and further outline our plans for theVocabulary Profiler and the Readability Profiler
components within the Posit Text Profiling Toolset.

2

POS Profiler

The POS profiler supports part-of-speech profilingon any specified text. This command-line facility1
outputs a detailed account of word occurrences forthe selected text corpus. The word occurrence
information is provided by raw frequency and by
part-of-speech frequency. Totals are given for word
tokens, word types, part-of-speech types andpart-of-speech tokens. The set of parts-of-speechthat can be recorded is a function of the POS tagger
used within the POS Profile Tool. While themodular toolset can easily accommodate alternative
taggers, we currently use the Lingua::EN::Tagger,
which is available as a Perl module from CPAN
(http://www.cpan.org). This tagger uses the Penn
Treebank tag set (Marcus et al, 1994) so our scripts
are currently equipped to collate the occurrence ofthe constituent tags from the marked-up version of
the input corpus. In later versions of the Posit
Toolset, users will be able to specify both therequisite tag set and also which range of constituent
tags should be recorded when the system is creating
the output frequency data.
Table 1: Example summary POS Profile output
Input filename
Total words (tokens)
Total unique words (types)
Type/Token Ratio (TTR)
Number of sentences
Average sentence length (ASL)
Number of characters
Average word length (AWL)NUMBER OF TOKEN TYPES
noun_types
verb_types
adjective_types
adverb_types
preposition_types
personal_pronoun_types
determiner_types
possessive_pronoun_types
interjection_types
particle_types
NUMBER OF POS TYPES
nouns
verbs
prepositions
personal pronouns
determiners
adverbs
adjectives
possessive pronouns
interjections
particles1emma.txt
1598267364
21.70378585
18.6169
9145195.72197
4268
2603
1346
487
65
23
18
7
5
0
69060
67678
38600
31192
26178
25432
25086
9582
516
0

A version of the Posit Toolset with graphical userinterface is also under development.

Table 1, above, shows an example of output fromthe POS Profiler. This illustrates the summary
output for the text of the novel ‘Emma’ by Jane
Austen. In addition to such aggregated summary
data, the POS Profiler also details frequency data
for specific parts of speech. The module’s default
POS settings are listed in Table 2, below.
Table 2: POS Profiler default list of parts of speechadjective_comparatives
adjective_or_numeral_ordinals
adjective_superlatives
adverb_comparative_form
adverb_form
adverb_superlative_form
common_nouns
determinersinterjections
modal_aux
nouns_common_plurals
nouns_proper_pluralparticles
prepositions
pronouns_personalpronouns_possessive
proper_nouns
verbs_base_form
verbs_gerund_form
verbs_past_form
verbs_past_participle_form
verbs_present_3rd_form
verbs_present_not3rd_form
wh_adverbs

A separate output file is created for each of theseparts-of-speech and such files list the recorded
words of this type. The listed words are ordered byfrequency of occurrence and their frequency is
included within the data. Table 3 illustrates themost frequently occurring common nouns from
‘Emma’. This is extracted from the common_nouns
output file.
Table 3: Example most frequent common nouns
Frequency
397
272
254
220
206
193
180
177
154
132

Common noun
thing
time
nothingmanfatherbodydayfriendway
cannotIn addition to deriving totals for tokens, types,
number of sentences and number of characters, the
POS Profiler also determines average sentence
length and total number of characters. These factors
facilitate the calculation of the Flesch Reading Easeand Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. An additional
function is available for this calculation.

below.

Table 4: Example quadgram frequency data
2.1
Process
The POS profiling facility is invoked at thecommand line on a specified text corpus. The input
corpus is processed by the software module inaccordance with the following sequence:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Create word count and token frequency list
Tag the input file using a POS tagger
Tokenize the POS tagged file
Extract POS counts
Analyse results
Output results
Create results summary

An extensive set of results files is generated by eachsingle analysis run of the POS Profiler. The resultssummary, also saved as a separate file, is output tothe screen as a conclusion to the analysis. As an aid
to further comparison across results, files in comma
separated value (CSV) format are also produced.
Currently, the system converts all input text tolower case, thereby treating all data as caseinsensitive. (This fact will be apparent from theillustrations of example output.) Of course, thisfeature is customisable since, for some purposes,
the capitalisation within a corpus may beconsidered significant. In this case, capitalisation
can be retained and word counts, as well as other
outputs, will recognise distinctive case differences.

3

Vocabulary Profiler

The Posit Vocabulary Profiler uses the analyses
produced by the POS Profiler to establish the least
common words in any text (with reference to the
BNC reference list). This will shortly support thedetermination of keywords for the specified text,
based upon a statistical significance measure of
frequency of words in a specified text against
frequency of words in a reference frequency list (byapplying the log-likelihood measure). In addition,
to the analytical value of such insights, thisinformation may provide support or advice toauthors wishing feedback on their vocabulary
usage.
Vocabulary analysis extends to consider n-gramfrequencies within the analysed text. N-gramfrequency analysis allows a choice of value for n in
the n-gram. By default, the system determines
frequency lists for bigrams, trigrams and quadgrams.
In due course, these may also be compared withreference n-gram frequencies derived from the British
National Corpus. The result of quadgram frequency
analysis on the text of the novel ‘Emma’ (by Jane
Austen) gives the ‘top ten’ results shown in Table 4,

Frequency
50
26
20
19
18
18
18
16
16
15

Quadgram
i do not know
a great deal ofi am sure i
it would have been
mr and mrs weston
it would be ai do not thinki have no doubt
i am sure you
and i am sure

Using the n-gram facility of the Vocabulary Profiler,
we can readily contrast the quadgram result withthe ‘top ten’ bigram result from the same text (Table
5).
Table 5: Example bigram frequency data
Frequency
608
566
449
446
395
334
331
308
301
299

4

Bigramto beof theit wasin thei am
she hadshe washad been
it is
mr knightley

Readability Profiler

The Readability Profiler component of the Posit
Toolset is under development and builds upon the
POS Profiler output and output from the Vocabulary
Profiler. In turn, this readability module uses
collocation analysis in order to establish thecontribution made to the readability of the specified
text by collocation usage. This analysis relies upona collocation reference frequency list and applies
our Average Collocation Frequency measure as afactor in determining the readability of the complete
text. A future extension of this facility will support
readability comparisons across texts.

5

Conclusion

The Posit Text Profiling Toolset comprises threesoftware modules that work together to provide acomprehensive textual analysis facility. Built as a setof Unix scripts and Perl programs, the systemprovides a convenient interface to existing POS
taggers and is able to accommodate large text corpora
with ease.
In their current form, the POS Profiler andVocabulary Profiler are being used in a variety of
corpus analysis projects. We anticipate that futureenhancements will include support for automatedcorpora comparisons. This will afford POS profile

comparisons, vocabulary comparisons and readability
comparisons across sets of texts, in which multiple
corpus files may be loaded, analysed and comparedwith a single user action. Currently, such corpus
comparison requires individual processing of each
corpus with manual comparison of the resulting data
(as in Weir & Ozasa, 2007).
Beyond the future addition of further functionalfeatures to the Posit Toolset, a prototype version isunder development that includes a graphical userinterface. This will provide a more broadly usable
system and will seek to simplify the selection ofsystem options. This will greatly enhance thecustomisability of the toolset and should ensure that it
becomes more accessible to a broader base of
potential users.

References
Anagnostou, N.K. & Weir, G.R.S. (2007). Average
Collocation Frequency as an Indicator of
Semantic Complexity. Proceedings of
ICTATLL 2007, Hiroshima, Japan.
Anthony, L. (2005). AntConc: A Learner andClassroom Friendly, Multi-Platform Corpus
Analysis Toolkit. Proceedings of IWLeL
2004: An Interactive Workshop on
Language e-Learning.
Aston, G., Bernardini, S. & Stewart, D. (2004).
Corpora and Language Learners. John
Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Bird, S. (2006). NLTK: the natural language toolkit.
In Proceedings of the COLING/ACL on
interactive
Presentation
Sessions.
Association for Computational Linguistics,
Morristown, NJ, 69-72.
Bontcheva, K., Tablan, V., Maynard, D. &Cunningham, H. (2004). Evolving GATE tomeet new challenges in language
engineering.
NaturalLanguageEngineering, 10: 349-373.
Granger, S., Hung, J. & Petch-Tyson, S. (2002).
Computer Learner Corpora, Second
Language Acquisition and Foreign
Language Teaching. John Benjamins,
Amsterdam.
Marcus, M.P., Santorini, B. & Marcinkiewicz, M.A.
(1993). Building a Large Annotated Corpus
of English: The Penn Treebank., 19 (2),313-330.
Scott, M. (1998). Wordsmith Tools Version 3,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
Silberztein, M. (2005). NooJ: A Linguistic
Annotation System for Corpus Processing.
In Proceedings of HLT/EMNLP on
Interactive Demonstrations, Vancouver,
10-11.
Weir, G.R.S. & Anagnostou, N.K. (2007). Exploring
Newspapers: A Case Study in Corpus

Analysis. Proceedings of ICTATLL 2007,
Hiroshima, Japan, 12-19.
Weir, G.R.S. & Ozasa, T., (2007). Estimating
Naturalness in Japanese English Textbooks.
Proceedings of PAAL2007, Pattaya,
Thailand.
Weir, G.R.S. & Ritchie, C. (2007). Estimating
Readability
withtheStrathclyde
Readability Measure. In Texts, Textbooks
and Readability. Edited by G. R. S. Weir andT. Ozasa. University of Strathclyde
Publishing. Glasgow, UK, 26-33.

The Effect of Portfolio Assessment on Metacognitive Reading
Strategy Awareness of EFL Students
Mahmoodreza Atai1 and Fatemeh Nikuinezhad2

Islamic Azad University, Karaj Branch, Karaj, Iran, 2Fatemeh Nikuinezhad, Khatam University, Tehran,
Iran
Mreatai@yahoo.com, fnikui@yahoo.com

Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate theeffect of portfolio assessment on metacognitive
reading strategy awareness and attitudes of Iranian
EFL senior high school students. Participants
comprised 60 female senior high school students.
The portfolio assessment was integrated into theexperimental group’s English course to explore
whether and to what extent their metacognitive
reading strategy awareness may enhance.Data wereobtained through 1) a Likert scale questionnaire of
Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies
Inventory (MARSI), 2) a Likert scale Attitude andMotivation questionnaire, 3) an open-ended
question eliciting the students' perceptions of theadvantages and disadvantages of portfolio
assessment of reading, and 4) students’ portfolios
assessed by three trained raters. The results of data
analysis indicated that portfolio procedures boosted
students’ awareness of metacognitive reading
strategies and enhanced their motivation for reading
comprehension as well. Students commented on
portfolio as a powerful tool for assessing reading
ability. Along with these advantages, the length oftime required for the learners to assemble theportfolios, work overload from assignments, andexcessive effort for assigned tasks worried somestudents especially those deeply accustomed to
traditional testing methods of evaluating reading
ability typical of the Iranian ELT system.

Keywords
Alternative assessment, portfolio assessment,
metacognitiveawareness,EFL
readingcomprehension

Introduction
Parallel with the recent paradigm shifts in English
language learning and teaching and developments
in educational measurement, the EFL profession has
witnessed a significant rise in the instructional andassessment practices that are “holistic, student

centered, performance based, process oriented,
integrated, and multidimensional” (Gottlieb, 1995,p.12). This is accounted for by the concerns overtraditional assessments which typically fail toassess higher order skills and other skills essential
for functioning in school or work settings (Haney &Madaus, 1989). Portfolios as one of the mosteffective types of alternative assessments have
proved effective in upgrading learners’ authority,
positive attitudes, and responsibility towards
learning (Yang, 2003).

Portfolio Assessment and Metacognitive
Strategy AwarenessThe bulk of research on strategy-based instruction
has focused on reading strategies as a language skillof utmost importance (Carrell, 1998), and on
cognitive strategies as one of the main categories oflanguage learning strategies. The Research findings
indicate that learners who are skilled inmetacognitive self-assessment and, therefore, awareof their abilities are more strategic and performbetter than those who are lack that awareness(Rivers 2001; Mokhtari & Sheorey, 2002).
Metacognitive strategies are found to increaseawareness of the learners’ mental processes oflearning (William & Burden, 1997). Accordingly,
metacognitive strategy training has proved to beeffective in enhancing second language reading
comprehension (Schoonen et al., 1998; Sheorey &Mokhtari, 2001; Dhieb-Henia, 2003; Guterman,
2003)
It is argued that portfolios have the "capability
to raise students’ awareness and self-directed
learning along with facilitating the learning
process” (Yang, 2003, p. 296). They may promote
the use of metacognitive strategies and motivateand enhance active, multi-dimensional learning aswell (ibid). Further, the flexibility of portfolios
makes them ideal tools for encouraging learnerautonomy (Banfi, 2003).
This study draws upon the current researchavenues
highlighting
theimportanceofmetacognitive learning strategy use and their effecton reading comprehension improvement as well as
the use of portfolios, which may focus learners’
attention on learning process ( Yang, 2003 ;Johnston, 2004 ). To this end, the following
research questions were formulated:
1.
Does
portfolio
assessment
improvemetacognitive strategy awareness of reading of
Iranian pre-university students?
2. Does portfolio assessment influence students’motivation for reading?
3. Does portfolio assessment have any impact on
students’ perceptions of assessment of reading
ability?

reading among Iranian pre-university students.

Table 1: Mann Whitney U test for students’
responses to MARSI

Te
st
M
AR
SI

GroupsExperime
ntal post
test
Control
posttest

M
ea
n
N
R
an
k
39
3
.5
0
2
21
3
.4
0
8

Su
m
of
Ra
nks
118
5.5
0
644
.50

MannWhitne
yUtest

Wilco
xon
W

S
i
g
.

179.50
0

644.
500

.
0
0
0

Participants
The subjects included two intact groups of female
senior high school students majoring inmathematics at Samaneh Pre-university Center in
Kashan, Iran. Their age ranged from 17 to 18. Oneof the groups was randomly chosen as theexperimental group and the other one as the control
group. Both groups were homogeneous in terms of
their level of language proficiency.

Instrumentation and materials
The instrumentation used to collect data included:1) A general proficiency test, Nelson 200 A with thereliability index of .73.
2) An adapted and translated version of
Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategy
Inventory (MARSI), originally developed by
Mokhtari & Reichard (2002), which included 10
Likert-type items of metacognitive reading
strategies with a three-point rating scale ; always,
sometimes, never.
3) Portfolio assessment and checklists: The
portfolio contents comprised eight sequenced
reading passages of various genres, a Reading
Strategy Log for each passage as a metacognitionreflection and self-assessment tool for monitoring
the reading comprehension and strategy use, andStudents' Task Marking Sheet for the purpose ofscoring the portfolio pieces. One Teacher’s Task
Evaluation Sheet was also used by the teachers toassess students’ final portfolios.
4) A questionnaire on subjects’ attitudes andmotivation towards portfolio tasks.

Results and Discussion
To probe the corresponding null hypothesis of thefirst research question, the Mann-Whitney U test
was utilized to compare the mean ranks of both theexperimental and control group responses to
MARSI. As Table 1 depicts, portfolio assessment
did improve metacognitive strategy awareness of

To compare the mean ranks of the experimentalgroup's responses to MARSI at the pre and post teststages, a Wilcoxon Matched-pairs Signed-rank test
was applied to the data. The results indicated that
there was a significant difference between the meanranks the students obtained for the pre- andpost-test at the level of p < .05 (see Table 2)suggesting that portfolio assessment had asignificantly positive effect on metacognitive
reading strategy awareness of students receiving thetreatment.
Table 2: Wilcoxon Signed-rank test forexperimental group’s performance on MARSI at the
pre and posttest stages
Tes
t

MA
RSI

Group
Experimental
pretestposttest

N=30
Negative
Ranks
Positive
Ranks
ties

1
0
1
8
2

Me
an
Ra
nk
11.
25
16.
31

Su
m of
Ran
ks
112.
50
293.
50

Wilc
oxo
n

2.07

In order to probe the second research question
concerning the effect of portfolio assessment on
students’ motivation for reading and their reading
experience, a chi-square test was employed.It as
shown that the experimental group expressedsignificantly higher levels of motivation for doing
more reading (x2=7.35> x2critical=5.991, df=2).
Further, in order to compare the degree of
positive attitudes towards reading throughportfolios between the two groups, we ran achi-square on the number of binary responses(strongly agree or disagree) to the corresponding
items in the questionnaire. The results showed thatthe experimental group preferred portfolio
assessment to the traditional kinds of assessment.
Also, they expressed their strong tendency towards

S
i
g
.
.
0
3

monitoring and awareness of their progress(x2=135.921> x2critical=5.991, df=2).
To check the impact of portfolio assessment on
students’ perceptions of assessment of reading
ability, we asked students to express theirperceptions through rating the questionnaire items.
They were also asked to cite their impressions
freely about advantages and disadvantages of theportfolio-based reading instruction and assessment.
Many students found the new alternative as
advantageous to them and as a positive and newexperience. Over 85% of the students noted thatcompiling portfolios helped them immensely in
self-assessment so that they could manage to
examine their improvement and become aware of
their strengths and weaknesses. More interestingly,
some students believed that through constantpractice and feedback their confidence grew
tremendously. Finally, the students unanimously
appreciated the portfolio experience very much andabout eighty percent (80%) of the students wereconfident enough to suggest portfolio as a helpful
assessment tool to others.
However, some negative attitudes towards
portfolio system were observed among the students’
free responses. Sixty two percent of the students
complained against work overload- i.e., the timepressure they felt during the completion of aconstant flow of tasks. A few students voiced theirdissatisfaction with the treatment due to theinsufficient time they had to prepare for final exams
when the given tasks were not directly related tothose final achievement tests. In addition, a handfulof students, trapped in the myth of tests, despite
being aware of their attitudinal improvements, as
tapped through the biweekly reflections, uttered that
portfolio had limited effect on their test
performance.
Overall, the findings of this very study
demonstrated the effectiveness and positive value of
portfolio use in enhancing learning andinstruction.The results of some studies including
Barnhardt et al. (1998) approved the superiority of
portfolio assessment over traditional forms ofassessment since it linked assessment to instruction
and consequently, true learning experience occurred.
Yang (2003) also explored portfolios as tools thatfacilitate learning and develop learner autonomy.
Promoting the use of metacognitive strategies (e.g.
managing and organizing learning, monitoring andobserving one’s learning, reflecting on one’s
learning); motivating and enhancing active,
multi-dimensional learning; being helpful to future
independent learning; facilitating interaction among
the instructor and students; showing learning
process and progress; presenting learning results;
providing a sense of achievement; and practicing

presentation skills were among the benefits ofportfolio use expressed by Yang (2003).
To make up for its shortcomings, Moya &O'Malley (1994) suggest that portfolio assessment
should be validated through multiple judges, carefulplanning, proper training of raters, and triangulationof objective and subjective sources of information.
The final outcome of portfolios will be affected
unless frustration, stress, resentment towards
portfolio construction on the part of portfolio
developers, evaluator biases, and the degree ofagreement among teachers and evaluators are taken
into account seriously (Breault, 2004).Owing to thefact that portfolio assessment is fundamentally aqualitative approach to student assessment, it
should be implemented with caution since certain
problems such as politics, logistics, interpretation,
reliability, and validity could arise, especially if
portfolios are used as an assessment on a large scale(Padilla et al.1996; Barnhardt et al., 1998; Johnson,1999).

Conclusion
This study attempted to investigate whether
portfolio assessment contributes to Iranian
pre-university students’ metacognitive reading
strategy awareness and their motivation for reading
as well as their attitudes and perceptions of
portfolio assessment. Portfolio assessment, as theresults of this study revealed, helped students topractice autonomy and learners had the opportunity
todeveloptheir
metacognitive
abilities.
Accordingly, portfolio assessment improved
metacognitive strategy awareness and did affectpositively learners’ attitudes towards their reading
experience. It is worth mentioning that the current
research was carried out in an educationally marked
system in which traditional view of reading
dominates EFL classes. For students, meaning
resides in the words on the page and understanding
occurs as a result of getting the words directly
through teacher's intervention. They do not usually
think strategically about how to read something or
solve a problem and don’t take the responsibility forconstructing meaning.
Portfolio assessment can be appended tovarious EFL reading contexts. To cast more light on
the efficiency and effectiveness of portfolio
assessment on metacognitive awareness of thestudents, research can be conducted on other skills.
Also, investigations of the effect of portfolio
assessment on metacognitive strategy use can be
implemented.
Finally, further research may
address the effect of metacognitive strategy
awareness as a result of portfolio implementationon teachers and students across diverse educational,
cultural, and socioeconomic contexts.

References
Banfi, C. S. (2003). Portfolios: integrating
advancedlanguage, academic, and professional
skills.
ELT Journal, 57, 1, 34-42.
Barnhardt, S., Kevorkian, J., & Delett, J. (1998).
Portfolio Assessment in the Foreign
Language Classroom. Washington, DC:
National Capital Language Resource
Center.
(ERIC Document Reproduction Survive
N0.
ED448602).
Breault, R.A. (2004). Dissonant themes in
pre-service
portfolio
development.
Teaching
and Teacher Education, 11, 6, 565-577.
Carrell, P.L. (1998). Can reading strategies be
successfully taught? The Language
Teacher,
22, 3, 7-14.
Dhieb-Henia, N. (2003). Evaluating theeffectiveness of metacognitive strategy
training for reading research articles in an
ESP context. English for SpecificPurposes,
22,4, 387-417.
Gottlieb, M. (1995). Nurturing student learning
through portfolios. TESOL Journal, 5, 1,
12-14.
Guterman, E. (2003). Integrating written
metacognitive awareness guidance as a
“psychological tool” to improve student
performance. Learning and Instruction, 13,633-651.
Haney, W., & Madaus, G. (1989). Searching foralternatives to standardized tests: Whys,whats, and whithers. Phi Delta Kappan, 70(9), 683-687.
Johnston, B. (2004). Summative assessment of
portfolios: an examination of different
approaches to agreement over outcomes.
Studies in Higher Education, 29, 3,
395-412.
Johnson, J. (1999). Professional teaching portfolio:acatalyst for rethinking teacher education."
Action in Teacher Education, 21, 1, 37-49.
Mokhtari, K., and Sheorey, R. (2002). “Measuring
ESL Students’ Awareness of Reading
Strategies.” Journal of Developmental
Education 25,3, 2-10.
Moya, S. S. & O'Malley, J. M. (1994). A portfolio
assessment model for ESL. The Journal of

Educational Issues of Language Minority
Students, 13,1, 13-36.
Padilla, A. M., Aninao, J., & Sung, H. (1996).
Development and implementation of
student
portfolio in foreign language programs.
Foreign Language Annals, 29, 3, 428-438.
Rivers, W. (2001). “Autonomy at All Costs: An
Ethnography of Metacognitive
Self-Assessment and Self-Management
among Experienced Language Learners.”
Modern Language Journal, 85,2, 279-290.
Schoonen, R., Hulstijn,J., & Bossers, B. (1998).
Metacognitive and language-specificknowledge in native and foreign language
reading comprehension: An empirical
study
among Dutch students in grades 6, 8 and
10.
Language Learning, 48, 1, 71-106.
Sheorey, R. & Mokhtari, k. (2001). Differences in
the metacognitive awareness of reading
strategies among native and non-native
readers. System, 29, 4, 431-449.
Yang, N. (2003). Integrating portfolio into learning
strategy-based instruction for EFL college
students. IRAL, 4, 4, 293-317.

Analysis of Requests
Produced by Native and Non-Native Speakers of English
Junko Negishi

Waseda University
jnegishi@moegi.waseda.jp

Abstract
The study explored pragmatic features in the speechacts of advanced-level Japanese non-native
speakers of English (JNNSs) living in Australia bycomparing the request patterns of JNNSs andAustralian native speakers of English (ANSs). The
request form was collected by a discourse
completion task (DCT). Metapragmatic dataobtained from subsequent interviews complemented
the DCT data.
The findings revealed some similarities anddifferences between the request patterns of JNNSs
and ANSs. A macro-level analysis demonstrated thesimilarity in politeness between the two groups intheir use of conventionally indirect strategies. By
contrast, the micro-level analysis revealed
differences in their selection of request forms, with
the JNNSs appearing less polite. An implication for
future research is discussed.

Keywords
Pragmatics, Speech act, Politeness, Request

1

BackgroundKasper and Blum-Kulka (1993) reported that evenhighly proficient NNSs of English often havedifficulties using the conventions of forms andmeaning which are commonly used by NSs when
making a request, and opt to depend on their L1
strategies or conventions. Nonetheless, English
requests often differ from the NNSs’ L1 requests(Ellis, 1992).
In their Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization
Project (CCSARP), Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper(1989a) conducted an investigation into requests
and apologies collected by a Discourse Completion
Test (DCT) by advanced NNSs from sevencountries. The project revealed that their requests
were more verbose than NSs’ because they
employed more supportive devices such as lengthy
explanations and justifications. The CCSARP also
reported that advanced NNSs preferred indirect
request forms in various situations. These results

contradict Fukushima’s (1996) findings in thatJapanese university students used more direct forms
and less supportive moves. The contradictory result
might be derived from the difference in proficiencyof the subjects of this study, whose ability may havebeen different from that of the CCSARP subjects.
Whether collecting request data from advanced
JNNSs support the results of CCSARP or confirm
those of Fukushima are investigated in the present
study.

2

Research Question

The study addressed the following researchquestion: What are the similarities and differencesin request patterns between advanced-level
Japanese speakers of English and Australian native
speakers of English?

3

Study Method

3.1
Participants
The Japanese informants in this study were 32 adultnon-native speakers of English living in Australia,
most of whom were postgraduate students. The
proficiency level of these JNNSs was advanced asthey all had cleared the English proficiency
requirement prior to their enrolment at theuniversity. The Australian informants were 31 adult
Australian native speakers of English, comprising
postgraduate students, university staff and others
who had workforce experience.
3.2
Data Collection Methods
Questionnaires
Comparedtooralinteractive
discourse,
questionnaires face limitations in terms of their lackof dynamic features. In spite of the restrictions,questionnaires are the most frequently employeddata collection method (Kasper and Rose, 2002).
For this study, after an information questionnaire
was distributed, a discourse completion task (DCT)
was given to all informants for the purpose of
eliciting the informants’ pragmatic knowledge.
There were six situations in the DCT for thisSituation

Social DistanceDominance

Imposition

A Money-SD

Speaker=HearerHigh

The informant asks his/herfriend to lend him/her somemoney

B Menu+SD

Speaker>Hearer

Low

The informant asks a waiter tobring a menu at a restaurant.

C Seat+SD

Spaker=HearerHigh

The informant asks a stranger
to keep an eye on his/her seat.

D Document+SD

Speaker<Hearer

RequestLow

The informant asks an officer
how to fill in a form.

E Recommendation-SD

Speaker<HearerHigh

The informant asks his/hersupervisor to write a letter ofrecommendation

F Help-SD

Speaker>Hearer

Low

The informant asks his/her
junior partner to help him/her.

Interviews
While questionnaires are effective for well-defined
research objects and issues, oral and written
self-reports are more appropriate for exploratory
research (Kasper and Rose, 2002). In this study, aninterview was employed to compensate for theinevitable lack of contextual information and toelicit informants’ metapragmatic data.
3.3
Data Analysis Method
For the data analysis, the coding manual used in
Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper’s (1989b)
CCSARP project and used by Hill (1997) was
adapted for the study. The coding schema adaptedin the study had four categories: (1) Alerters, (2)Head Acts categorised by directness level, (3)Internal modification, (4) External modification.
The following is an example of how a request
sequence was coded:
Excuse me. I’m sorry to bother you but could you
possibly mind my seat. I promise I won’t be long.
Dimention

Category

Element

Alerter

Attention getter

Excuse meExternal modification

DisarmerI'm sorry to bother you.

Head Act

Indirect: preparatory

could you mind my seatInternal modification

Downgrader

possibly

External modification

Cost minimiser

I promise I won't be long

4
Results
4.1
Analysis of Category 1: Alerters
An alerter functions to alert the hearer’s attention
before making a request. An alerter has two

Table 2 Percentage Use of Attention Getters and Address Terms (JNNSs: n=32, ANSs: n=31)

Address Attentio
Terms n Getters

Table 1 Summary of Situations in the DCT

components: an attention getter such as excuse meor hi, and an address term, such as Steve or Dr.
Wilkinson.
Table 2 shows the percentage use of attention
getters and address terms employed by JNNSs and
ANSs. More than 50% of both groups employedattention getters in Situations B, C and D, inviting
the addressee’s attention (mostly by using excuseme), when they talked to a stranger whose social
distance from them was large. In terms of theaverage percentage use of attention getters, there
was no considerable difference between the twogroups.

Situation A

Situation B

Situation C

Situation D

Situation E

Situation F

Average

JNNSs

40.6

60.9

68.8

59.4

18.8

21.9

45.1

ANSs

41.9

51.6

58.1

54.8

29.0

29.0

44.1

JNNSs

0.0

0.0

0.0

6.3

40.6

53.1

16.7

ANSs

16.1

3.2

0.0

3.2

67.7

80.6

28.5

With respect to address terms, ANSs used theinterlocutor’s name when their social distance wassmall. In Situation E, 67.7% of ANSs utilised thesupervisor’s title/name, which was more than 1.5
times the usage demonstrated by JNNSs. Similarly,
in Situation F, 80.6% of ANSs used the colleague’s
name before making their request, compared to53.1% of the Japanese respondents.
4.2

Analysis of Category 2: Head Acts
Categorised by Directness Level
Head Acts, or actual requests, were analysed
according to the coding outline categorized bydirectness level. As shown in the first two lines ofTable 3, the JNSs in this study did not use direct
request strategies except one imperative expression.
This single example, Please keep my seat, wasconsidered to be impolite by the ANSs. Some ANSs
commented that the imperative expression was
demanding and that please did nothing to mitigate
the request.
Table 3 Percentage Use of Direct Request and Conventionally Indirect Request

Indirect Direct
Request Request

study, with each situation requiring informants toexpress their request patterns according to the given
situation as if they were really speaking to theperson indicated. Table 1 shows the six situations
designed by the interlocutors’ role relationship withrespect to dimensions of dominance and social
distance and imposition according to Blum-Kulka,
House & Kasper (1989a).

Situation A

Situation B

Situation C

Situation D

Situation E

Situation F

Average

JNNSs

0.0

0.0

3.1

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

ANSs

0.0

0.0

0.0

3.2

0.0

3.2

1.1

JNNSs

96.9

100.0

96.9

90.6

100.0

96.9

96.9

ANSs

90.3

100.0

100.0

87.1

100.0

93.5

95.2

The last two lines of Table 3 demonstrate thepercentage use of conventionally indirect requests.
Most of the strategies employed here wereconsolidated into the conventionally indirect
requests. All of the conventionally indirect requests,
with the exception of a small number of hints andwant statements, were preparatory. There was no
considerable difference between the JNNSs and
ANSs in terms of their average percentage use of

indirect requests, registering 96.9% and 95.2%
respectively. Since nonconventionally indirect
requests (hints) were rarely seen in the study, no
explanation is provided here.
Analysis of Category 3 and 4: Internaland External Modification
The illocutionary force can be modified by internaland external modification. One method of internal
modification,
downgraders,mitigates
theillocutionary force, while the other, upgraders,intensifies it. The number of downgraders andupgraders employed per request by the JNNSs and
ANSs was counted and compared.
As shown in the first two lines in Table 4, theaverage number of downgraders adopted by the
ANSs was nearly twice that used by the JNNSs.
This discrepancy was primarily attributable to the
ANSs’ use of please. Some prototypical examples
are listed below:

These examples demonstrate not only the useof a politeness marker but also the use of an
attention getter. The examples employed an
identical type of conventionally indirect request,that is, could you, but an analysis of politenessmarkers and attention getters reveals the difference
between the JNNSs and ANSs. Consequently, the
ANSs’ requests appear more polite. Fewer
upgraders were observed, as the two middle lines ofTable 4 shows.

Situation
χ2dfp

Situation D

Situation E

Situation F

Average

Downgraders

JNNSs

0.41

0.31

0.97

0.09

0.41

0.16

0.39

ANSs

0.58

0.77

1.10

0.45

0.77

0.68

0.73

Upgraders

JNNSs

0.22

0.00

0.99

0.00

0.03

0.19

0.24

ANSs

0.39

0.00

0.29

0.00

0.03

0.39

0.18

JNNSs

2.00

0.59

1.47

1.09

0.94

0.84

1.16

ANSs

1.58

0.58

1.87

1.26

1.10

1.26

1.28

External
ModificationsSituation C

The last two lines show the number of external
modifications employed per request. It refers to
supportive moves with which a speaker intends tomitigate or aggravate the illocutionary force.
Compared with internal modifications, more
external modifications were utilised by both the
JNNSs and ANSs. The most employed external
modification was a grounder explaining the reason
for the request, such as: I left my wallet at home.
Some of the ANS informants commented that the
JNNSs should have explained the reason.

Downgraders
B
C
D
E
F
11.642 10.350 6.552 5.871 12.235
1
2
1
1
1
0.001 0.006 0.001 0.015 0.000
**
**
*
*
**

4.5
Number of Words per Request
Table 6 demonstrates the number of words used per
request. The JNNSs used more words than the
ANSs. Nevertheless, χ 2 test shows no
considerable difference between the two groups.
The greater the imposition they perceived, the more
words the informants used.
Table 6 Number of Words per Request
Situation A

Situation B

Situation C

Situation D

Situation E

Situation F

Average

JNNSs

19.9

8.3

16.5

14.2

18.9

13.3

15.2

ANSs

14.1

7.4

14.3

11.5

15.0

11.1

12.2

4.6

Conventionallyindirectrequest:preparatory
It was revealed that most of the Head Acts
performed were conventionally indirect requests.
Table 7 shows the top three indirect request patterns
and the percentage of their use in each situation.
Table 7 Top Three Indirect Requests and Percentage Use in Each Situation
1
can I
34.4

JNNSs
2
could you21.9

3
can you
15.6

1
could you
35.5

ANSs
2
could I
16.1

3
would mind
12.9

could you
34.4

can I
31.3

could I
15.6

could I
45.2

can I
22.6

could you22.6

would mind

could you28.1

can you

34.4

12.5

could you41.9

would mind
29.0

would you16.1

D

could you53.1

can you
9.4

would you9.4

could you51.6

can you
19.4

be possible
9.7

E

could you25.0

would youwould mind

be wondering

18.8

15.6

32.3

could you29.0

be possible
12.9

F

can you
43.8

could you will/would you could you
31.3
6.3
54.8

Situation

Table 4 Number of Downgraders/Upgraders and External Modifications Used per Request
Situation B

test of Address Terms and Downgraders

Adress Terms
AE
F
5.606 4.661 5.366
11
1
0.018 0.031 0.021***

Table 5 demonstrates the result of χ2 test in which
there were significant difference between the JNNs
and ANSs in the use of Address Terms (Situation
A/E/F) and Downgraders (all the situations except
Situation A). No significant difference wasobserved in other categories/dimensions.

A

Situation A

χ2

Table 54.3

(1) (JNNS: Situation D): Could you tell me how toanswer these questions?
(ANS: Situation D) Excuse me, sorry to botheryou. Could you please help me with this form?

χ2 Test

4.4

B
C

5

would mind can/would/wonder
9.7
6.5

Discussion

5.1
Conventionally indirect requests
Fukushima (1990) reported that expressions used
by Japanese subjects were very direct in mostsituations and attributed this result to therelationship between in-group members, especiallybetween equals. In a similar situation—Situation Aof the present study—84.4% of JNNSs employedbald-on-record strategy when they were asked at aninterview what they would say in Japanese;
however, no JNNSs actually used direct strategies

in their English requests. In other words, the JNNS
informants in the present study employed in-group
distinction in their L1 usage but did not transfer thispractice to their L2 usage.
Hill (1997) reported that 12.9% of theadvanced NNS learners in his research employed
direct strategies, a much higher percentage than thatfound amongst British native speakers (1.9%). By
contrast, the informants in the present study did notuse direct request strategies except in one case, as
Table 3 illustrated. The possible reason for thediscrepancy between their results and the findingsof this study may be attributable to differences in
the respective subjects’ proficiency.
ANSs have a noticeable inclination to avoid
making requests by employing imperatives(Wierzbicka, 1991). In this respect, the JNNSs canbe regarded as “native-like”, which demonstrates
their difference to the subjects in Fukushima andHill. These findings were confirmed, with the
JNNSs in the present study preferring to utilise
preparatory strategies. Accordingly, they showedsimilarities to the ANSs with regard to their use ofindirect request strategies. To date, no advanced
level JNNSs’ pragmatic knowledge has been
discussed, so these findings may be valuable.
The study indicated that the JNNS informants
were target-like in terms of their preparatory
strategies; nevertheless, more detailed analysis
revealed that there were some differences in theirselection of sentence types, for example, in
Situations A, B, F. Specifically, they were apt touse more casual expressions such as can I/you,rather than could you/I, which were dominantly
employed by the ANSs.
5.2
Implication for Future Research
The current study has revealed some characteristics
of pragmatic knowledge possessed by advanced
JNNSs. The research could be expanded to explore
the relationship between the NNSs’ pragmatic
performance and their amount of English use andlength of residence in the target language
community. By so doing, the gap in pragmaticdevelopment
concerningNSs’
pragmaticcompetence could be bridged, since prior researchhas been focused on beginners and intermediate
Japanese students in classrooms.

6

Conclusion

The present study recorded some similarities anddifferences between the JNNSs and ANSs in
response to the research question. In terms ofalerters, the less use of address terms by the JNNSs
became apparent. The analysis of Head Acts bydirectness level revealed that the JNNSs weretarget-like in their selection of conventionallyindirect request forms. This finding contradicted
other studies administered to lower proficiency
informants. With respect to internal modification,
the use of downgraders by the JNNSs was about
half that of the ANSs. In contrast, there was little
difference between the two groups in the use of
external modification. The number of words per
request supported the CCSAPR (1989) result that
advanced NNSs were verbose.
Detailed analysis of the sentence patterns usedin preparatory strategies highlighted somedifferences between the two, namely that therequest forms the ANSs’ employed were
fundamentally more polite than those used by the
JNNSs. These findings concerned the might havecontributed to bridging the gap between Japaneseintermediate and advanced speakers of English.
References
Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989a).
Investigating cross-cultural pragmatics: anintroductory overview. In S. Blum-Kulka, J.
House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural
pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 1-34).
Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989b).
The CCSARP coding manual. In S.
Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper (Eds.),
Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests andapologies (pp. 273-294). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Ellis, R. (1992). Learning to communicate in theclassroom: A study of two learners’ requests.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14,
1-23.
Fukushima, S. (1990). Offers and requests:
performance by Japanese learners of English.
World Englishes, 9(3), 317-25.
Fukushima, S. (1996). Request strategies in British
English and Japanese. Language Sciences, 18,
671-88.
Hill, T. (1997). The development of pragmaticcompetence in an EFL context. (Doctoral
dissertation, Temple University, Japan.)
Dissertation Abstracts International, 58, 3905.
Kasper, G., & Blum-Kulka, S. (Eds.). (1993).
Interlanguage pragmatics. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Kasper, G., & Rose, K. R. (2002). Pragmaticdevelopment in a second language. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross cultural pragmatics:
the semantics of human interaction. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter.

Comparing Expressions in Bilingual Japanese-English “Manga”
Misuzu Miyake and Timothy Floyd Hawthorne

1

Division of Foreign Language Education and Research in the International Center, Hiroshima International
University2
m-miyake@it.hirokoku-u.ac.jp, h-timoth@it.hirokoku-u.ac.jp

Abstract“Manga” in Japan has become established as one
Japanese sub-culture, which has become
distributed into the world now. The term
“Manga” here is used for the comics that aretranslated from Japanese into English. The
English version of “Manga” has been getting a
lot of attention from learners of English in Japanbecause it is colloquial in style, it includes many
expressions from daily life, and it gives chances
to have simulating experiences.
So, the present study analyzed expressions inJapanese and English in “Manga” quantitatively
and qualitatively and gave some pedagogicalsuggestions for teaching conversational English
to learners of English in Japan at the end.
Hopefully, parts of the results of this study will
also help learners of Japanese in other countries
acquire conversational Japanese through“Manga”.

Keywords“Manga”, transfer, expressions, comparison,
Japanese, English

Introduction“Manga” has penetrated into the world as one
sub-culture from Japan now (Costa, 2007; Ogino,
2007; Perez, 2006). They are, therefore,translated from Japanese into many otherlanguages, such as Chinese, Korean, Portuguese,
Italian, Spanish, French, German, and English(Costa, 2007). They have given motivation tolearn Japanese (Costa, 2007; Ogino, 2007; Perez,2006) in those countries. But even in Japan,
English versions of “Manga” have also attracted
interest from learners of English, because
expressions in “Manga” are colloquial, havevividness and reality, and are used in daily life.
Under these situations, the researchers in thisstudy find value in analyzing “Manga” to find its
potential as materials for learning or teaching

conversational English. Especially they areinterested in bilingual versions of “Manga” inwhich lines in Japanese and English are written
on the same page. It is easy for them to compare
expressions in each language at the same time.
The purpose of this study, therefore, isthree-fold: 1) comparing Japanese and English
by using quantitative analysis to find what kindof Japanese and English are used in “Manga,” 2)finding transferring categories and features byusing qualitative analysis, and 3) exploring thepossibility of a language learning material andgiving some pedagogical suggestions.

1

Analyzed materials

There are mainly two broad categories in“Manga” depending on the content of the stories,
real life and fantasy (Okada, 1997). They arefurther categorized “according to the target
audience which roughly corresponds to different
age groups” (Allen & Ingulsrud, 2005: 267).
Considering them as the materials for teaching
English, real life and less cultural depictions,and the audience of young adults are preferable
when choosing. As a result, “Kindaichi File”(Kaneshiro, 2003) was chosen for analysis in
this study. It depicts school life with many
colloquial expressions used by young adults. It
develops its plot with vivacity and would attract
students in universities. “Manga” with many
cultural depictions are excluded from this study,
because they might distract learners from theexpressions themselves, although they are good
for learning Japanese culture.
Five hundred correspondent sentences are
extracted from each language, Japanese andEnglish. And they are changed into electronic
files for analyzing.

2

Quantitative analysis

Five hundred thirty-five sentences in Japanese,
five hundred thirty-three in English in“Kindaichi File” are analyzed quantitatively

with WordSmith (ver.4) for English and Wincha1
for Japanese.
2.1

Complete sentences vs. incomplete
sentences

MLU in English was 5.1 words and 6.5
words in Japanese. An English sentence is a little
shorter than a Japanese one. Expressions in a
simple or direct way are seen more in English.
2.3

Table 1: Quantitative comparison between
Japanese and English
Total Number ofWords
The Number of Types
Rate of Type/Token(TTR)
The Number ofSentences
Mean of Length ofUtterance (MLU)
The Number ofComplete S.
The Number ofIncomplete S.

Japanese

English

3,460

2,711

948

884

0.27

0.33

535

533

6.5

5.1

449

416

86

117

The proportion of complete and incomplete
sentences in English is 3.6:1. According to
Mizutani (1985), the ratio of complete andincomplete sentences in formal conversation is20:1 and 1.4:1 in informal conversation, like at aparty. It is reported that the ratio in average
conversation is 3:1. Judging by this report,
English used in “Manga” could be said to use
quite average colloquial English.
The ratio of complete and incomplete
sentences in Japanese is 5.2:1, which
unexpectedly shows that English has moreincomplete sentences than Japanese.
2.2
TTR and MLU
It is said that the TTR in the average English
utterance is 0.4. The closer the numeric of TTR
comes to 1.0, the less repeated words are used in
English. In other words, the lower the numericof the TTR is, the plainer or simpler the English
is. So, English in “Manga” could be said to be
written in relatively simple style. As forJapanese, the TTR is 0.27. This means that
repeated words are used very often in theJapanese text. This could result from thedifferent usage of pronouns in each language.
WinCha is a free morphological analysis
system distributed by Graduate School ofInformation Science of Nara Institute of
Science and Technology (NAIST)
http://chasen-legacy.sourceforge.jp/
1Sentence patterns and sentenceclassesIn this section, only English is analyzed. The
number of analyzed sentences is 382 out of 533.
One hundred fifty-one sentences were removed
because they are interjections or one word
sentences.
Table 2: Sentence patterns
Sentence Patterns
1
SV
2
SVC
3
SVO
4
SVOO
5
SVOC
Total

No. of sentences
127
123
116
7
9
382

Table 3: Sentence classes
Sent. Classes
Complex Sent.
Compound Sent.
Simple Sent.
Total

No.
47
19
316
382

As Table 2 shows, the sentences of SV, SVC,
and SVO patterns have the overwhelming
majority. Besides, most English sentence classes
in “Manga” are simple sentences (See Table 3).
2.4
Word levels
The words of English in “Manga” are checkedby JACET8000, which is a word list with 8
levels made by the committee of the Japan
Association of College English Teachers(JACET). “JACET8000 was made based on the
BNC (British National Corpus), language
material reflecting the Japanese educationalsituation, and American English” (JACET, 2003:
1). Words in Levels 1 and 2 are basic words andwords over Level 3 include “words seen mainly
in newspapers and magazines in a certain
number. The higher the levels go up, the higher
the number of words in newspapers andmagazines goes up” (p.3).
Table 4: Word levels
WL
No.
WL
No.

1
2,157
6
39

2
141
7
6

3
68
8
21

4
28
0
225

5
26
Total
2,711

Level 0 includes words not found in
JACET8000 and/or compound words such as
jack-in-the-box. According to Table 4, most of
the words in “Manga” consist of words in Levels
1 and 2. This means that Manga consist mostlyof basic words.

3

4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

Qualitative analysis

3.1
Transferring categories
As for the classification of features intransferring Japanese into English, two points ofview are referred to: comparative syntactics andcomparative semantics. The categories from 1)to 6) are categorized from the comparativesyntactic point of view and from 7) to 12) arefrom the semantic point of view.
1) Adding subjects: Subjects in English are
added.
2) Omit subjects: Subjects in English areomitted.
3) Simplification: Expressions in Japanese aresimplified in English.
4) Meaning
supplementation:
Meanings
omitted in Japanese are supplemented in
English.
5) Adding objects: Objects are added in
English.
6) Omit verbs: Verbs in Japanese are omitted in
English.
7) Changed subjects: Subjects in Japanese arechanged in English.
8) Usage of pronouns: Pronouns are used in
English instead of names in Japanese.
9) Vocabulary changes: Words in Japanese arechanged into different words in English.
10) Changing negative into affirmative:
Negative expressions in Japanese arechanged into affirmative expressions.
11) Specificexpressions:
Ambiguous
expressions in Japanese are changed into
specific expressions.
12) Idioms: Idioms or clichés are used in
English.

Table 5: Number of transfers
Rank
1
2
3

category
Voc. chan.
Add sub.
Idioms

No.
241
110
82

Simplification
Specific
S. change
Omit sub.
Add obj.
PronounSupplement.
Omit vb.
Affirmative
Total

77
64
61
57
50
40
40
38
18
878

The total number of transfers is 878 in 424
sentences out of 535 Japanese sentences. One
hundred eleven sentences are not changed. The
categories which are the two most in number are“Vocabulary changes” and “Adding subjects”.
They occupied 40% over all.
3.2 The number of transfers in a sentence
Table 6 shows the number of sentences and thenumber of categories at each level. Level 1
includes one transfer in a sentence. In the sameway, Level 2 includes two transfers in a sentence.
According to Table 6, the sentence which has themost transfers in one sentence is Level 1,
followed by Level 2 and Level 3, which
occupied about 82% of transfers of the total.
Table 6: Number of sentences and categories
in each level and its rate
Level
1
2
3
4
5
Total

Number ofsentences
155
126
105
34
4
424

Number of
categories
155
252
315
136
20
878

Rate
(%)
17.7
28.7
35.9
15.5
2.3
100.1

3.3
Correlation analysis
Pearson correlation coefficient significanceamong categories is tested. The result was
shown in Table 7. The four combinations of
categories were significant because their r(correlation coefficient) is larger than p values(observed significance level of the test).
That is, in many cases where verbs are omitted,
subjects are also omitted. Likewise, whenambiguous
expressions
areexpressed
specifically, it is often to add subjects, whensubjects are changed, other words are alsochanged, or objects are added.

Table 7:categories

Correlation

coefficient

among

Categories

Pearsoncorrelation
coefficient

p values

Omit vb./Omit sub.

0.591**

0.000

Specific exp./Add
0.132**
0.007
sub.
Change sub./Voc.
0.128**
0.008
changeChange sub./Add
0.010
0.125**
obj.
**
means it is significant at a significance levelof 1%
Table 8 shows the number of transfer in eachcategory and level. Idiomatic transfers occur inmany cases in level 1, which includes one
transfer in one sentence. And transfers fromnegative expressions to affirmative expressions
and adding objects often occur in level 3 or level
4. Most other transfers often occur in level 2 orlevel 3. This means that most transfers except
these 3 transfers co-occur in 2 or 3 othertransfers in some relationships.
Table 8: Number of transfer in each category and
level
Level
1
2
3
4
5
Total
Add sub.
11
40 35 213
110
Omit sub.
4
15 28
8
2
57
Simpl.
12 19 32 12
2
77
Supple.
7
13 10
9
1
40
Add obj.
5
12 15 15
350
Omit vb.
2
11 20
3
2
38
Chan. sub.
4
23 22
9
3
61
Pron.
7
12 15
6
0
40
Voc.change 58
66 85 29
3
241
Neg. Affir.
1
3
8
6
0
18
Specific
9 16 26 13
064
Idioms
35
22 19
5
1
82
Total
155 252 315 136 20878

4Conclusion and some pedagogicalsuggestions

It is often said that basic words are enough to
speak in conversations. In fact, the findings fromthe quantitative analysis reveal that English in“Manga” uses simple sentence patterns, simple
classes, and simple words. However, they also
reveal that a lot of idioms are used in “Manga”.
This means that even if the words are simple, themeanings of idioms are not as simple as thewords. Students should be aware of theimportance of idioms for memorization.
From the qualitative analysis, it is found thatthe vocabulary changes occur the mostfrequently in number. This confirmed thatabundant vocabularies are necessary to transferfrom Japanese to natural English. And sometransferring categories were found to exist in acorrelation with other transfers. The important
thing for learners of English is to try transfers inas short a time as possible. Doing so, they can
gradually produce them without transferring.
Finally, it can be concluded from thesefindings that “Manga” has great potential as
good language material for learners of English inacquiring conversational English, attracting theirinterests and giving chances for simulating
experiences.

References
Allen, K., & Ingulsrud, J. E. (2005). Reading
Manga: Patterns of personal literacies
among adolescents. Language andeducation. 19(4), 265-280.
Costa, M. B. (2007). Kaigai ni okeru Nippon no
manga jijo [Situation of Manga in Japan
all over the world]. Gakujyutsu Geppo.
60(3), 155-159.
JACET. (2003). Daigaku eigo kyoiku gakkai
kihongo list: JACET8000 [Basic
vocabulary list edited by the Japan
AssociationofCollege
EnglishTeachers: JACET8000]. Tokyo: JACET.
Kaneshiro, Y. (1999). Kindaichi file. Tokyo:
Kodansha.
Mizutani, N. (1985). Nichiei hikaku: Hanashi
kotoba no bunnpo [Comparison between
Japanese and English: Grammar incolloquial language]. Tokyo: Kuroshio
Publisher.
Ogino, J. (2007). Japanese manga and anime:
The possibility of teaching materials forteaching Japanese. Bulletin of Japanesein Takushoku University. 17, 123-130.
Okada, T. (1997). Todai Otakugaku Koza
[University of Tokyo Lectures on Otaku
Studies]. Tokyo: Kodansha.
Perez, C. (2006). Le Japon vu a travers lesmangas [“Manga” kara mieru Nippon.].
Les Voix France-Japon [Re Voa
Furansu・Japon], 104, 102-104.

Measuring Readability for Japanese Learners of English
Toshiaki Ozasa1, George R. S. Weir2 and Masayasu Fukui3

1

Faculty of Business Administration, Fukuyama Heisei University, 2Department of Computer andInformation Sciences, University of Strathclyde, 3Faculty of Business Administration, Fukuyama Heisei
University
tozasa@heisei-u.ac.jp, george.weir@cis.strath.ac.uk, fukui@heisei-u.ac.jp

Abstract
This paper describes the relative effectiveness ofseven variables of three categories in predicting thereadability of the EFL texts used in the Japanesecontext.
The factors examined in our research were (1)word difficulty and (2) idiom difficulty, in addition
to the commonly used variables, sentence length(SL) and word length (WL). In the analysis ofword difficulty three measures were considered:(1) JACET 8000 (JACET), (2) the British National
Corpus (BNC), and (3) Textbook-based Word
Difficulty (TWD).
As measures of idiom
difficulty two factors were considered:(1)
Akao-based Idiom Difficulty (AID) and (2)Textbook-based Idiom Difficulty (TID). The
textbook-based word difficulty and textbook-based
idiom difficulty are original measures being
developed in the present project.
Six multiple regression analyses computed
using six combinations of four kinds of variables,
revealed the following points.
First, thecombination of variables, SL + WL + TWD + TID,
proved to be the most efficient predictor ofreadability for the EFL sample textbook materials.
Second, the regression equation that best explains
the total textbook corpus was: Year level =0.0995*Words/S+
0.4302*Syllab/W+
0.9799*WordDiff/W + 0.0633*IdiomDiff/S + 0.2815.

Keywords
Measuring Readability, Japanese learners, EFL,
Regression analysis

1

Introduction

Existing readability measures, which areconventionally targeted at native readers of English,
are theoretically based on the variables, sentence
length and word length.
For example, theFlesch-Kincaid Grade Level formula, perhaps themost widely employed readability measure, uses

average number of words per sentence and average
number of syllables per word as its variables.
Although such indices may be valid andmeaningful in measuring the readability of English
texts from the native speakers’ viewpoint, they may
not be appropriate in measuring readability for texts
used in teaching EFL. From the EFL learners’ andteachers’ points of view, the crucial factors directly
related to text readability are linguistic factors suchas semantic, grammatical, phonological, lexical andpragmatic factors, the difficulty level of which indiffering ways, always contribute to the difficulty of
EFL texts. In this sense it is an urgent goal in thecircle of TEFL to develop a readability index that
accommodates appropriate linguistic factors as
variables.
In an effort to develop a new readability index,
Weir & Ritchie (2006) focused on word frequency
as a key factor. Anagnostou & Weir (2006)
introduced corpus-based collocation frequency as ameasure for computing readability and enlarged thepossibility of developing a new, more powerful
readability measure. In this context, Anagnostou& Weir (2007) also probed the nature of average
collocation frequency, and proposed this as apractical measure for estimating the complexity ofEnglish texts.
Fukui and his research team, on the other hand,
have long been engaged in developing a computer
program entitled College Analysis, an integrated
software facility for social system analysis using
statistics (Fukui & Hosokawa, 2004). A numberof techniques used during the development process
for this software, and parts of the program itself,
proved relevant and applicable to the goal of thepresent readability index development.
Ozasa, et al (2007) proposed two new measures,(1) textbook-based word difficulty and (2)textbook-based idiom difficulty as factors for
estimating the readability of texts from the EFL
textbooks presently used in Japanese formal
education.

The present work is one attempt to integrate theideas and techniques of these previous studies withcurrently available indices, in order to develop a
new readability index that will be best suited toJapanese EFL learners.

2

Aim

The present study aims (1) to empirically evaluate
the relative effectiveness of possible variables in
predicting EFL text readability, and to ascertain the
optimal combination of the variables that best
explains readability for Japanese EFL learners, and(2) to ascertain an optimal readability formula.
Specifically, our study aims to assess the validity offive new linguistic variables across two categories,
in addition to the commonly used variables,
sentence length (SL) and word length (WL).

3
3.1

MethodDeveloping a Computation Formula

The first stage in developing a formula for areadability index is to work out an operational
hypothesis which can be used for improving andfinalizing the index. The formula used as aworking hypothesis in the present study was asfollows:
EFL readability = aw + bx + cy + dz + e
Where: w: number of words / sentence
x: number of syllables / word
y: mean of the difficulty values ofwords used in the textbooks
z: mean of the difficulty values ofidioms used in the textbooks
a, b, c, d, e: coefficients
Here the basic assumption underlying the working
hypothesis is that readability is a function of thefour variables, sentence length (w), word length (x),textbook-based
word
difficulty(y)andtextbook-based idiom difficulty (z).
The application of word and idiom difficulty
measures have each been explored and elaborated
by researchers at the University of Strathclyde (op.
cit.). These concepts have been introduced withslight modification into the present version of thereadability index. Although the word / idiom
difficulty is closely related to frequency, we employ
an independent measure based on the intuitive
evaluation of Japanese teachers of English who arewell acquainted with Japanese EFL learners and theJapanese EFL situation.
The a, b, d c, d and e are coefficients that can be
adjusted and finalized depending upon the results ofthe empirical verification process.

In order to decide the rational numbers for a, b, c, dand e, multiple regression analyses were computedwith the year level of EFL textbooks as a dependent
variable and sentence length, word length, worddifficulty and idiom difficulty as independent
variables.
The new independent variables examined in the
research were (1) word difficulty and (2) idiom
difficulty.
As measures of word difficulty, threefactors were considered:(1) JACET 8000
(JACET), (2) the British National Corpus (BNC),and (3) Textbook-based Word Difficulty (TWD).
As measures of idiom difficulty, two factors wereconsidered:(1) Akao-based Idiom Difficulty(AID) and (2) Textbook-based Idiom Difficulty(TID). The textbook-based word difficulty andtextbook-based idiom difficulty are original
measures being developed in the present project.
To examine the predictive power of the sevenvariables and to ascertain the optimal solution forpredicting readability in a sample text, six multiple
regression analyses were computed using six
combinations of four kinds of variables as
independent variables and year level of EFL texts as
a dependent variable. The combinations of thefour kinds of independent variables were: (1) SL +WL + JACET + AID, (2) SL + WL + JACET + TID,
(3) SL + WL + BNC + AID, (4) SL + WL + BNC +TID, (5) SL + WL + TWD + AID, and (6) SL + WL
+ TWD + TID. The results of the 6 multiple
regression analyses were compared in terms of theeffectiveness of readability prediction. The
materials used for the dependent variable were
sample passages taken from a set of textbooks, i.e.,books 1 - 5, which is different from the sets used forbuilding the word and idiom difficulty measures.

4
4.1

Results and Discussion
Evaluating variables’ effectivenessThe six multiple regression analyses computed,using the six combinations of measures as
independent variables, gave the following data.
(1) SL + WL + JACET + AID,
The multiple regression analysis computed
using the combination of the four kinds of variables,
SL + WL + JACET + AID, gave the data shown in
Table 1.
Table 1: SL + WL + JACET + AID regression data
SL
WL
JWD
AID
Intercept
r2 = .34932

PRC
0.11600.63950.00130.00350.7561SPC
0.45550.10650.19070.02210.0000t
5.99151.38632.56510.30961.2851

df
142
142
142
142
142

p
0.00000.16780.01140.75730.2009PCC
0.44920.11560.21040.0260The multiple regression equation proved to be valid(F = 19.05841, fd = 4,142, p = .00000) although ther2 proved to be .34932, which is not verysatisfactory. As for the predictive power of thevariables, the standard partial coefficientswere .4555 for sentence length, .1065 for word
length, .1907 for JACET word difficulty, and .0221
for Akao-based idiom difficulty, respectively.
The results obtained indicate that sentence
length and JACET word difficulty were powerful in
predicting the readability of the Japanese EFL texts,
while the other three variables proved to be weak intheir predictive power.
(2) SL + WL + JACET + TID,
The multiple regression analysis computed
using the combination of the four kinds of variables,
SL + WL + JACET + TID, yielded the data shown in
Table 2.
Table 2: SL + WL + JACET + TID Regression Data
SL
WL
JWD
TID
Intercept
r2 =.35472

PRC
0.10910.65840.00120.05460.7466SPC
0.42850.10970.18990.08320.0000t
5.49361.43892.56821.1332
1.2847

df
142
142
142
142
142

p
0.00000.15240.01130.25910.2010PCC
0.41870.11990.2107
0.0947The multiple regression equation proved to be valid(F =19.51463, fd = 4,142, p = .00000). The r2
proved to be .35472, which is not very satisfactory,
either. As for the predictive power of the variables,
the standard partial coefficients were .4285 forsentence length, .1097 for word length, .1899 for
JACET word difficulty, and .0832 for
textbook-based idiom difficulty, respectively.
The results indicate that sentence length and
JACET word difficulty were powerful in predicting
the readability of the Japanese EFL texts, and thatthe predictive power of the other variables were
weak.
(3) SL + WL + BNC + AID,
The multiple regression analysis computed
using the combination of the four kinds of variables,
SL + WL + BNC + AID, yielded the data shown in
Table 3.
Table 3: SL + WL + BNC + AID regression data
PRC
SL
0.1193WL
0.8128BNC
0.0085AID
0.0037
Intercept 0.6127
r2 = .33208

SPC
0.46860.13540.12190.02320.0000t
6.10771.76451.65670.32051.0358

df
142
142
142
142
142

p
0.00000.07980.09980.74910.3020PCC
0.45610.14650.13770.0269The multiple regression equation proved to be valid(F = 17.65024, fd = 4,142, p = .00000). The r2
proved to be .33208, which is not very satisfactory,

either. As for the predictive power of the variables,
the standard partial coefficients were .4686 forsentence length, .1354 for word length, .1219 for
BNC word frequency, and .0232 for Akao-based
idiom difficulty, respectively.
The results obtained indicate that only sentence
length was powerful in predicting the readability of
the Japanese EFL texts, while the other threevariables proved to be weak in predictive power.
(4) SL + WL + BNC + TID,
The multiple regression analysis computed
using the combination of the four kinds of variables,
SL + WL + BNC + TID, yielded the data shown in
Table 4.
Table 4: SL + WL + BNC + TID regression data
PRC
0.11180.82660.0086
0.05850.6053r2 =.33828
SL
WL
BNC
TID

SPC
0.43920.13770.12450.08910.0000t
5.57511.80981.7044
1.1973
1.0370

df
142
142
142
142
142

p
0.00000.07240.09050.23320.3015PCC
0.42380.15020.14160.1000The multiple regression equation proved to be valid(F = 18.14797, fd = 4,142, p = .00000). The r2
proved to be .33828, which is not very satisfactory,
either. As for the predictive power of the variables,
the standard partial coefficients were .4392 forsentence length, .1377 for word length, .1245 for
JACET word difficulty, and .0891 for Akao-based
idiom difficulty, respectively.
The results obtained indicate that only sentence
length was powerful in predicting the readability of
the Japanese EFL texts, while the other threevariables proved to be weak in predictive power.
(5) SL + WL + TWD + AID,
The multiple regression analysis computed
using the combination of the four kinds of variables,
SL + WL + TWD + AID, yielded the data shown in
Table 5.
Table 5: SL + WL + TWD + AID regression data
PRC
SL
0.1033WL
0.5685TWD
1.1271AID-0.0007
Intercept -0.3583
r2 = .38628

SPC
0.4057
0.09470.2894-0.00440.0000t
5.3623
1.29743.9405-0.0638-0.5907

df
142
142
142
142
142

p
0.00000.19660.0001
0.94920.5556PCC
0.4104
0.10820.3140-0.0054

The multiple regression equation proved to be valid(F = 22.34404, fd = 4,142, p = .00000.). The r2
proved to be .38628, which is more satisfactory,compared to the previous ones. As for thepredictive power of the variables, the standard
partial coefficients were .4053 for sentence
length, .0947 for word length, .2894 fortextbook-based word difficulty, and -.0044 for
Akao-based idiom difficulty, respectively.
The results indicate that sentence length was theprimary predictor and textbook-based worddifficulty the secondary predictor of the readabilityof the Japanese EFL texts, and that the predictive
power of the other two variables was weak.
(6) SL + WL + TWD + TID.
The multiple regression analysis computed
using the combination of the four kinds of variables,
SL + WL + TWD + TID, yielded the data shown in
Table 6.
Table 6: + WL + TWD + TID regression data
SL
WL
TWD
TID
Intercept
r2 = 38734

PRC
0.0996
0.59781.10190.0237-0.3590

SPC
0.3911
0.09960.28290.03620.0000t
5.0694
1.37133.80880.4987-0.5963

df
142
142
142
142
142

p
0.00000.17240.0002
0.61880.5519PCC
0.39150.11430.30450.0418The multiple regression equation proved to be valid(F = 22.44363, fd = 4,142, p = .00000). The r2
proved to be .38734, which is the highest among thesix combinations. As for the predictive power ofthe variables, the standard partial coefficientswere .3911 for sentence length, .0996 for word
length, .2829 for textbook-based word difficulty,
and .0362 for textbook-based-based idiom difficulty,
respectively.
The results indicate that sentence length was theprimary predictor and the textbook-based worddifficulty the secondary predictor of the readabilityof the Japanese EFL texts, and that the predictive
power of the other two variables was minimal.

4.2
Ascertaining an optimal readability
formulaIn an attempt to ascertain the best readability
formula, a final multiple regression analysis wascomputed using the best combination of the
independent variables, SL + WL + TWD + TID, andas the dependent variable, the corpus of all of the
textbooks used in building the textbook-based word
and idiom difficulty measures. This gave thefollowing readability formula:Year = 0.0995*Words/S + 0.4302*Syllab/W +0.9799*WordDiff/W + 0.0633*IdiomDiff/S + 0.2815(F = 505.11970, df = 4 , 2874, p = .00000)(r2 = 0.41281)

5

Conclusion

The multiple regression analyses produced two
findings. First, the combination of variables, SL +WL + TWD + TID, proved to be the most effective
predictor of the readability of the EFL sample

textbook materials. Second, the regression equationthat best explains the total textbook corpus proved
to be as follows:Year = 0.0995*Words/S + 0.4302*Syllab/W +0.9799*WordDiff/W + 0.0633*IdiomDiff/S + 0.2815

References
Anagnostou, N. K. & Weir, G. R. S. (2007). Average
collocation frequency as an indicator of
semantic complexity. ICTATLL Workshop
2007 Preprints, 1-3 August, 2007, 43-48.
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 Preprints), 21-22
August, 2006, 33-46g
Basic Word List Revision Committee, Japan
Association of College English Teachers(JACET). (2003). JACET List of 8000
Basic Words. Japan College English
Teachers
Fukui, M. & Hosokawa, M. (2004). Developmentof integrated program for social systemanalysis
8:
Canonical
coefficientcorrelation analysis, factor analysis andutility [Syakai sisutem bunseki notameno
tougouka puroguramu 8: seijunsoukan
bunseki, insibunseki and utiriti]. BusinessInformation Studies, 9, 23-35.
Leech, G., Rayson, P. & Wilson, A. (2001). Word
frequencies in written and spoken English.
Harlow: Pearson Education.
Ozasa, T, Fukui, M., Hosokawa, M. & Miyoshi, M.
2007. Development of a readability index
for Japanese learners of EFL (1): An
interim report. ICTATLL Workshop 2007
Preprints, 1-3 August, 2007, 29-35.
Weir, G. R. S. & Ritchie, C., 2006. Estimating
readability with the Strathclyde readability
measure. ICT in the Analysis, Teachingand Learning of Languages (ICTATLL
Workshop Preprints), 21-22 August, 2006,
25-32.

Diachronic and Synchronic Analyses of English Textbooks:
With a Focus on the Gender Awareness
Tomoko Nakamura1 and Toshiaki Ozasa2

1

Faculty of Clinical Psychology, Hiroshima International University, 2Faculty of Management, Fukuyama
Heisei University
tnakam@he.hirokoku-u.ac.jp, tozasa@heisei-u.ac.jp

Abstract
This paper aims to analyze two corpus databases
from the dual standpoint of the historical context
and current relevance: one database contains
fourteen English textbook series, used in Japan
across a span of 135 years, and the other fivepresent-day English textbook series from AsianEFL (English as a Foreign Language) countries, interms of gender awareness. These data were
statistically analyzed to determine the frequenciesof the appearance of the pronouns, “she” and “he”
on the assumption that language disparity reflectssocial inequity in the position of women (Lakoff2004). The results of a diachronic analysis
contribute to proving that the authors of English
textbooks in Japan, except for those aiming at
women’s education, seem to have lacked genderawareness. From the results of synchronic analysis
of present-day English textbooks in Asian countries,
we conjecture that these textbooks may not yet
meet the global standard.

Keywords
English textbooks in Asian EFL countries,
quantitative and qualitative analyses, gender-fairIntroduction
We assume that textbooks are a reflection of thedays and the society in which they are written andused. In society, women have been invisible during
a long male-centered history. From the historicalcontext of English education in Japan, we examine
how gender awareness has developed. For current
relevance, we determine whether or not present-day
English textbooks in Asian countries satisfy the
global standard advocated by the Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action (BPFA), issued
on the occasion of the Forth World Conference on
Women held in Beijing, China in 1995. The
declaration says that the ultimate goal of education
is to create a gender-sensitive educational system.
Furthermore, in Paragraph 72, it advocates that weshould pursue non-stereotyped images of womenand men, and the elimination of the causes of
discrimination against women and inequalities
between women and men. This is the background to
the present study.

1

A diachronic analysis of English
textbooks in JapanThe aim of a diachronic analysis of English
textbooks in Japan is to substantiate whether or not
textbooks used in Japan across a period of morethan 100 years, reflect language equity between
men and women from the historical context. The
hypothesis is that if the frequencies of appearanceof “she” and “he” are equal, the textbook is
considered to be gender fair.
1.1
Method for a quantitative analysis
The corpus data used in this study was drawn fromfourteen English textbook series, representing a
total of 70 books published between 1861 and 1996
(Ozasa 2004).
The textbooks used for the diachronic analysis arelisted chronologically below:(1) Sanders, C.W. (1861-7). Sanders’ Union
Readers. Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co. (Union)
Originally an English textbook used in the U.S.A.
(2)Barnes, A.S. (1883-4). New National Readers.
A.S. Barnes & Co. (1883), American Book Co.
(1884). (National). Originally an English textbook
used in the U.S.A.
(3) Ministry of Education (Dening, W.) (1887-8).
English Readers: The High School Series. Ministryof Education. (Dening)(4) Ministry of Education (Toyama, M.) (1889-90).
Seisoku Mombusyo Dokuhon. Ministry of
Education. (Seisoku)(5) Shobido (1902). Standard Choice Readers.
Shobido. (Choice)(6) Kanda, N. (1903). Kanda’s New Series ofEnglish Readers (Revised Edition). Sanseido.
(Kanda)(7) Okakura, Y. (1907). The Globe Readers. .
Dainihontosho. (Globe)(8) Kumamoto, K (1907). New English Drill Books.
Kaiseikan. (Drill)(9) Tsuda, U. & Kumamoto, K. (1916). Girls’ New
Taisho Readers. Tokyo Kaiseikan. (Taisho)Textbooks for girls’ middle grade schools.
(10) Palmer, H.E. (1926). The Standard English
Readers. Kaitakusha. (Standard(P))(11) Takehara, T. (1932). The Standard English
Readers. Taishukan. (Standard(T))(12) Sawamura, Torajiro (1939). Girls’ Pacific
Readers. Tokyo Kairyudo (Pacific)(13) Hagiwara, K. et al. (1940). New Jack andBetty: English Step by Step (1,2,3). Kairyudo. (Jackand Betty). Hagiwara, K. et al. (1951). New HighSchool English (1,2). Kairyudo. ( High School)(14) Shimaoka, T. et al. (1986). Sunshine English
Course (Junior High, 1,2,3). Kairyudo. (Sunshine)
Tsuchiya, S. et al. (1987). Sunshine English Course(Senior High, 1, 2). Kairyudo. (Sunshine)
We analyzed the data according to the following
procedure:(1) English textbook series listed above weredigitized and the data file was created.
(2) AntConc (Anthony 2003) was used asconcordance software, and the frequencies ofappearance of “she” and “he” in each textbook
were investigated.
(3) In order to test the relationship between two
variables, “she” and “he,” we applied theChi-squared test.
1.2
Results and discussion
The results of the Chi-squared test on the data
determine that there is a significant difference
between the frequencies of appearance of “she” and“he” in textbooks (1) to (7) (df = 6, χ2 =721.53,
p<2.2e-16), and textbooks (8) to (14) (df = 6, χ2=1185.863, p<2.2e-16). This means that the
pronoun, “he”, as a whole has appeared more often
than “she” in the English textbooks in Japan. The
average ratio of frequencies of “she” to “he” was34.46%.
Furthermore, we find that 14 textbooks can be
categorized into three groups: one group which isthe closest to the ideal value, the ratio of “she” to“he” is 100%; another has the lowest frequencies of“she” compared to “he”; the other lies between theother two groups. Two textbooks out of three,which belong to the first group, were written for
women’s education before WW II. The ratios were
92.29% and 70.6%. These results contribute toproving the role played by women’s schools during

the period of modernization of Japanese society.
The average ratio of the other ten textbook series
published before the war was 22.1%. There seems
to be a lack of awareness of gender issues in old
textbooks. However, we must consider that this may
simply be a reflection of the immature society at thetime. What we would rather notice is the ratio of
frequencies of “she” to “he” in present-day English
textbook series in Japan, which is 60.56%. The
value has improved compared with that before thewar. This ratio, however, does not seem to meet thestandard suggested by BPFA. This result inclined us
to undertake further research on present-day
English textbooks in Asian countries.

2

A synchronic analysis of English
textbooks in five Asian countries

We aim to examine whether or not present-day
English textbooks of other Asian countries in EFL
contexts share the same problem as theircounterpart in Japan. This leads to the following
research questions of a synchronic analysis ofEnglish textbooks in Asian countries: “Are thetextbooks, used in Asian EFL countries, gendersensitive?” and “How are women and men
described in those textbooks?” We conducted aquantitative analysis for the first question and aqualitative analysis for the second.
2.1
Method for a quantitative analysis
We used the corpus database of five English
textbook series, representing a total of 25 books,
from five Asian EFL countries. We went throughthe same procedure as we did for the diachronic
analysis; i.e., to determine the frequencies of theappearance of the pronouns “she” and “he” in eachtextbook.
The textbooks used for the synchronic analysis
are listed below:
Thai textbook:(1) Santos, dos Manuel (2003). Super Goal, Thai
Watana Panich / McGraw-Hill.
Book 1-5.
(Hereafter ThailSG)
Mongolian textbooks(1) Ulziijargal, S., Erdenetsetseg, G., Mira, N. &Batjargal, D. (2000). English.1 Approved by the
Ministry of Science, Technology, Education andCulture. Unpublished. (JH2)(2) Hongorzul, S., Erdenetsetseg, Ts., Gunpilmaa,
Ch., Ulziijargal, S., Mira, N., Erdenetsetseg, G. &Tsolmon, G. (2000). English 3. Approved by the
Ministry of Science, Technology, Education and2

1 Book 1 of the Mongolian textbook series has not been
available so far; therefore, we analyzed Books 2 to 6.

Culture. Unpublished. (JH3)(3)Mira, N., & Erdenetsetseg, G. (1999). English 4.
Approved by the Ministry of Science, Technology,
Education and Culture. Unpublished.
(4) Ulziijargal, S., Burmaa, Ts., Tsolmon, G. &Batjargal, D. (2000). English 5. Approved by the
Ministry of Science, Technology, Education andCulture. Interpress.
(5) Hongorzul, S., Bayarmaa, J., Erdenetsetseg, Ts.
& Gumpilmaa, Ch. (2000). English 6. Approved by
the Ministry of Science, Technology, Education andCulture. Unpublished.
Chinese textbook:(1) People’s Education Press & Longman (ed.)(2001). Junior English for China. Book 1-5.
(Hereafter ChinaJ&S)
Korean textbook:(1) Chang, Young-hee et al. (2001). Middle School
English. Book 1-5, Tusan, (Hereafter KoreaJ&S)
Japanese textbook:(1) Shimaoka, T. et al. (1986). Sunshine English
Course. Book 1-5. Kairyudo.
(Hereafter
Sunshine)
2.2
Results of a quantitative analysis
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics for the Frequencies
of Appearance of “she” and “he”
she
he
Σ

ThailSG
572
936
1508

JH
435
686
1121

ChinaJ&S
857
1602
2459

KoreaJ&S
465
865
1330

Sunshine
390
644
1034

According to a Chi-squared test on the data, thesignificance of the difference of frequencies ismarginal (df = 4, χ2 =8.8031, p=0.06621).

Figure 1: Mosaic Plot of frequencies of “she” and“he” in Asian textbooks

We could not find any outstanding characteristics
in the results of the quantitative analysis. At firstsight of this figure, the problem of language
inequity, which old textbooks in Japan used to have,seems to have dissolved. Still, the average ratio of
frequencies of “she” to “he” of five present-day
English textbook series is 58.46%. We, therefore,
went further into the qualitative analysis.
2.3
Method for a qualitative analysis
Using book 1 to book 3 of each textbook series, we
explored the context of every “she” and “he”
pronoun in order to investigate how the person,
whom each pronoun indicates, was described. To dothis, we used the File View tool of AntConc.
Next, we classified two pronouns into four
categories based on the criterion of whether the
person has his/her name and/or an occupation, andwhether the person is described only with a family
name, or with others such as a girl, a boy, a student,a friend, a woman, a man, a baby and the like.
2.4
Results and discussion
Table 2. Descriptive Statistics for the Frequency ofEach Category

she
he
z

Names

Occupations

518
1056
1574

152
472
624

Family
Names
92
91
183

Others98
62
160

The results of a Chi-squared test on this data
determine that there is a significant difference
between “she” and “he” as a whole (df = 3, χ2=101.4204, p-value < 2.2e-16 ).

Figure 2: Mosaic Plot of frequencies of eachcategoryFrom the statistical analysis, we obtained threefindings:(1) As a whole, “he” tends to indicate a namemore frequently than “she”.
(2) Persons with occupations are referred to as“he” more often than “she”.
(3) Women are described as family members suchas grandmothers, mothers, sisters, or girls andstudents without any occupations more
frequently than men.
From our findings, we can derive images ofwomen who are invisible in society but visible in
the family setting. In particular, the results provethat working women do not appear as often as
working men in Asian English textbooks. The
results of qualitative analysis show that in AsianEnglish textbooks, descriptions of women still tend
to be based on the traditional ideas on the role eachsex has been expected to play in society.

3

Conclusion

It requires a long period of time for the
improvement of the society. Looking back at
English textbooks in Japan, Harold Palmer’s
textbook, published and used 80 years ago, has thelowest ratio of frequencies of “she” to “he,” 5.5%.
The results of quantitative analysis of present-day
English textbooks from five Asian countries provethat the ratio has improved; the average is 58.46%.
This may be partly because of the influence of
current public opinion in the world.
Still, the value is far below the ideal ratio, whichshould be 100% if we take into consideration thatwomen account for half of the whole population on
our planet. We conjecture that the average ratio we
obtained in the present study may yet not meet the
global standard proposed by some guidelines,
including BPFA. Also, the results of lexical
disparity found from qualitative analysis in thisresearch may reflect a social inequity in the positionof women, which persists in Asian countries.

4

Limitations
andforeseeable
extensions of this research

For the synchronic analysis, we selected only one
textbook from each country. For better reliability
and validity of the results, we need to have a larger
database. After that, hopefully we might go on to aneven more detailed examination concerning how
men and women are described. It is necessary for us
to spend more time on hand labor for the enlarged
data.
Lastly, foreseeable extension of this research
includes comparisons with English textbooks ofEuropean EFL countries. This is because someresearchers on women’s history, including Mizuta(1979), find the origin of gender awareness inWestern Europe during the period between the latter
half of eighteenth and the beginning of nineteenth
century.
References
Abe, N. Palmer, H.E., The Standard English
Readers (1926). In Ozasa, T., & Erikawa, H. eds.,
2004. Eigo Kyoukasho no Rekishiteki Kenkyu(Historical Research of English Textbooks).
Jiyusha, Tokyo.
Anthony, L. (2003). AntConc. 3.2.1
http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/software.html(October 10th, 2007)
Ishikawa, Y., (2003). A corpus-based study on
English sexist expressions: An analytical
approach to the use of gender-specific titles, job
titles, and generic pronouns. Tokyo, Yushodo.
Lakoff, R. T., (2004). Language and Woman’s
Place: Text and Comments. Revised andextended editon. New York, Oxford University
Press.
Mizuta, T., (1979) Jyosei Kaiho Shisoushi (Thehistory of feminism). Tokyo, Chikuma Shobo.
Nakamura, T. (2006) A Feminist Study of English
Textbooks Published in Japan. In Weir, G. &Ozasa, T. Eds. Texts, Textbooks and Readability.
University of Strathclyde Publishing. U.K.
pp.1-8.
Nakamura, T., Ozasa, T. & Watanabe, K. (2007)
The Gender Awareness in the English Textbooksof Five Asian EFL Countries. ICTATLL
Workshop 2007 Preprints. pp.74-78.
Ozasa, T., & Erikawa, H. eds., (2004). Eigo
Kyoukasho no Rekishiteki Kenkyu (Historical
Research of English Textbooks). Jiyusha, Tokyo.
Asian
Women’s
Resource
Exchange:
http://www.aworc.org/ (October 10th, 2007)
Division for the Advancement of Women,
Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/followup/
beijing+5.htm (October 10th, 2007)

Estimating Naturalness in Japanese English Textbooks
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

Abstract
This paper describes work in progress to determine
the degree to which English language textbooks
used in Japan portray 'natural' English. We begin byelucidating this concept of 'naturalness' and proceed
to compare three example textbook series drawn
from different decades in Japanese ESL history. Our
approach compares the extent to which the content
of each textbook series reflects the characteristics of'reference' language materials, on the grounds thatthese materials afford a plausible standard fornatural English. The primary materials used forreference are the Brown corpus of American
English and the British National Corpus of British
English.
The characteristics considered are the proportionsof grammatical parts-of-speech (POS) represented
in the textbooks. The calculation is achieved using
analytical tools that we have developed for thispurpose. By measuring the distribution ofpart-of-speech features in each textbook series andin the reference materials, we can make a directcomparison of the extent to which each textbook
series mirrors the 'reference pattern' of grammaticalconstituents. Thereby, we can shed light on the
degree to which this measure of 'naturalness' isreflected in each textbook series; and the degree ofnaturalness across textbook series.

Keywords
Natural English, textual analysis, POS Tagging.

Introduction
Japan has a long tradition in teaching English as asecond language (ESL) and over the years has
adopted a variety of different styles of textbook andteaching strategy. In this context, our present study
aims to contrast the content of three ESL textbook
series used at different historical periods in Japan.
This forms part of an on-going programme ofdiachronic analyses conducted by Japanese
researchers (e.g., Ozasa & Erikawa, 2004).

In our study, we considered three textbook series.
The first series, Barnes' New National Readers, waspublished in 1883-84 and is taken to represent the‘early’ period of ESL teaching in Japan. The second
textbook series that we consider, 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.

1Naturalness in English

There are varying possible objectives for thoseengaged in second language learning. In Palmer’s
words, ‘The student may limit his requirements to avery superficial knowledge of some pidgin form of
the language, and will be perfectly happy if he justsucceeds in making himself understood by using
some atrocious caricature of the language which heis supposed to be learning. Or he may be more
ambitious and set out in earnest to become masterof the living language just as it is spoken andwritten by the natives themselves’ (Palmer, 1964,p.24).
This breadth of linguistic competence spansmany dimensions of naturalness. That is to say, thesecond language user may exhibit a close proximity
to native patterns of speech, or to native idiomatic
expression, or, indeed, to a native accent. Beyond
these, lie other facets of native language use towhich any learner’s performance may also
approximate. In each instance, the yardstick fornaturalness seems to lie in proximity to native
language performance. Of course, this is simplistic,
given the fact there is no single ‘received’ standard
for native language performance. Yet, the principle
still applies if we assume that there arecharacteristics of native language performanceagainst which we can gauge the learner’s degree ofsuccess.
The availability of reference corpora such as the
British National Corpus (BNC), provides us with anindependent standard for native language usageagainst which we may compare learner performanceor any other source of English usage. Although suchbodies of English are strictly descriptive accountsof language usage, they still serve as a measureagainst which the ‘plausibility’ of sample English
may be assessed. For our present study, we treat the
BNC and the Brown corpus as reasonable indicatorsof natural English. In the former case, the BNC
represents British English usage while the Brown
corpus represents American English usage.
Within these representatives of English, there
are many facets of language use that we might
select as our points of focus. At present, weconsider only the distribution of parts-of-speech as
our gauge for naturalness.
Our assumption in adopting parts-of-speech as adimension of naturalness is simply that natural useof English will tend to similar distributions ofpart-of-speech usage as we find in large
representations of the target language. Consequently,
the degree of similarity in part-of-speech
distribution found when comparing English samples
with one of our reference corpora indicates theirdegree of naturalness.
For clarity, let us elaborate what we mean by
part-of-speech (POS) profile (see also, Weir &Anagnostou, 2007). For any given text, we
calculate the proportion of nouns, verbs, adjectives,
adverbs, prepositions and determiners. The
percentage contribution of each of theseparts-of-speech gives the POS profile. Of that text .
1.1
Methodology
In order to apply part-of-speech distribution as acomparative measure we require a means ofprofiling parts-of-speech in sample texts and in our
representative corpora. This profiling is achieved byusing the part-of-speech (POS) profiling tool, fromthe Posit Text Profiling Toolset (Weir, 2007). The
POS profiler supports part-of-speech profiling on
any specified text and outputs a detailed account ofword occurrences for the input text corpus. Totals
are given for word tokens, word types,
part-of-speech types and part-of-speech tokens.
The quantified parts-of-speech are a major
subset of the tag set applied by the POS tagger usedwithin the POS profiler. This tagger (theLingua::EN::Tagger) is available as a Perl modulefrom CPAN (http://www.cpan.org) and applies thePenn Treebank tag set (Marcus et al, 1994). The
POS profiling facility is invoked at the commandline on a specified text corpus. The input corpus isprocessed by the software module in accordancewith the following sequence:
1. Create word count and token frequency list
2. Tag the input file using a POS tagger

3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Tokenize the POS tagged file
Extract POS counts
Analyse results
Output results
Create results summary

This process is applied in turn to the sample
textbooks and to the Brown corpus. We do not
analyse the BNC in this fashion, since the
distributed version already contains POS mark up.
Each individual textbook series is treated as a single
corpus and the text of all books in the series isamalgamated to create a single data file version inplain text format. General statistics for the three
textbook series are shown in Table 1, below.
Table 1: General Statistics for Textbook Corpora
Textbook Series
Total tokens
Total types
Type/Token Ratio
No. of sentences
Ave. sent. length
Ave. word length2

National
190470
12154
15.67
10572
18
5.5

Globe
67231
6869
9.78
4484
15
5.5

JandB
51557
4923
10.47
5392
10
5.4

Textbook POS Profiles

By applying the Posit POS Profiler to each of the
textbook corpora in turn, we derive totals for themain parts-of-speech. This data is shown in Table 2,
below.
Table 2: POS Totals for Textbook Corpora
nouns
verbs
prepositions
determiners
adjectives
adverbs
personal pronouns
possessive pronouns
interjections
otherstotal

National
48188
34024
25180
22269
13747
12979
10067
4959
36
19021
190470

Globe
17489
11712
8974
8226
4865
4289
3364
1502
49
6761
67231

JandB
14301
9926
5725
5399
4546
3144
2694
1140
142
4540
51557

Since each textbook series differs in size, thesevalues for parts-of-speech are more revealing whenconverted to proportions. Percentage values for thecontribution of each part-of-speech are shown in
Table 3, below. Both Table 2 and Table 3 rank theparts-of-speech in descending order. The exception
to this is the value for ‘other’ parts-of-speech,
which is listed last in each case.

Table 3: POS Percentages for Textbook Corpora
nouns
verbs
prepositions
determiners
adjectives
adverbs
personal pronouns
possessive pronouns
interjections
otherstotal

National
25.3
17.9
13.2
11.7
7.2
6.8
5.3
2.6
0.0
10.0
100

Globe
26.0
17.4
13.3
12.2
7.2
6.4
5.0
2.2
0.1
10.1
100.0

Table 4: POS Percentages for the Brown Corpus
nouns
verbs
prepositions

JandB
27.7
19.3
11.1
10.5
8.8
6.1
5.2
2.2
0.3
8.8
100.0

Already, we can note that each of the three textbook
series has the same ranking for part-of-speech
distribution. This is an interesting result that could
not have been readily predicted.
Using the data from Table 3, we can contrast the
distribution for parts-of-speech by graphing each
set of percentages. The result, shown in Figure 1,
below, indicates a strong similarity in profile acrossthe three textbook corpora.

determiners
adjectives
adverbs
personal pronouns
possessive pronouns
interjections
others
total

29.5
16.4
14.0
11.4
7.9
4.7
4.5
1.7
0.0
9.9
100.0

Deriving a comparable POS profile for the British
National Corpus was less straightforward since this
corpus is already tagged with a different set ofpart-of-speech tags. For this reason, we employ tag
equivalence information (Manning & SchҒeutze,
1999, p.141-142) in order to map from the BNC
CLAWS (Rayson & Garside, 1998) mark up to thePenn Treebank standard. Analysis of the POS
profile for the full BNC produced the data shown in
Table 5, below.
Table 5: POS Percentages for the BNC
nouns
verbs
prepositions
determiners
adjectives
adverbs
personal pronouns
possessive pronouns
interjections
others
total

30.0
25.0
20.0

National

15.0

Globe

10.0

JandB

ot
he
rs

ve
rb
s
pr
ep
os
itio
ns
de
te
rm
in
er
s
ad
je
ct
ive
s

no
un
s

0.0

ad
pe
ve
rs
rb
on
s
al
po
pr
on
ss
ou
es
si
ns
ve
pr
on
ou
n
in
te
rje
ct
io
ns

5.0

Figure 1: POS Profiles for Textbook Corpora

3

Reference Corpora

Since our purpose is to compare POS profiles as adimension of English naturalness, we employ two
non-textbook corpora as reference points. The
reason for choosing two such references is the wish,
on the one hand, to accommodate the likely
influence of American English in the compositionof Japanese textbooks and, on the other hand, toprovide an alternative contrast in British English.
For these reasons, the Brown corpus has been
included as a source of American English and theBritish National Corpus is included as
representative of British English.
In order to produce a POS profile for the Brown
corpus, we input the Brown corpus to the Posit POS
Profiling tool. This produced the POS profile shownin Table 4, below.

9.6
15.0
5.5
6.0
4.7
3.9
2.8
1.1
0.3
50.9
100.0

The percentage distribution for the BNC shows
clear differences in the ranking of theparts-of-speech. In addition, around half of the
corpus is not accounted for by the specified
parts-of-speech.

4

Textbook and Reference Profiles

Equipped with the part-of-speech profiles for all
three textbook corpora and both reference corpora,we were able to compare the profiles of all five setsof texts. This full profile comparison is shown in
Figure 2, below.

60.0

50.0

40.0

National
Globe
JandB
Brown
BNC

30.0

20.0

10.0

0.0
nouns

verbs

prepositions determiners

adjectives

adverbs

personal
pronounspossessive
pronounsinterjections

othersFigure 2: POS Profiles for all Considered Corpora
From this comparison, three conclusions seemappropriate. Firstly, as indicated earlier, each of the
textbook corpora have remarkably similar POS
profiles. Secondly, the textbook POS profile is also
markedly similar to that of the Brown corpus.
Thirdly, the POS profile for the BNC appears to beconsiderably divergent from the other four corpora.
What inferences may be drawn from theseobservations? Perhaps the textbooks share anunderlying similarity in their choice of language
forms. This may not be unreasonable, given theirsimilar pedagogical objectives. Beyond this, theirresemblance in POS profile to the Brown corpus
suggests that they may also have attained a degreeof English naturalness. Certainly, their profiles
appear consonant with American English
characteristics as represented by the Brown corpus.
The apparent discrepancy between the BNC
POS profile and the other corpora may arise fromthe transatlantic divide in English. In addition, there
may be some skewing of BNC results from thepresence of transcribed spoken content in the
corpus (accounting for ~10% of its total).

5

Conclusion

We have presented an analysis of three series ofEnglish language textbooks used in Japan for ESL
teaching across three periods of Japanese history.
Sets of POS profile data were generated using the
Posit POS Profiling tool for these textbook corpora
and separate analysis was performed for the Brown
corpus and the BNC.
Comparison of the POS profiles shows anotable similarity between the textbook series.
Furthermore, the textbook’s profiles are markedly
similar to the profile of the Brown corpus The BNC
appears exceptional in its POS profile.
We are led to suggest that all three textbook
series may be regarded as attaining a dimension ofEnglish naturalness, as denoted by theirapproximation to the POS profile represented by theAmerican English Brown corpus.

References
Manning, C.D. & SchҒeutze, H. (1999). Foundationsof Statistical Natural Language Processing,
Boston: MIT Press.
Ozasa, T & Erikawa, H. (2004). Eigo Kyokasho no
Rekishiteki Kennkyu [A Historical Study ofEnglish Textbooks]. Tokyo: Jiyusha.
Palmer,H.
(1964).
The
Principlesof
Language-Study.
Oxford:OxfordUniversity Press.
Rayson, P. & Garside, R. (1998). The CLAWS Web
Tagger. ICAME Journal.
Weir, G.R.S. (2007). The Posit Text Profiling
Toolset, Proceedings of PAAL2007.
Weir, G.R.S. & Anagnostou, N.K. (2007). Exploring
Newspapers: A Case Study in Corpus
Analysis. Proceedings of ICTATLL 2007,
Hiroshima, Japan, 12-19.

Variation in the Acquisition of Unaccusative Verbs by
Japanese EFL Learners
Kenichi Yamakawa1, Naoki Sugino2, Hiromasa Ohba3, Michiko Nakano4 and Yuko Shimizu5

1

Faculty of Letters, Yasuda Women’s University, 2College of Information Science and Engineering,
Ritsumeikan University, 3Graduate School of Education, Joetsu University of Education,
4

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

College of Economics, Ritsumeikan University

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

Abstract
The present study will focus on variation in theacquisition of unaccusative verbs by Japanese EFL
learners. In the literature, unaccusative verbs havebeen regarded as a single category, and they
actually seem to behave as such because
unaccusative verbs consistently exhibit greaterdifficulty than unergative verbs. On the other hand,different unaccusative verbs have also displayed
different degrees of difficulty, which might pose aquestion to the plausibility of considering the verbs
as a category. Three grammatical judgment tests
were administered to 655 Japanese EFL learners.
The test data were analyzed with the use of Item
Response Theory, which yielded b-parameter(difficulty parameter) values of all the test items.
The comparison of b-parameter values of all the
relevant test items was made. We will report thevarying degrees of difficulty of the 13 unaccusative
verbs, and examine whether the Unaccusative
Hierarchy (Sorace, 1993, 1997) will provide a
possible account for the differences.

(e.g., [ Mary [VP danced] ] )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, laugh) originallyhave a logical subject (NP1) as an externalargument (i.e., an argument outside the VP), whichbears the participant role AGENT (the instigator ofan event) (1a). The unaccusatives (e.g., die, fall,
happen), on the other hand, originally lack a logicalsubject (i.e., “empty”), and only have a logicalobject (NP2) as an internal argument, whichassumes the participant role THEME (a participant
affected by an event) (1b). The internal argument(NP2), then, is moved to the surface subject
position in order to satisfy the English syntactic
requirement which stipulates that the subject
position must be filled with a lexical item (1c). As aresult, the grammatical subject of the unaccusative
verb originates as the logical object. At first sight it
becomes difficult to make the unergative/unaccusative distinction on the surface level because bothhave the same surface structure (i.e., NP + V).
b.

Keywords
Unaccusative verbs, Japanese EFL learner, Item
Response Theory, the Unaccusative Hierarchy

1
1.1

Acquisition of unaccusative verbs

Two kinds of intransitive verbs:
Unaccusative and unergative verbs
The Unaccusative Hypothesis (Perlmutter, 1978)
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] ]1.2

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 (Zobl, 1989: 204):(2) a. *Most of people are fallen in love andmarry with somebody. (Japanese L1)
b. *My mother was died when I was just ababy. (Thai L1)
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.
1.3

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 (cf., 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 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

Variation in theunaccusative verbs

acquisition

of

There is amounting evidence in the literature that
the Unaccusative Hypothesis can be validated
because L2 learners experience greater difficultywith unaccusatives than with unergatives (e.g.,
Hirakawa, 2003; Oshita, 1997; Shomura, 1996;
Yamakawa et al. 2003). Oshita (2001) goes further
to propose the three-stage acquisition model ofunaccusative verbs by L2 learners. Thus, in therelevant literature, unaccusative verbs are treateddifferently from unergative verbs, and are regarded
as a subclass of intransitive verbs, forming a single
category. From this view, members belonging to thecategory (i.e., each unaccusative verb) should
display the same grammatical characteristics tosome extent as they are in the same category.
However, it is also observed that L2 learners
experience varying degrees of difficulty withunaccusative verbs, which could question the notionof unaccusative verbs as a single linguistic (andpsychological) 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).
Literature reviews present contradictory resultswith regard to relative difficulty of the two
subcategories. Some studies report that L2 learners
found alternating unaccusative verbs more difficult(e.g., Hirakawa, 2003; Kwak, 2003) whereas
Shomura (1996), using a multiple-choice type test,
reports the opposite. Furthermore, Ju (2000) argues
his Chinese subjects showed no difference indifficulty level; on the other hand, Kondo (2005)
claims that different degrees of difficulty depend on
the learner’s native language.
Findings in the differences among individual
unaccusative verbs have also been reported. L2
learners avoid 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
regard as transitives such non-alternating verbs as
emerge, fall and occur (Shomura, 1996) and(dis)appear, die, emerge and vanish (Kondo, 2005).
Discrepancy observed in the previous studies
may be attributed to differences in the number of
unaccusative verbs used by the researchers, and in
the participants’ levels of proficiency and theirnative languages, but it is plausible to say that there
are various degrees of difficulty among different
unaccusative verbs.

3

The Unaccusative Hierarchy

Sorace (1993, 1997) notes different unaccusative
verbs display different syntactic behavior
cross-linguistically and intra-linguistically andproposes the Unaccusative Hierarchy (Table 1),
where lexical-semantic components (e.g., “changeof location,” etc.) which verbs signify are gradedaccording to the type of event affecting the subject(the role of THEME), in terms of such dimensions
as dynamic/static, telic/atelic, and concrete/abstract.
Lexical-semantic components higher in rank are“core,” or more prototypical, and share suchdimensions as dynamic, telic and concrete.
Table 1: The Unaccusative Hierarchy (Adaptedfrom Sorace, 1997: 159)
Unpaired (monadic) verbs
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 of a condition (e.g., exist)
Paired (dyadic) verbs
With a transitive alternant (e.g., break, close)With an atelic alternant (e.g., run)

Sorace (1997) argues that different languages
manifest different lexical-semantic components as aminimal trigger in order to determine if the single
argument of a verb is linked to the internalargument position, which shows unaccusativity
syntax. For example, Italian manifests “existence ofa condition” as a trigger; otherwise, the single
argument of a verb is linked to the externalargument position, displaying unergative syntax. On
the other hand, in French, it is “change of location”
that leads to the mapping of the argument onto theinternal position. Thus, the class of French verbs
exhibiting unaccusative syntax is narrower than thecorresponding Italian class. It is also stated that theequivalent factor in the case of English is “changeof condition.”
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 the later stage.

4

The study

4.1
PurposeThe present study aims to investigate aspects ofvariation in the acquisition of unaccusative verbs by
Japanese EFL learners; particularly, does learners’
acquisition show any sensitivity to the
Unaccusative Hierarchy? To this end, the test dataobtained in Yamakawa et al. (2006) is utilized.
4.2
Materials and procedures
Yamakawa et al. (2006) prepared three grammatical
judgment tests called Units Y, K and M, where 48,
36 and 36 items each were designed to examine theplausibility of the Unaccusative Hypothesis, the two
accounts of nontarget unaccusative verbs (see 1.3),
and the acquisition order of unaccusatives (seeYamakawa et al., 2006, for details). Units K and M
are a duplicate of Unit Y with most of the test items
identical with those in Unit Y, and will be treated as
one unit, Units KM, henceforth.
The present study only considers the data of
the items with seven alternating unaccusative verbs(break, burn, close, dry, grow, melt, boil) and six
non-alternating unaccusative verbs (appear, arrive,die, exist, fall, happen). Each verb was placed insentence patterns such as NP+V, NP+V+NP and
NP+be+p.p. (Table 2), and 655 participants, out ofwhom 369 took Unit Y, 133 Unit K, and 153 Unit
M, judged the grammaticality of the test items on a
five-point scale.

Table 2: Sample sentences used in Units Y and KM(Non-alternating unaccusative verbs: e.g., arrive)
NP+V: Your letter arrived yesterday.
*NP+V+NP: *Finally the waitress arrived the salad
to us.
*NP+be+p.p.: *Because of the rain, the train was
arrived late.
(Alternating unaccusative verbs: e.g., break)
NP+V: The refrigerator broke because it was so old.
NP+V+NP: I broke a glass in the kitchen.
NP+be+p.p.: The door was broken by the police.

4.3
Data analysis
The original aim of Yamakawa et al. (2006) was toexploreinterrelationships
amongdifferent
grammatical items in the development ofgrammatical competence of Japanese EFL learners.
In addition to Units Y and KM, five more test units
were prepared, and about 1,200 participants in total
took different numbers of test units.
In order to equate scores on a single scalewith the objective of comparing the data obtainedon these tests, Item Response Theory was utilized,
and the equating process was conducted with thetwo-parameter logistic model, yielding a-parameter(discrimination parameter) and b-parameter(difficulty parameter). For the purpose of this study,
we will only focus on the b-parameter values of thetest items with alternating and non-alternating
unaccusative verbs in Units Y and KM.
4.4
Results
Tables 3 and 4 show b-parameter values of each
unaccusative verb used in three different sentence
constructions (see 4.2) as well as the averages of
the three b-parameter values.
Table 3: b-parameter values of unaccusative verbs
in Unit Y
NP+V NP+V+NP NP+be+p.p. Average
break
-1.74
-1.30
-1.52
burn
-1.45
-2.13
-1.79
close
-1.58
-0.88
-1.23
dry
0.18
-1.38
-0.60
grow
-1.60
-1.31
-1.46
melt
0.46
-2.09
-0.82
appear
-0.83
-0.47
0.22
-0.36
arrive
-1.19
-1.11
-0.35
-0.88
die
-1.64
-0.93
0.37
-0.73
exist
-0.71
-0.12
-0.44
-0.42
fall
-1.24
0.35
0.88
0.00
happen
-1.09
-0.67
0.86
-0.30
Note: Unit Y does not contain sentences with alternating
unaccusative verbs used in the NP+V construction. The
range of b-parameter values is typically from about -2 to
2. Items with values near -2 can be considered very easy.

Table 4: b-parameter values of unaccusative verbs
in Units KM
NP+V NP+V+NP NP+be+p.p. Average
boil
*
-0.59
-1.64
-1.12
break
-0.25
-1.37
-1.83
-1.15
close
-0.08
-1.50
-0.84
-0.81
dry
0.14
0.17
-0.92
-0.20
grow
-0.97
-1.17
-0.99
-1.04
melt
-0.64
0.27
-0.96
-0.44
appear
-0.44
-0.34
0.36
-0.14
arrive
-0.56
-0.53
-0.38
-0.49
die
-0.91
-0.32
-0.07
-0.43
exist
-0.48
-0.27
-0.49
-0.41
fall
-0.33
0.40
0.26
0.11
happen
-0.67
-0.77
-0.13
-0.52
Note: Units KM contain boil instead of burn in Unit Y.
Boil in the NP+V pattern was too difficult to be assigned
b-parameter value to.

As Tables 3 and 4 depict, the averaged b-parametervalues of unaccusative verbs manifest such awide-range distribution that it is safe to say thatlearners experience different degrees of difficultywith unaccusatives. In addition, the averaged
b-parameter values of non-alternating verbs arehigher than those of alternating verbs, which means
the former are more difficult. Moreover, alternating
verbs, which form a single layer in the hierarchy,
also exhibit varying degrees of difficulty
The order of difficulty of individual alternating verbs is stable with break the easiest andmelt the most difficult, whereas with regard to
non-alternating, no particular order is observed
except fall, which is the most difficult in all cases.
In fact, the order of difficulty of unaccusative verbs
varies according to the sentence patterns where
each verb is placed. Moreover, the difficulty orderof unaccusative verbs does not correspond to theorder the Unaccusative Hypothesis predicts.

5

Discussion and conclusion

The comparison of b-parameter values of all theunaccusative verbs in Units Y and KM leads us toconclude that it is difficult to maintain that
unaccusative verbs form a single category in termsof difficulty. The Unaccusative Hierarchy did notprovide an explanation for varying difficulty of
unaccusatives. The findings obtained showed the
opposite tendency, where prototypical nonalternating verbs displayed more difficulty, andalternating verbs, which are regarded as peripheral
and thus more difficult, turned out to be easier.
References
Hirakawa, M. (2003). Unaccusativity in Second
Language Japanese and English. Tokyo:
Hituzi Syobo.

Ju, M. K. (2000). Overpassivization errors bysecond language learners. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition, 22, 85-111.
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. Journalof Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, 7, 169-187.
Oshita, H. (1997). The Unaccusative Trap: L2
Acquisition of English Intransitive Verbs.
Ph. D. dissertation. University of Southern
California, LA, California.
Oshita, H. (2001). The unaccusative trap in second
language acquisition. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition, 23, 279-304.
Perlmutter, D. M. (1978). Impersonal passives andthe unaccusative hypothesis. Proceedingsof the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 4,157-189.
Shomura, Y. (1996). Perspectives on pedagogic
grammar in English language teaching: A
study of the acquisition of ergatives byJapanese learners. Annual Review ofEnglish Learning and Teaching, 1, 17-35.
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. (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.
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., Kimura, S., Nakano, M.,
Ohba, H., & Shimizu, Y. (2006).
Acquisition of English grammaticalfeatures by adult Japanese EFL learners:
The application of Item Response Theory
in SLA research. Proceedings of CLaSIC
2006, 942-974.
Zobl, H. (1989). Canonical typological structuresand ergativity in English L2 acquisition. In
S. M. Gass, & J. Schachter (Eds.),
Linguistic
Perspectiveson
SecondLanguage
Acquisition(pp.203-221).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

English Secondary Predicates and Their Equivalent Expressions in Thai
Natsuki Matsui
Kwansei Gakuin University, Graduate School of Humanities
matsunatsu@kwansei.ac.jp

Abstract

Although the secondary predicate constructions,
namely resultative and depictive constructions, areoften seemingly identical since both types bear theconfigurations of NP­V­NP­XP in English, the Thai
equivalents to those involve several different typesof constructions. This paper investigates Thai
expressions which are parallel to English resultativeand depictive constructions with a view to explicitly
stipulating what might be referred to as theresultative and depictive constructions in Thai.
English resultatives can be classified into five typesof constructions among their equivalent expressions
in Thai, whereas two types of Thai constructions
seem to parallel to English depictives. Thislinguistic analysis can contribute to English
language pedagogy in terms of providing detailed
grammatical explanations of the target language.

Keywords

secondary predicate, resultative, depictive, Thai
serial verb construction

Introduction

A large number of studies concerning the English
secondary predicate construction [SPC], which
includes resultative and depictive constructions,have focused on comparing their equivalent
expressions in other languages, most of which are
European and East Asian languages1. Although adetailed investigation of Thai resultatives has been
carried out by Thepkanjana & Uehara [henceforth
T&U] (to appear), studies of the English SPC andtheir equivalent expressions in Southeast Asian
languages such as Thai are still, as far as I know,
quite limited. As Matsumoto (2006) mentions,linguistic analysis can provide practical benefits inforeign language pedagogy. To this end, I will
examine Thai with a view to identifying its
1

The English SPC also contains causative construction
and perception verb construction (Rapoport, 1993), alongwith above two constructions. This paper, however, focus
only resultative and depictive constructions as the SPC.

constructions which are equivalent to the English
SPC, and to clarifying the difference between these
constructions and other similar constructions.

1

Resultative construction in English

The resultative construction is a simplex sentencethat describes an event consisting of a causing
subevent denoted by the verb phrase and a result
subevent denoted by the resultative predicate [RP].
(1) a. Stephanie painted the table red.
b. Minna broke the fancy plate into pieces.
c. Carlos beat John unconscious.
d. Matt shot the robber to death.
The italicized phrases in (1) are RPs which describe
the result state. The result state is described mostly
with either an adjectival phrase or a prepositional
phrase in English.
English resultatives syntactically fall into twoclasses, transitive resultative and intransitive
resultative (Carrier & Randall, 1992). The former isillustrated in (1) and the latter in (2), respectively.
(2) a. Heidi shouted herself hoarse.
b. David drank himself to sleep.
The NPs which appear in the object slot are referred
to as the “fake reflexive” object (Simpson, 1983).
Intransitive resultatives will be unacceptablewithout these fake reflexive objects.
Resultative constructions also show different
semantic properties with regard to the resultative
state. According to the syntactic frames, thesentences in (1) fall into the same type, namelytransitive resultatives. The overt difference between(1a, 1b) and (1c, 1d) is the aspectual class of thecausing subevent denoted by the verb (cf.
Kageyama, 1996). The sentences without the RP in(1a) and (1b), such as Stephanie painted the table,
depict accomplishment events, whereas those in(1c) and (1d), such as Carlos beat John, do not.
According to this semantic difference, Kageyama(1996) divides the resultative construction into twoclasses: inherent resultatives (e.g. (1a, b)) and
derived resultatives (e.g. (1c, d)). The former typeincludes a verb which inherently contains the result
state, and the latter type, on the other hand, involves

a verb which only designates an activity event.
Inherent resultatives may merely express thefurther specification of the result state caused by theaction. In contrast, derived resultatives express thestate which is caused by the action denoted by theverb, and which is not the further specification of
the result state whose meaning includes themeaning of the verb.

2

Resultatives in Thai

In this section I would like to consider the use of
resultatives in Thai. Note that although Thai
resultatives involve a wide range of cause­effectrelation (cf. Takahashi, 2004; T&U, to appear), my
focus will be only on sentences which areequivalent to English resultative constructions.2
2.1
Serial verb construction
According to the previous studies (e.g. Iwasaki &Ingkaphirom [hereafter I&I], 2005; T&U, toappear), Thai employs the serial verb construction[SVC] to represent what corresponds to English
resultatives as shown below.
sµßa
sa?aÝat(3) a. soàmchaay saÛkSomchaay wash shirt clean‘Somchaay washed his shirt clean.’
sµßa
rißap
b. soàmchaay rißit
Somchaay ironshirt smooth‘Somchaay ironed his shirt smooth.’(T & U, to appear)
The SVC involves “a sequence of verbs which act
together as a single predicate, without any overt
markers of coordination, subordination, or syntactic
dependency of any other sort” (Aikhenvald, 2006:
1). The SVC frequently appears in isolating
languages like Thai in which “no verbal
morphology distinguishes finite and nonfinite verb
forms” (I&I, 2005: 231). T & U (to appear) further
point out that the SVC is typically used to describe
events which occur sequentially without adiscernible interval.
Considering the properties of the SVC, Matsui(2007) raises a question as to whether the sentencesin (3a) and (3b) are “true” SVCs. The above
sentences are distinguishable in terms of theacceptability of the sentence according to myinformants. Most of them did not accept (3b) unlessthe cause marker haßy appears as rißit (iron) sµßa
(shirt) haßy (CAUSE) rißap (smooth), whereas (3a)was mostly thought to be acceptable. Matsui(2007a) distinguishes the sentences in (3) from the“true” SVC which consists of two verbs without
any marker of subordination. The true resultative2

Abbreviation: COP=copula; PFX=prefix; NOM=
nominal; RDP=reduplication

SVC is exemplified in (4), while (5) illustrates what
Matsui refers to as the Verb Adjective Construction(VAC), which may be realized without the cause
marker haßy.
yiN
sµàaà
taay
(4) a. faßay
Faay
shoot
tiger
die
‘Faay shot the tiger dead’phlaÛk pratuu p«Ý«tb. naroN
Narong push
door
open
‘Narong pushed the door open.’phaßa(haßy)
sa?aÝat(5) a. dEEN saÛkDeng wash clothes CAUSE clean‘Deng washed the clothes clean.’loohaÝ
(haßy)
bEEn
b. saànti tii
Santi pound metal
CAUSE
flat
‘Santi pounded the metal flat.’
There is a difference in acceptability among theresultative VACs. For instance, (5a) is fairly
acceptable without haßy compared with (5b) without
haßy. The cause marker haßy is required more strictly
as the cause­effect relation becomes less inferable.
th««
tµÝµn
(6) ??caßw­chaay cuÝup
prince
kiss
her
awake
‘The prince kissed her awake.’
The insertion of haßy in the resultative SVC
affects the semantics of the sentence in terms of theentailment of the attainment of the result state.
yiN
sµàaà
haßy
taay
(7) a. faßay
Faay
shoot tiger CAUSE die‘Faay shot the tiger to make it dead (butthe tiger may not be dead).
The difference between these two types may berelated to the controllability of the caused subevent.
The adjectival RPs indicate that the occurrence ofthe state­change depends completely on external
force. On the other hand, the state­change describedby the second verb of the SVC suggests that thechange is also associated with the internal factor of
the object entity (Matsui, 2007a).
2.2
Other types of resultatives in Thai
We have observed that Thai resultatives include the
SVC and VAC. Now let us consider other types ofresultatives in Thai
The resultative SVC and VAC are parallel toEnglish derived resultatives with adjectival RPs.
The event denoted by resultatives with adjectival
RPs and prepositional RPs differs in English.
(8) a. Carlos beat John unconscious. (=(1c))
b. Carlos beat John into unconsciousness.
The prepositional RPs suggest that the action
denoted by the verb are repeated. As Kessakul &Methapisit (2000) argue (cf. Takahashi 2004), in
Thai the preposition con (until) also provides theiterative reading to the first verb phrase as in (9).

muàu
choÛk
ben
taay
Muu
hit
Ben
die
‘Muu beat Ben dead.’
choÛk
ben
con
taay
b. muàu
Muu
hitBen
until die‘Muu beat Ben to death.’
Another type that we have not dealt with yet isthe inherent resultative as in (1a) and (1b). Thai
employs the copula pen to describe the event
denoted by English inherent resultatives as follows.
pen(10) a. faßay thaa­ siài toÛ
Faay painttable COP
siài­dEEN
color­red‘Faay painted the table red.’bichkkoolEßEt
b. dEENDeng
break
chocolatepenchiÛn­chiÛn
COP
piece­piece‘Deng broke the chocolate into pieces.’
Resultatives with copula pen describe thesuperficial qualities of object entities such as colorand size. Both Thai resultatives with pen andEnglish inherent resultatives specify the further
result state which is brought about by theaccomplishment event denoted by the main verb.
Lastly, in English, fake (reflexive) objects canbe employed to express an event in which causal
and result subevents are not closely related.
(11) The dog barked the baby awake.
This type of event cannot be expressed withresultatives in Thai. Thai utilizes “tham­haßy
causative” to express an event with “indirectcausation” (I&I, 2005).
thaaroÛk
(12) sunaÛk haÝw tham­haßy
dog
bark make (CAUSE)
baby
haßy
tµÝµn
CAUSE awake‘The dog barked and made the baby awake.’
(9)

a.

2.3
Thai types of Thai resultatives
Previous studies have not pointed out that there
were syntactically distinguished types of Thai
resultatives other than the SVC. Thai expressions
which are equivalent to English resultatives can beclassified into five types: (i) SVC, (ii) VAC, (iii)
V+con RP, (iv) V+pen RP, and (v) tham­haßy
causative. The types in (i)­(iv) might be referred asThai “resultative constructions” according to thedefinition of the resultative construction. Thai
resultatives
aresyntacticallycharacterizedaccording to their semantic properties. When
English resultatives are introduced in a pedagogicalenvironment, it should be noted that various typesof Thai sentences can be described with asyntactically identical sequence in English.

3

Depictive construction

English depictive constructions also involve a
simplex sentence that describes two subevents,
which bears the configuration of NP­V­NP­XP. The
construction is often seemingly identical with theresultative construction, although the semantics ofthese constructions are significantly distinctive (cf.
Rothstein, 2004). I will take up depictives to
examine Thai expressions which are parallel toEnglish depictives.
3.1
Properties of depictives
The depictive predicate (DP) denotes the state of
the subject of the predicate when the action denotedby the verb takes place (Rapoport, 1993). The
temporal structure of the depictive construction
differs from that of the resultative construction.
(13) a. Stephaniei drove the car drunki.
b. Carlos ate the meatj rawj.
DPs can be divided into two types according to thesyntactic type of NP of which they predicate. For
instance, drunk in (13a) predicates the subject NP,
but on the other hand, raw in (13b) predicates theobject NP. The former is called the subject­oriented
depictive, and the latter, the object­oriented
depictive. Both types of DPs are adjunct, which do
not semantically affect the verb phrase.
DPs and attributive adjectives are similar inmeaning, but not identical (Arts, 1995). The twosentences in (14) can be paraphrased as those in(15), respectively.
(14) a. Minna cut the bread hot.
b. Minna cut the hot bread.
(15) a. Minna cut the bread while it was hot.
b. Minna cut the bread which was hot.
Though this may sound like a subtle difference, it
should be explained to learners in order tounderstand the construction.
Another well­known semantic property ofdepictives is that only “stage­level” predicates(Carlson, 1977) can enter the depictive construction
as the DP. Unlike individual­level predicates,stage­level predicates involve an event or episodeassociated with some specific time and space.
(16) Heidi read a book naked/*intelligent.
DPs must report a temporal distinctiveness of thestate of the host NP.
3.2
Depictives and manner adverbs in Thai
English depictive predicates may give an
impression that they are similar to manner adverbs.
(17) Dave drove the car drunk/drunkenly.
Rothstein (2004, p. 63) argues that the difference
can be indicated by “entailment.” The sentence with
the DP drunk entails that Dave was drunk, whereas
the sentence with the manner adverb drunkenly

does not. Adverbs such as drunkenly signify themanner of the actor when the action was performed.
The semantics of the Thai yaÝaN adverbials issimilar to English manner adverbs, while dußay
khwaam adverbials is equivalent to English subject
oriented­depictives.
khaÝp roÛt {yaÝaN maw /(18) naroN
Narong drive car PFX drunk
dußay khwaam­maw}
with NOM.PFX drunk‘Narong drove a car {drunkenly/ withdrunkness}.’
Whereas manner adverbs denote the speaker’s
subjective judgment, DPs represent the actual stateof the host NP. When the actuality of the state isrequired to be expressed, the dußay khwaam
adverbials are employed in Thai.
Now consider the following sentences.
(19) a. faßay tham­Naan nµÝay
Faay work
tired‘Faay worked and got tired.’b. faßay tham­Naan nµÝay­ nµÝay
Faay work
tired­RDP‘Faay worked and got very tired.’/‘Faay worked tired.’
The change­of­state verb nµÝay in (19a) constitutes
the SVC with the former verb and cannot have amanner adverb or a depictive interpretation. In
contrast, the interpretation of the duplication ofnµÝay is ambiguous between the SVC and depictive
readings. Duplication may induce the stative
reading of change­of­state verbs such as nµÝay. The
adverbs formed by reduplicated adjectives andchange­of­state verbs are equivalent to English
depictives (Matsui, 2007b).
(20) a. muàu kin plaa diÝpMuu eat fish raw‘Muu ate the raw fish..’b. muàu kin plaa diÝp­diÝp
Muu eat fish raw­RDP‘Muu ate the raw fish.’Object­oriented depictives can also be described bya reduplicated form.
Thai employs dußay khwaam adverbials andreduplicated adjective or verbs to describe what isparallel to English depictive construction. The yaÝaN
adverbials seem to be similar to depictives, but they
are slightly different in semantics in terms of theentailment of the state denoted by the adverbials.

4

Conclusion

The English SPC involves a syntactically identicalconfiguration, namely NP­V(­NP)­XP, even though
the semantics of the construction may differ. I haveclarified that there are six patterns of Thai
constructions which are equivalent to English
resultatives, five of which are considered to be theThai resultative construction. The depictive

construction, on the other hand, can be described by
two types of adverbials in Thai.
The semantics of the English SPC can be
confusing because of its syntax. I have made adetailed investigation to single out the most fitting
Thai construction for semantically various types ofEnglish SPCs with a view to explicitly stipulating
what might be referred to as the SPC in Thai.
References
Aikhenvald, A. (2006). Serial verb constructions intypological perspective. In A. Aikhenvald& R. M. W. Dixon, (Eds.), Serial verb
constructions: A cross­linguistic typology.
(pp. 1­68). Oxford: OUP.
Carlson, G. N. (1977). Reference to kinds in English.
Ph.D. dissertation. Amherst: University of
Massachusetts.
Carrier, J. & Randall, J. H. (1992). The argument
structure and syntactic structure of
resultatives. Linguistic Inquiry. 23/2,
173­234.
Iwasaki, S., & Ingkaphirom, P. (2005). A reference
grammar of Thai. Cambridge: CUP.
Kageyama, T. (1996). Doosi imiron [Verb
Semantics]. Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers.
Kessakul, R., & Methapisit, T. (2000). Resultative
constructions in Thai and the related issues.
Proceedings of the 5th International
Symposium on Language and Linguistics:
Pan­Asiantic Linguistics.
Matsui, N. (2007a). Classification of Thai
resultatives: Serial verb and other similar
constructions. Humanities Review. 56/4,
93­110.
Matsui, N. (2007b). The lexical categories ofstate­denoting
predicatesin
Thai.
Humanities Review. 57/2, 73­94.
Matsumoto, N. (2006). Applying cognitive
grammar to pedagogical grammar: Thecase of “to.” Proceedings of the 11th
Conference of Pan­Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 116­130
Rapoport, T. (1993). Verbs in depictives andresultatives. In J. Pustejovsky (Ed.),
Semantics and the lexicon. (pp. 163­184).
Rothstein, S. (2004). Structuring events. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Takahashi, K. (2004). Logical resultative
construction in Thai. Memoirs of Kanda
University of International Studies. 16,
203­224.
Thepkanajna, K., & Uehara, S. (to appear).
Resultative
constructionswith“implied­result” and “entailed­result” verbs
in Thai and English: A contrastive study.
Linguistics.

The Effects of Peer Response on EFL College Composition
Instruction
Yuh-Yun Yen

Department of Foreign Languages at National Chiayi University
yyy@mail.ncyu.edu.tw

Abstract
According to Lockhart & Ng (1995), the use of peer
response is largely due to two developments inwriting pedagogy. The first is a greater emphasis on
the composing process which encourages students
to take risks and to discover meaning by themselves.
The second development is recognition that social
interaction is a prerequisite for learning to write.
Social constructionist theory claims that negotiationand collaboration aid the internalization of
cognitive and linguistic skills, thus leading to
improved writing abilities. Perry and Collins (1998)
concluded that peer response to writing was
definitely beneficial to the participating students. To
students, the peer evaluation of rough drafts is an
excellent technique for allowing the writers todevelop evaluation skills through objective andconstructive critiquing of papers of other membersof the team. Based on the potential benefits of peer
response in composition writing stated above, thisstudy sought to investigate the effects of peer
response on EFL composition instruction. The
findings of this study confirmed that the use of peer
feedback in writing classrooms has been generally
supported as a potentially valuable aid for its social,cognitive, affective, and methodological benefits.

Keywords
Peer Response,
Instruction

College

EFL

Composition

Introduction
Peer response as part of the process approach toteaching writing has gained increasing attention in
the English as Second Language (ESL) field since
the late 1980s (Berg, 1999). Chaudron (1983)
claimed that peer feedback should be considered
because of its potential benefits in saving teacher
editorial time. Perry and Collins (1998) concluded
that peer response to writing was definitely
beneficial to the participating students. To students,
the peer evaluation of rough drafts is an excellent
technique for allowing the writers to develop
evaluation skills through objective and constructive

critiquing of papers of other members of the team.
Based on the potential benefits of peer response,
this classroom-based action research intended toinvestigate the effects of peer response on EFL
composition instruction.

1

Literature Review

Peer and self-assessment is becoming increasingly
common as a pedagogical tool to facilitate thedevelopmentoflearnerautonomyandindependence. Much has been discussed about theadvantages of engaging students in peer and/or self
assessment procedures that are deemed as beneficial
to students’ learning in cognitive, meta-cognitive,
and affective aspects. In the following section thebenefits and drawbacks of peer response will be
explored.
1.1
Peer Response
1.1.1
Benefits of Peer Response
Based on the positive findings of Tso’s (2002) study,
she suggested that EFL high school English
teachers incorporate peer evaluation activity into
English writing classes, accompanied withcarefully-designed teaching procedures and a
specific evaluation sheet. She also recommended
that teachers devote more of their time to the
instruction at the content level than to grammar
correction, so that both the teacher and the students
will find English writing classes more fruitful andinteresting.
Liao (2005) found that the peer-response
activities had positive effects on EFL senior highschool students. First, most students held positive
attitudes toward peer-response activities before andafter the implementation of the activities.
Additionally, the majority of the students reported
that they benefited from the peer-response activities
linguistically, cognitively, and socially. Moreover,most students reported that they did not encounter
problems throughout the peer-response activities.
Only a limited number of the students indicated thatthey had difficulties providing specific comments

on their peers’ writing and felt nervous whenparticipating in the peer-response activities.
Hu (2005) divided the benefits of peer review
into two broad groups: those that facilitate effective(language) learning and those that enhance allacquisition of L2 writing competence. The firstgroup extends beyond L2 writing and concerns
learner development and language acquisition in
general. The potential benefits of peer review for
writing development can be classified into two
subcategories, depending on whether they
contribute to students’ general, longitudinaldevelopment as L2 writers or improve the quality ofa student text.
In short, despite evidence that peer response
activities consist of many benefits and that peer
reviews are a valuable form of feedback in L2
writing instruction, peer response should be seen as
an important complementary source of feedback(Villamil and de Guerrero 1998) in the classroom.
1.1.2

Drawbacks and Limitations of Peer
Response
Despite the potential benefits in improving thequality of writing instruction, there are also someproblems encountered when using peer response
activities in different contexts. For example,
Villamil and de Guerrero (1998) stated that there
are two drawbacks of peer response. First, L2
students are not knowledgeable enough to detectand correct errors in the target language. A second
problem that has been pointed out both in L1 andL2 peer revision is that students tend to concentrate
more on surface revisions rather than on changes
that affect meaning. (p492).
For Hu’s research in 2005, there are also a
number of problems associated with the use of peer
review. The first group of problems concerns L2students’ limited knowledge of the target language
and its rhetorical conventions. The second group ofproblems concerns the very nature of the comments
offered by peers. The third group of problems arises
from various inappropriate attitudes many L2students writers may hold towards peer review. The
last group of problems is cross-cultural by nature.
L2 students from different cultures often havevaried sociolinguistic rules of peer communicationand divergent notions of good writing.

2

Methodology

According to Chisaka (2002), interviews are
considered important in collecting research data for
two reasons: 1) to provide important backgroundinformation on respondents, which is useful interms of reliability of source of data; and 2) toprovide information that cannot be accessed

through observation and document analysis, such as
feelings and intentions. Participants were 26
English major freshmen who took an English
Composition class as their requirement for one
school year in an EFL setting in Taiwan. Data
were collected from interviews and all the data of
response were divided into categories. 26 students
were interviewed and recorded after taking theircourse.

3

Findings and Discussions

The findings and discussions are based on thefollowing three research questions.
Q1. What are the benefits or weaknesses of peer
response in grammar & composition instruction?
(i.e. Cooperative learning, the answers can havemore than one)
Table1: Strengths and weaknesses of peer response
Strengths of peer response Weaknessesofpeer
response
1.
Students can learn 1.
Limited knowledge and
from
each
other
wrong
corrections
(73%)
(58%)
2.
Correctionsof 2.
Surface–level
corrections
grammar (i.e. verb
ontense, word usage) ingrammar (27%)
compositions (58%) 3.
Nottakingpeer
3.
Helping
students
response too seriously
know
their
(19%)
classmates
better 4.
Time consuming (15%)(31%)
5.
Differentinterpretations (8%)
6.
Uncertainty of theanswers (8%)
Being afraid of lettingout personal privacy(4%)

For the first question regarding the benefits andweaknesses of peer response, 19 students among 26(73%) claimed that the biggest benefit of using peer
response is that students can learn from each otherand know more about others’ perspectives. The
second biggest benefit of peer response comes fromthe correction of grammar in their composition.
There are 15 (58%) students who confirmed theeffect of peer response on error correction ingrammar (11 students), also four other students
argued that peer response helped improve theirwriting in verb tenses and word usage. The final
benefit relates the social relationship, 8 (31%)
students claimed that reading peers’ composition
helped them know their classmates better and better
their friendship.
The findings of this study confirmed that theuse of peer feedback in writing classrooms has been
generally supported as a potentially valuable aid forits social, cognitive, affective, and methodologicalbenefits (see Table 1), which is consistent with

Rollinson’s 2005 study.
Min (2005) also
confirmed that peer review provides opportunities
for literacy learning in that reviewers and writers
vary in their strengths, preferred modes of
expression, and levels of competence so they canlearn from each other.
For the weaknesses of peer response, 58% of
the students claimed that due to the limited
knowledge, classmates sometimes gave wrong
answers to their error correction, 27% of thestudents complained most of their peers only gave
surface suggestions on grammar rather than thewhole composition, 19% said some students did nottake peer response too seriously and 15% argued
that it is too time consuming to do peer response.
Other weaknesses include different interpretations(8%), uncertainty of the answers (8%) and being
afraid of letting out personal privacy (4%). Table 1
showed the comparison of strengths andweaknesses of peer response.
In Min’s 2005 study, she argued that vague
feedback and misinterpretation of writers’
intentions on the reviewers’ part have been found to
be two major reasons why most of their comments
are disregarded. Villamil and de Guerrero (1998)
also pointed out that there are two drawbacks ofpeer response.
First, L2 students are notknowledgeable enough to detect and correct errors
in the target language. Second, students tend toconcentrate more on surface revisions rather thanon changes that affect meaning (p492). From thefindings, it is found that students did have theirlimitations in their knowledge so that they couldn’t
provide more content-level feedback and just gavesome surface-level feedback.
Q2. When doing peer response, what is yourfocus? Fluency, coherence, or others? (can havemore than one focus)
From the interviews, most of the students(81%) claimed when doing peer response, grammar
would be their top priority. The second priority ison the content (58%) and the third priority is on
fluency (35%), coherence (35%) and word usage(35%). And organization (23%) is their lastpriority.
Min (2005) divided the comments into two
categories global issues (idea development andorganization) and local problems (word usage,
grammar, spelling, and punctuations). Whereas
Patthey-Chavez, Matsumura, & Valdes, 2004
divided the type of feedback students received oneach draft into “surface level” or “content level.”
According to them, surface-level feedback included
all edits and comments that pertained to grammar,punctuation, spelling, or format (e.g. teacher
reminding a students to center and underline thetitle). Content feedback included comments todelete, recognize, or add information, as well as
questions intended to challenge students’ thinking.
From the findings, it is found that most of thestudents tended to comment on the local problems
on grammar, word usage and less comment on
global idea development and organization in peer
response activities (see Table 2).
Table 2: Comparison of what students focused andexpected in peer response
What students focused in What students expected inpeer response
peer response1.
Grammar (81%)
1.
Ideas and logical2.
Content (58%)
thinking (50%)
3.
Fluency (35%)
Error corrections in
2.
4.
Coherence (35%)
grammar (46%)
5.
Word usage (35%)
Learn
from
good
3.
6.
Organization (23%)
compositions
andavoid making similarerrors (19%)
4.
Organization (15%)
5.
Content (15%)
6.
Word usage (15%)
7.
Fluency (12%)

Q3. What do you expect to get from peer
response? (can have more than one expectation)
As to the students’ expectation toward peer
response, half of the students (50%) hope to getsome suggestions on exchanging ideas and logicalthinking. 12 students among 26 (46%) expect toreceive error corrections in grammar. Some students(19%) want to learn from other’s goodcompositions and avoid making similar errors.
Other expectations include suggestions onorganization (15%), content (15%), word usage(15%) and fluency (12%).
The findings of this study are consistent withMangelsdorf’s 1992 study that said students
pinpointed content and organization as the mainareas that peer reviews improved. In particular,
they emphasized that peer reviews led them toconsider different ideas about their topics andhelped them to develop and clarify these ideas.
However, from the findings of the study, it seems
that some gaps existed between what students did
and what students expected from peer response.
Student focused more on surface-level (grammar
correction) feedback and expected to receive more
content-level feedback.

4

Implications and Conclusion

Based on the findings of the study, it is suggested
that in the future if college writing instructors
would like to use peer response to complement
teacher response, it is important for them to set up
groups and conduct training for enhancing thequality of students’ writings.
Though peer
response in the writing classroom is atime-consuming activity, it may not be time wasted
in that peers can provide useful feedback at various
levels. Encouraging students to be more vocal
members of the response sequence can assist
teachers in writing stronger comments on students
texts because they can provide teachers with theknowledge needed to become better responders.
Therefore, it is important to involve students morein the process. Also, training students in peer
response leads to better revisions and overall
improvements in writing quality.
In short,
collaborative peer group response is a potentiallyrewarding option; therefore, teacher and peer
feedback is best seen as complementary (Edgington,
2004; Rollinson, 2005).
References
Berg, E.C. (1999). The effects of trained peer
response on ESL students’ revision types
and writing quality. Journal of Second
Language Writing, 8(3), 215-41.
Chaudron (1983). Evaluating writing: Effects offeedback on revision. 26p. ED 227 706.
Chen, Yuh-Mei. (2005). Peer and self-assessment in
EFL university classroom. Proceedings ofthe 14th International Symposium on
English Teaching in the Republic of China,
Taiwan, The Crane Publishing Co., Ltd.,
pp.320-329.
Chen, Yuh-Mei. (2006). EFL teachers’ action andperceptions of peer and self-assessment.
Proceedings of the 15th International
Symposium on English Teaching in the
Republic of China, Taiwan, The Crane
Publishing Co., Ltd.,
pp.299-312.
Chisaka, B. C. (2002). Ability grouping in
Zimbabwe secondary schools: A qualitative
analysis of perception of learners in low
ability classes. Evaluation and Research in
Education, 16(1), 19-33.
Edgington, A. (2004). Encouraging collaboration
with students on teacher response.
Teaching English in the Two-Year College,31(3), 287-296.
Hu, G. (2005). Using peer review with Chinese
ESL student writers. Language Teaching
Research, 9(3), 321-342.
Liao, C. N. (2005). The effects of peer-response
activities on senior high school.
Unpublished master’s thesis. Tunghai
University.
Lockhart, C. and Ng, P. (1995). Analyzing talk inpeer response groups: stances, functions,and content. Language Learning, 45,
605-55Mangelsdorf, K. (1992). Peer review in the ESL
composition classroom: What do thestudents think? ELT Journal, 46(3),274-284.
Min, H. T. (2005). Training students to become
successful peer reviewers. System, 33(2),293-308.
Patthey-Chavez, G.G., Matsumura, L.C. & Valdes,
R. (2004). Investigating the process
approach to writing instruction in urban
middle schools. Journal of Adolescent &Adult literacy, 47(6), 462-477.
Perry, L. A. and Collins, M. D. (1998).
Incorporating peer response to writing in ateacher education course. Journal of
Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 41(8),670-673.
Rollinson, P. (2005). Using peer feedback in the
ESL writing class. ELT Journal 59(1),23-30.
Tso, W. W. (2002). The effectiveness of peer
evaluation on EFL writing. Unpublishedmaster’s thesis. National Kaohsiung
Normal University.
Villamil, O.S. and de Guerrero, M.C.M. (1998).
Assessing the impact of peer revision on
L2 writing. Applied Linguistics, 19(4),491-514.

Learner Perceptions & Involvement in Remedial Writing Classes
Swathi M. Vanniarajan

Department of Linguistics & Language Development, San Jose State University
swathi@pacbell.net

motivation, learner perception, learner involvement(1994) took the field a step further by claiming thatinterest in a classroom environment is not only adynamic variable but is also situated; in other words,
there is no such thing as an objective situation.
Situated motivation rather depends on one's
cognitive and emotional appraisals of the various
phases of the classroom situation in terms of certain
emotional variables (Markus & Nurius 1987, Garcia& Pintrich 1994, Ng 1998, Paris & Turner 1994).
This situated model fits nicely with theneurobiological model developed by Schumann(2001, 2004) where stimulus appraisal involves fiveappraisal dimensions: novelty, pleasantness, goal orneed significance, coping ability, and compatibility
with self and social image. Therefore, how wellstudents learn is determined by how they appraise
the classroom environment; this paper investigates
the question of what kinds of classroom activities
might bolster their appraisal the most.

Introduction

2

Learners' emotional appraisals of the classroom
environment are all the more important in remedial
writing classes for three reasons: one, themandatory nature of the classes; two, the stigma
associated with the remedial classrooms; and three,students' negative attitudes towards the course. The
goals of this study are threefold: to explore theattitudes with which these learners come to theseclasses; to study whether their attitudes remain thesame across all class activities; and to explore
whether their attitudes undergo any change during
the progress of the course.

2.1
SJSU's writing requirements
San Jose State University is the oldest member ofthe 22-campus California State University system;
due to nearby Silicon Valley companies informing
the university that they expect excellent writing
skills from their employees, SJSU has also imposed
the most rigorous writing standards on its students.
All students, undergraduate and graduate, must
pass the Writing Skills Test (hereafter referred to as
the WST), which consists of two parts: the first a
series of multiple-choice questions that test theirwriting abilities in spelling, punctuation, grammar,
cohesion, coherence, paragraph organization,
logicality, analogy, and vocabulary; the second partis a personal essay in which they react to a current
event. 50% of all students who take the exam failthe first time. The university has an extremely
diverse population; a sizeable 10% of its population
are foreign students. Of these, most fail the WST
more than two times (80% of native speakers
manage to pass in their first two attempts). All
students who fail the WST are required to takemandatory LLD 98/99 courses to develop theirwriting proficiency, with a cap of 20 students per

Abstract
This paper, through qualitative data collected from18 students enrolled in a mandatory remedial
writing program in a northern California State
University, studies how such learners perceive
themselves and relate themselves to the classroom
environment. The importance of this study isevident in light of research claims made ineducational psychology (Paris & Turner 1994) thatcognitive perceptions largely determine howlearners behave and relate to a classroom.
Conclusion of the study: that motivation andlearning were situated, and it was very difficult todetermine when it came to certain class activities
whether tasks were unmotivating because thestudents were unmotivated or vice versa.

Keywords

1

Literature review

Motivation studies have been done by applied
linguists (Gardner 1985), cognitive psychologists(Dornyei & Otto 1998), and educational
psychologists (Schunk 1991, Pajares & Miller
1994). This literature on interest and involvement in
the classroom was summarized by Krapp, Hidi, andRenninger (1992) with three points of view: 1)
interest as a characteristic of a person; 2) interest asa characteristic of the learning environment; and 3)
interest as a psychological state. Paris and Turner

The research studyclass. The course is credit/noncredit and will not
add to their GPA. The exams given at the end of thecourse are essays with no multiple-choice section
and therefore, in students' minds, the passing of the
LLD 98/99 does not guarantee the passage of the
WST. The fact that only 50 to 60% of the students
enrolled in these classes pass the WST after
instruction corroborates student opinion. As a result,students are quite frustrated and somewhat skeptical
about their LLD 98/99 courses.
2.2
Social / language profile of subjects
The data were collected from 18 students enrolled
in a 6-week intensive program in summer 2006
through observations/field notes, an instructor/
researcher journal, individual student journals,
written assignments, questionnaires, and shortinterviews. Student ethnic composition was asfollows: 4 Koreans, 2 Japanese, 5 Vietnamese, 5
Hispanic, 1 Indonesian, and 1 subcontinent Indian.
12 were permanent residents or naturalized citizens
while 6 were foreign students (3 Koreans, 1
Japanese, the Indonesian, and the subcontinent
Indian). All were undergraduates. In terms of
discipline, 10 were from Engineering, 4 from
Business, 2 from Nursing, and 2 from Social
Sciences. The average age at which they started
learning English was 11.7. However, all of themsaid they had excellent proficiency in English andthat they were using English all the time outside
their homes.
Of the 12 immigrant students, 3 started theirprimary education in the U.S., and all 12 had partial
or complete secondary school education in the U.S.
All of the foreign students had their first languageas their medium of instruction until the high schoollevel. Their attitudes varied: the Japanese andKorean students were willing to pay for external
help; the Vietnamese and the Indian students
seemed to consider seeking help from outside to bea face issue.

activities, fellow students, test preparations,suggestions, confidence and motivation levels,
attitudes toward the university writing requirement,
and the obstacles they faced. While the instructor
was afraid students would complain, most ended up
writing more than the requisite one page a week.
2.3.3
Written assignments
Students were given two written one-page essays tobe turned in, one at the three-week mark and theother after six weeks, in addition to regulartake-home assignments. The essays could be turnedin anonymously (other than to note that the task had
been fulfilled), and students were told to be frank.
The first essay topic was: "Understanding theEnglish language learner in me: What are mystrengths and weaknesses?" The second was: "Whatclass activities kept me focused and involved in mylearning process?"
2.3.4
Questionnaires
Two questionnaires were also administered, one on
the first day of class and the other on the last (thesecond slightly modified from the first). Each had 7questions. The first attempted to discover student
expectations and confidence levels before the class,and the second to find out whether the classsucceeded in reducing their anxiety and increasing
their confidence levels.
2.3.5
Short interviews
Short interviews were conducted with each of the
18 students. Each were asked 14 set questions,followed by an open-ended question where they
could say anything they wanted.

3

Findings of the study

2.3
Data collection procedures
2.3.1
Observations/field notes/instructor journal
Every two weeks, at the beginning of Monday
classes, for 5-10 minutes, the students were asked
to freely express their opinions about their learning
process, class activities, and their confidence andmotivation levels. The instructor noted student
opinions in a journal. Aside from this, the instructor
reflected on his own observations of class activities.

3.1
General student attitudes
3.1.1
Towards higher education
Students coming from Korean, Japanese, and Indianbackgrounds stated that education was the way tosucceed in life, and their undergraduate education
was only a stepping stone towards a graduate
degree. (The Japanese went so far as to say that anundergraduate degree was general knowledge whilea graduate degree was specialist knowledge.
Gaining knowledge meant becoming a higher
human being.) The Vietnamese and Hispanic
students considered undergraduate education to be
their highest goal. The Indonesian was considering
a graduate degree if he could not get a job.

2.3.2
Student journals
Students were required to maintain journals turnedin every other Monday. They were required to write
their feelings about the course, the instructor, class

3.1.2
Towards academic writing
Student attitudes toward academic writing werehighly negative. Engineering and Nursing students
claimed they would not be required to do academic

writing in their jobs. The Business students said
they might have to do some writing if they ended
up in marketing or analyzing market trends;
however, most of their jobs, they felt, would only
require oral communication. The foreign students
felt that since they had taken the TOEFL prior toadmission, why should they have to take the WST?
They also asked how writing personal essays would
help them in their careers.
3.1.3
Towards the English language
Of the 18 students, 12 felt that English wassomewhat difficult to learn mainly due to the"differences between my language and the English
language." Some other comments included "thislanguage is weird," "the pronunciation is the mostdifficult part for me to understand," and "I makegrammar mistakes and spelling mistakes because I
think and write in my first language." Theremaining 6 students felt English was neither easy
nor difficult. And while the foreign students felt
anxiety while using English, one student claimed
that her English was perfect and she was baffledthat she had failed the exam twice.
3.2
Specific student attitudes
3.2.1
Towards the WST
The general feeling among the subjects was that theexam was a gate-keeping mechanism to decelerate
their graduation process. They also believed it to befavorably skewed toward native speakers. Of the 18,
12 said they did not like the WST at all, calling it a"waste of time" or saying they should have gone tosome other school. They also claimed that since
they got As in all their courses, the WST waspointless as a graduation requirement.
3.2.2
Towards the nonnative instructor
When asked at the beginning of the course whether
any of the students were worried that the instructor
happened to be a nonnative speaker, 10 strongly
disagreed, 6 moderately disagreed, and 2 took aneutral stand. By the end of the six-week session,
many students stated that the instructor being anonnative speaker was a great motivating factor forthem. In their perception, the instructor was
someone who had "beaten the system" and was a"good role model." They also stated that the
instructor had developed a positive attitude in them
about themselves and this had a remarkable effecton their success.
3.2.3
Towards fellow students
Students felt that all of them were on the same leveland showed a lot of disdain toward peer-editing.
They felt that their peers were not skilled enough toprovide them with useful feedback, and that theteacher should therefore perform all the corrections.
However, they were in favor of group work in
brainstorming and information organization
activities.
3.2.4
Towards the LLD 98/99 class
To the statement, "The LLD 98/99 class will
significantly improve my ability to write academic
essays," at the beginning of the course, 4 students
strongly agreed, 4 moderately agreed, and 10
remained neutral; by the end of the course, 5strongly agreed, 6 moderately agreed, and 7
remained neutral. This was only a marginal
improvement.
To the statement, "The LLD 98/99 class will
significantly improve my knowledge of grammar,"at the beginning of the course, 8 strongly agreed
and 8 moderately agreed. By the end, 15 strongly
agreed and 1 moderately agreed. This was a moresignificant improvement.
Finally, to the statement, "The LLD 98/99
class will enable me to pass the WST," at the
beginning of the course, 10 strongly agreed and 8
moderately agreed, while at the end, 12 strongly
agreed and 6 moderately agreed. Again, a minor
improvement. The reasoning seemed to be that theyfelt the LLD 98/99 final should have amultiple-choice section to more fully simulate the
WST, rather than serving only as a training course
for general academic writing.
3.2.5
Towards teaching activities
Of the 22 instructional days (excluding the first andfinal exam day), the instructor spent 9 days teachinggrammar, 9 days teaching writing, and 4 on in-classessays (with 2 additional take-home essays andjournal-writing). They were asked to write a lot
more than they were used to writing and to makecomparisons between their first and English
languages.
The students felt like they learned a lot withregard to grammar and felt that the in-class essays
on previous final exam topics were "the most usefulclass activity." There were no absences on the daysof the practice tests.
Feelings were mixed about learning English
with comparisons to their first language. Of the 18,
9 did not like this activity at all, feeling they should
learn without any recourse to their native tongues. 7
on the other hand found this technique very useful
while 2 remained neutral.
On the days writing was taught, student
attendance was lowest, averaging 2 days absent per
student. This could be due to the fact that many
students felt their writing proficiency was fine, andit was grammar where they needed the most help.

Many felt their success on the final would more be
due to whether the prompt was easy or difficult
rather than their own skill level. Therefore, theabsences could be attributed to their confidence
levels rather than the writing activities, as students
had perfect attendance for the practice tests.
3.2.6
Towards the practice grammar tests
Students took practice grammar tests every week
and the papers were corrected during the weekend
with statistics computed for each grammar item.
The items most missed were word processed and,through a PowerPoint presentation, the number ofwrong answers for each of the distractors wereshown to the students. It was explained why the
distractors were wrong and a brainstorming session
followed as to why the students had picked thewrong answer. All students found the activity usefuland to be a novel method to learning grammar.
3.3
Conclusions
The class could be divided into two groups: thosethat felt they were there because they had been
wronged by the system and those that felt theirwriting actually did need improvement. Of the 18
students, while 11 claimed that they were "learning
a lot" and "gaining confidence," 7 others felt the
University had been decelerating their graduation
process. One student even claimed the exam to be"racism" since it most heavily penalized nonnative
speakers.
The students were motivated for thefollowing activities: group brainstorming, grammar
practice and tests (in-class and take-home), andin-class writing tests. They were not motivated forpeer editing or take-home writing activities. While
all 18 strongly agreed that "I must pass the WST
before the end of summer," it must be noted thatthese students were highly motivated in general;they simply did not believe all activities were equal.
Student attitudes toward the WST and the
University remedial requirements were negative in
general. It can be said that the WST and the LLD
98/99 class did not satisfy three out of five of
Schumann's(2001,
2004)
five
appraisaldimensions:novelty,pleasantness,andcompatibility with self and social image. It did tosome extent satisfy goal or need significance andcoping ability. In my opinion, the lack of generalmotivation was due to the students' strong faith intheir writing ability. They felt the test was unfair
and culture-specific.
3.4
Limitations
This is a pilot and preliminary study carried out ona very small scale. Some of the limitations could be
the small number of subjects and a limited numberof survey questions.

4

References

Dornyei, Z. & Otto, I. (1998). Motivation in action:
A process model of L2 motivation. Working
Papers in Applied Linguistics. Thames Valley
University: London. Vol. 4, 43-69.
Garcia, T. & Pintrich, P.R. (1994). Regulating
motivation and cognition in the classroom:
The role of self-schemas and self-regulatory
strategies. In D.H. Schunk & B.H.
Zimmerman (Eds.) Self-Regulation of
Learning and Performance: Issues andEducational Applications (127-153). Erlbaum:
Hillsdale, NJ.
Gardner, R.C. (1985). Social Psychology andSecond Language Learning: The Role ofAttitudes and Motivation. Edwin Arnold:
London.
Krapp, A., Hidi, S., & A. Renninger (1992). Interest,
learning, and development. The Role ofInterest in Learning and Development.
Erlbaum: Hillsdale, NJ.
Markus, H. & Nurius, P. (1987). Possible selves:
The inference between motivation and theself-concept. In K. Yardley & T. Honess (Eds.)
Self and Identity: Psychological Perspectives(157-172). Wiley & Sons: New York.
Ng, Chi-hung (1998). A Diary Study of Students'
Classroom Learning and Motivation. Paper
presented at the Annual Conference ofAustralian Association for Research in
Education. Adelaide, November / December.
Pajares, F. & Miller, M.D. (1994). Role ofself-efficacy and self-concept beliefs inmathematical problem-solving: A pathanalysis. Journal of Educational Psychology,
86 (2), 193-203.
Paris, S.G., & Turner, J.C. (1994). Situatedmotivation. In P.R. Pintrich, D. Brown, & C.E.
Weinstein (Eds.) Student, Cognition, andLearning (213-237). Erlbaum: Hillsdale, NJ.
Schumann, J.H. (2001). Appraisal psychology,
neurobiology, and language. Annual Review ofApplied Linguistics, 21: 23-42.
Schumann, J.H. (2004). The Neurobiology of
Learning:
Perspectives
fromSecondLanguage Acquisition. Erlbaum: Hillsdale, NJ.
Schunk, D.H. (1991). Self-efficacy and academic
motivation. Educational Psychologist, 26 (3),207-231.
Young, A.J. (1997). I think, therefore I'm motivated:
The relations among cognitive strategy use,
motivational orientation and classroom
perceptions over time. Learning andIndividual Differences, 9 (3), 249-2983.

University Students’ Needs towards the General English Instruction for
the Curriculum Development
Myeong-hee Seong, Hyung-ji Chang

Department of Tourism Management (Tourism English), Professor, Eulji University
CU-V Global Program, Adjunct Professor, Catholic University of Daegu
seong@eulji.ac.kr , maria5576@cu.ac.kr

Abstract
This study aims to provide an alternative
curriculum of General English instruction forcollege level on the basis of the needs analysis of
students. The previous research on the current
General English instruction of Korean universities
showed that students were not satisfied with
General English instruction along with the problem
that they barely gained their English competence
after completing courses. And they have taken extra
English programs to practice TOEIC or TOEFL
preparation courses for their vocational trainings
outside the campus (Park, 1998; Cho, 1998; Jung,
2000). For the purposes of the study, 845 students
taking General English courses in the university
were asked to respond to questions about thegeneral English instructions which they were taking
now. The research questions were an ultimate goalof general English instruction in terms of students’view and what is the preference of English
instruction on the basis of students’ majors incollege. The data were analyzed by two groups,
students in the health-related departments and theothers. Thus, their need to General English isdiagnosed.
Keywords
General English instruction, Goal of instruction,
Need Analysis

Introduction
The experience of conducting General English (GE)instructions reported that most universities in Korea
are struggled with the effectiveness of GE
instructions (Park et al, 1998; Cho, 1998; Chung,2000; Lee & Im, 2005). According to Lee & Im
(2005), students expected more qualified English
instruction to assist their career preparation, andcommunicative competence to learn more practicalEnglish. The high dissatisfactions, however,between students’ expectation and the current GE
instructions are recognized. Students also haveshown their difficulty of the uniformed and united
English curriculum since their elementary level,
because the GE instructions do not consider therequirements and demands of students regarding
students’ target situation (Park, 1997). Therefore
lots of university students had to register in theprivate institution to get extra credits upon their
purpose of English learning. Even though there
existed mandatory English courses in University
curriculum as a core credit, the administrators,
students and teachers were squandering their timeand budget in the GE classroom. It was because theuniversity didn’t regard the demands from thestudents and neglect the review of curriculum (ibid).
Beyond the outspreaded dissatisfaction andineffectiveness of GE instruction, universities haveelaborated to design the innovative GE curriculumon the basis of opinions by a curriculum designer,
English professors, instructors and administrators aswell as students (Jung & Chueh, 2002).
This study has focused on one university, which isorganized by two distinctive departments;
Department of Health and non Health. Two
different majors of students are regarded as anintegral consideration of this study, because thedifference of specialized study affect on the purposeof English learning whether English for General
Purposes (EGP) or English for Specific Purposes(ESP). Particularly, the department of Health,which expects more specialized English
competence for students to complete the core
courses, would expect ESP based GE instruction
related to students’ focused study. On the basis of
specified purposes to learning English, the researchon the students’ needs to GE is conducted andindented to design the curriculum of GE for
Department of Health and Department of
Non-Health students respectively. Beyond theconcerns of Needs to GE, this study also includes
the review of the current GE curriculum in most
universities, the analysis of GE curriculum in thesubjected university, as well as the basic
considerations to develop the educational
curriculum.

Therefore, the modification of goal of instruction
from EGP to ESP based instruction is required tofacilitate the learner-centered and customized
instructions on the basis of learner’s proficiency.

1. Literature Review
1.1 The Problems and suggestions for General
English instructions
The alteration of goal of GE instructions includes
the suggestions of proficiency-based curriculum
and ESP based instructions regarding Need
Analysis (NA) of university students, educators andexperts of workplaces (Kim, 1995; Cho, et al, 1997).
Cho (et al, 1997) mentioned the necessity of
individualized syllabus design for students to solve
the problem of overvaluation of English
competence among students. In an aspect to support
the importance of proficiency-based curriculum for
GE, Cho (2000) proposed the multiple choices oftextbooks and individualized assessments for each
student. Kim (1999) also appended the informationofindependent
study
tosupporttheproficiency-based curriculum for GE instructions.
The proficiency-based instruction is also illustrated
the way to reduce the size of class. Mostly GE
instructions are conducted with 70 to 80 students
that students are over or less valuated and shown
less interaction with instructors (Lee & Lim, 2005).
So this packed sized class leads students perceive
low motivation and dissatisfaction to GE and morecustomized instructions like proficiency-based one
is demanded by students.
The suggestion of ESP based instruction also
emerges to solve the current problem of GE
instructions. Along with an interest in ESP by mostEnglish instructors and learners, the goal of GE
instruction is modified from the pure curiosity oftarget language to the practical usage of language.
EGP is defined as Teaching English for
Non-obvious Reasons (TENOR) (Tongue, 1994;
Kim & Seong, 2006) and it is hardly attracting
students to the English instruction rather than ESP,
which provides the specified goal of instructions
related with their career preparation (Hutchinson &Waters, 1987). The terminal goal of GE instruction
is posed in highly expected linguistic competence
by students in spite of limited college year. So,
more intensive English program is required as like
ESP based one that allows learners to achieve theaccurately specified goal of instruction.
The necessity of ESP and proficiency-based
instruction for GE is related with the goal of GE
curriculum. According to Kim and Seong (2006),
ESP provides the practical purpose of learning
English as well as foundation of curriculum.

1.2 Curriculum Design for GE instructions
This study is proposed by ultimate goal to design
GE curriculum. And the NA by learners is centeredin this study. However, the review of overall
process to design the educational curriculum isrequested in order to identify the importance of NA,
because the curriculum is defined as design toconduct the specific language program (Brown,2001). In 2.1, the curriculum design for GE
instructions is requested to increase theeffectiveness of GE instructions on the basis ofproblems and suggestions of GE. The current GE
instructions are illustrated with the ineffectivenessand high dissatisfaction by learners and thesuggestions to overcome the problems are
introduced,
providing
proficiency-based
instructions as well as ESP centered ones. To design
the curriculum, six stages are given by Grave(2000). The first stage is to research on the NA oflearners, regarding their motivation and backgroundknowledge to English. The second stage is for
integrating the result of NA with contents of lesson.
Next, the third stage includes the knowledge ofintercultural communicative competence, and thenthe function of English communicative competenceis regarded. Finally, the stage of making a lessonplan in terms of the specific techniques andactivities is illustrated. Based on 5 stages ofcurriculum design, teaching materials are appended
to complete the process of curriculum design.
As for the first stage, the NA of learners isimportant among the process of curriculum design.
Unless the reflection of learners to English
instructions is not carefully respected, the rest ofprocess are edited and corrected on the basis ofunstable data. The background information oflearners is also critical factors to be reviewed, so
students’ focused study in university is analyzed aswell (Kim, 2006) in order to supplement the NA of
students.
1.3. The curriculum of GE instructions in E
university
E university used to conduct the GE courses on thebasis of reading comprehension regarding the needof each department. Since 1990s, the university has
recognized the demands of students and provided
TOEIC and practical English courses on the basisof the use of language. From this year, when E
university has commenced with 4-year-of academic
curriculum, the GE courses respect more theaspects of professors of each department andprovide the courses of college English I & II for
four basic skills of English and English
conversation I & II for the communicativecompetence. Table 1 illustrates the comparison of
GE courses between Health College and E
University.
Table 1:Comparison of GE courses in HealthCollege and E University
Courses
Course descriptions----------------------------------------------------------------Health College
English Ⅰ
Practical English courses centered onlistening, and speaking in order toincreasethecommunicativecompetence with an approach ofsituational learning
English Ⅱ
As a series of English I, more advanced
practical English courses and appended
by writing and reading confidence tocomplete four Basic English skills.
Practical tests for TOEIC, TOEFL,TEPS are also
attainable.
TOEIC
Preparation course for TOEIC test inorder to promote the TOEIC score aswell as practical listening, reading andconversation skills
English Grammar
Fundamental course to mastergrammaticalcompetenceofEnglish----------------------------------------------------------------E University
College English I
Integration of four English skills.
Particularly
focusedonspeaking and listening skills.
Students are expected toexpress themselves with oral
English after competition ofcourse. Basic grammar practiceand pronunciation drill areappended.
College English II
Integration of four English
skills. Particularly focused onreading and writing skills.
Students are expected to express
themselves with written English
after completion of course.
Englishdiscussion
andpresentation
skillsareappended.
English Conversation I Beginning level of English
communicative competence inthe various situations. Practiceauthentic listening and speaking
to communicate with native
speakers.
English Conversation II Intermediate and advanced
levelofEnglishcommunicative competence.
Practice practical English
focused on the accurate andfluent conversation skills.

2. Research Methods
2.1 Subjects
The 845 students who were currently enrolled in
GE instructions as for their first year of study weresurveyed and analyzed in this study to complete thefirst stage of curriculum design for GE. The study
focused on the NA in the aspects of learners, whoare enrolled in GE courses in their 1st year. 845
students were classified with two groups; 630
students majored in Health study, and 215 students
majored in non-Health study. The goal of this study
was to identify the demand to GE instruction on theview of learners and analyze the demand on thebasis of learner’s interest area like majors.
2.2 Methods and Process
According to Suh (et al, 2006), the research, “AnImprovement Plan for Effective English Educationin Provincial Universities” focused on the demand
from experts in English education, and suggested‘Proficiency-based curriculum’, ‘ESP-centeredinstructions’, which equivalence to the goal of thisstudy, so the comparison and contrast of the needs
respectively from the experts and students wereidentified in this chapter. For the research method
like Kim (ibid), the questionnaires were asked to
students on the basis of two research questions;students’ need to the GE instructions and thedifferent responses based on students’ study incollege. The survey was conducted at the beginningof the semester because the research was focusedon the needs rather than reactions to the instructions.
All responded questionnaires were collected during
the class hour, and analyzed by statistic data to
examine the ratio and portion of preferences andinterest on GE instruction.

3. Results and findings
The process to develop the curriculum of GE
requires the NA of students, who plays the integralrole in the instruction. In this study, college
students’ need to GE instructions was characterized
by proficiency and ESP based curriculum. Students
have showed their great interest on practicalEnglish contents and communicative competence
beyond the grammar and reading based instruction.
And they also represented their interest in TOEIC
courses, and English presentation, and discussion
courses, which are defined by ESP. In addition, forthe need of proficiency based instruction, students
agreed to be involved in more customized andindividualized English instruction. These resultshave shown somewhat equivalence to Suh (et al,2006)’s reports that analyze the aspects of experts
in English education. Suh’s devotion to develop theeffective curriculum for GE has represented the
ESP and Proficiency based curriculum in terms ofexperts’ aspects. In this study, students’ NA also
reflects the ESP and proficiency based curriculum
for GE instruction on the basis of the aspects ofoverall university students.
The results were also analyzed by students’ majors,
Health and Non-Health majors. Health majoredstudents showed the shorter time frame thannon-Health majored students. This demand could be
affected by several circumstances like students’potential of English, interest, and requirement fromtheir major studies. For the satisfaction to theavailable credits of GE, students were satisfied with
their current credits, whereas slightly low rate ofstudents also took extra credits from their language
center. For another question as a type of suggestion
to alter the GE instruction, students showed theirpreference to proficiency-based instruction, but for
non-Health major students, their disagreement to
the proficiency-based instruction was also regarded
as comparatively high percentage. For thequalification test for graduation, English
proficiency based qualification was highly adopted
by Health major students than non-Health students.
The responses from the students of healthdepartment are also explained in otherconsideration like high pressure of major studies.
While they have shown strong interest on the GE
instructions, they also represent the shorter timeframe of GE instruction. And it implies thestudents’ circumstance, which the designer ofcurriculum has to consider. In the result ofcomparison and contrast between the Health major
students and non-Health major students, their need
to GE instructions are somewhat differentiated by
the questions about the teaching method to develop
the communicative competence, the time frame totake GE instructions, and the English proficiency
based qualification test for graduation. Therefore
the integrated demands of students could propose
the alternative GE curriculum to increase its
effective role in GE instructions
References
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The Effect of the Lexical–Based EFL Learning Approach on Learners’
General Language Proficiencies and Lexical Abilities
Arunee Arunreung

Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University
arunee1113@yahoo.com

Abstract
This study investigates the effect of thelexical–based EFL learning approach on learners’
general language proficiencies and lexical abilities.
The third-year students in Food and Nutrition at
Rajamangala University of Technology Pranakhorn
Thailand participated in the study. An experimentalgroup learned with the lexical–based learning
approach while the control group learned with theconventional grammar–based approach. The
instruments used in this study consisted ofTechnical English 1 textbook, the lexical-based
approach learning model (CD-ROM), CU-TEP Testand lexical ability test. The results demonstrated
that there was a significant difference between the
pre-test and the posttest mean scores of generallanguage proficiencies and lexical abilities of theexperimental group. Further, the results revealed
that the lexical ability post-test scores of theexperimental group were significantly higher thanthose of the control group. The general language
proficiency post-test scores; however, were notsignificantly different. The general language
proficiencies of the experimental group tended to
improve more than those of the control group,
especially as for reading ability. The reading ability
scores of the experimental group were significantly
higher than those of the control group.

vocabulary.
At present, it is widely accepted thatvocabulary learning should be part of the syllabus,
and taught in a well-planned and regular basis(Willis and Willis, 1996). Lewis (1993, 1997a,
1997b) argues that vocabulary should be at thecentre of language learning. He (1993: 89) statedthat ‘language consists of grammaticalised lexis, notlexicalized grammar’. Thus, the last decade
witnessed a growing interest in the ‘Lexical
Approach’ to English as a foreign language learning.
This research focused on lexical–basedlearning approach, i.e. lexis plays the dominant rolein the ELT classroom, or at least a more dominant role
than it has traditionally, which has largely been one ofsubservience to ‘grammar’ (Sinclair & Renouf, 1988).
The approach stresses the combination of the conceptof the lexical approach of Lewis (1993, 1997a, 2000)
and the mental lexicon (Miller, 1978 & Taft, 1991).
The social constructivism approach (Vygotsky, 1985)
which has become prominent in recent foreign
language pedagogy and computer-assisted language
learning (CALL) is adopted. The lexical-based
approach used in this research is not the same as
Willis and Lewis aforementioned although theprinciples underlying this research shared their views.
This paper presents how the Lexical-BasedEFL learning Approach affects on Thai learners’
lexical abilities and general language proficiencies.

Keywords
lexical–based approach, EFL, applied linguistics

1

Introduction

Vocabulary is central to language learning. Manydistinguished linguists have pointed out thatvocabulary carries more meaning than grammar.
Wilkins (1972: 111) memorably wrote: “Without
grammar little can be conveyed: without
vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”. The role oflexical knowledge in language learning isincreasingly recognized. Thus, researches into
vocabulary learning are vital to language education.
Also relevant to vocabulary teaching is aknowledge of the linguistic organization of2

Research Design and Methodology

2.1
Subjects
The target population for this research is the EFL
third-year undergraduate students from Food andNutrition program, Rajamangala University ofTechnology Pranakhorn during the second semesterof the academic year 2005. The subjects are the two
sample classes, randomly selected from the 5classes of students enrolling Technical English I.
Chulalongkorn University Test of English
Proficiency (CU-TEP) and Lexical Ability Test
were used to measure the students’ general language
proficiencies and lexical abilities before taking thecourse. There were no significant differences at the
0.05 level.

discrimination power (r=0.422) and the reliability
value using KR 21 formula (KR 21 = 0.875).

2.2
Research Instruments
2.2.1
The lexical-based approach learning models
for the experimental group
The learning models were constructed by the
researcher, based on the lexical items and thecontent of the university textbook as well as thelexical abilities. Lexical abilities in this study aredefined as a knowledge of the linguistic descriptionof lexis including spelling (orthography),pronunciation (phonology), morphological andsyntactic contexts (morphology and syntax),
meaning (semantics) and functions in the context ofcommunication (pragmatics) as shown in figure 1.

2.2.4
The Chulalongkorn University Test ofEnglish Proficiency (CU-TEP)
The test, one of the standardized tests in Thailand,
was constructed by Chulalongkorn University
Language Institute to measure the English
Proficiency. Scores from CU-TEP were correlated
to the standardized Test of English as a Foreign
Language (TOEFL).

5. pragmatics

4. semantics
3. morphology& syntax
2. phonology

LexicalAbilities

MODEL

1. orthography

Figure 1: Lexical Abilities
The selection of words and content in thelearning models was based on the Technical English
I textbook and high frequency of words appearing
in the corpus created by the researcher. The content
of the models was created by Hot Potatoes, Halfbaked software Version 5 & 6 and Microsoft Wordand saved on CD-ROM. The content validity wasevaluated by an Index of Congruence (IOC). The
Index of Congruence Value is 0.68.
2.2.2
The
conventional
grammar-based
textbook for the control group
The instructional content was constructed according
to the course objectives and the content outlined in
the Technical English I university textbook.
2.2.3
The Lexical Ability Test
The selection of words and content was based on
the textbook and learning models. This test wasconstructed by the researcher and used for pre-test
and post-test. The test was developed to find theaccepted
levelofdifficulty(P=0.515),

2.3.

The Experiment

2.3.1
The experimental group
22 students of the experimental group were
instructed through the lexical-based approachlearning models and the lecture in the classroom for
15 weeks. They were equipped with 22 pieces of
CD-ROM and multimedia computers. The group
was trained to be sufficiently computer literate tocomplete all the language tasks in the CD-ROM.
They were not allowed to take CD-ROM home, butjust their worksheets and vocabulary notebooks. The
models are a combination of programmed lessons
and computer technology, making language class
more spectacular and interesting as well as helping
students learn according to their own interests andabilities. This can be controlled by learners and also
give more advantages for students of low
achievement. They can learn their lessons repeatedly
until they are satisfied with the results or understandthe concepts. They can do as many times as theywant and check out the right answers immediately.
The instructional process is based on
student-centered and autonomy of learning.
2.3.2 The control group26 students of the control group were instructed with
the Technical English I textbook and lecture in theclassroom for 15 weeks. Apart from the main tasks
in reading, listening and writing instruction with avariety of content questions and answers, the limited
time given to vocabulary activities in the class has
been traditionally devoted only to the incidental
word-learning through reading and reading
strategies. The instructional process is based onteacher-centered. The learning activities in thecontrol group are different from those in theexperimental group but the instructional contents are
the same.

3.

Research Results

3.1
The lexical ability
3.1.1 The pre-test and the post-test mean scores ofthe experimental group and the control groupTable 1: The pre-test and the post-test mean scoresof the experimental group and the control group
Group Lexicalability(60 pts.)
Exp.
Pre-test
group
Post-test
Cont. Pre-test
group
Post-test

N

M

S.D

T

P
(*p <0.05)

22 26.77 6.17
-12.145 * 0.000*

22 37.36 6.38
26 26.26 6.77
-1.7050.101

26 27.46 7.11

3.1.2 The post-test mean scores of the experimentalgroup and the control group
Table 2: The post-test mean scores of theexperimental group and the control group
group

Total
(60
points)

Exp.
group
Cont.
group

3.2.2 The post-test mean scores of the experimentalgroup and the control group
Table 4: The post-test mean scores of theexperimental group and the control group

The result from table 1 indicated that theexperimental group’s pre-test scores weresignificantly higher than the post-test scores(*p<0.05). The pre-test scores of the control groupwere higher than the post-test scores. But thisdifference was not statistically significant.

Lexicalabilitystatistically significant (*p<0.05). The results also
revealed that the pre-test scores of the control groupwere higher than the post-test scores. But thisdifference was not statistically significant.

N
22

M

S.D

37.36

p

T

6.38
5.031*

26

27.46

language
proficiency
Listening(30 points)

Reading(60 points)

Writing(30 points)

Total
(120
points)

N

M

S.D

Exp.
group
Cont.
group
Exp.
group
Cont.
group
Exp.
group
Cont.
group
Exp.
group
Cont.
group

22

9.22

2.59

26

9.26

3.87

22

18.59

3.54

26

16.03

3.15

22

8.36

2.08

26

7.53

2.54

22

36.18

6.20

26

32.84

6.42

t

P

0.043

0.966

2.640*

0.011*

1.213

0.231

1.821

0.075

0.000*

7.11

As table 2 showed for both groups’ lexical ability
scores, the post-test scores of the experimentalgroup were higher than those of the control group.
This difference was statistically significant (*p<0.05).

Table 4 showed that the experimental group’s
post-test scores were higher than the control group’s
post-test scores but there was no significant
difference. However, the experimental group’s
post-test reading scores
were found to besignificantly higher than the control group’s
post-test reading scores (*p< 0.05).

4.
3.2

group

Discussion and Conclusion

The general language proficiency

3.2.1 The pre-test and the post-test mean scores ofthe experimental group and the control group
Table 3: The pre-test and the post-test mean scoresof the experimental group and the control group
Group languageNproficiency(120 points)
Exp.
Pre-test
22
group
Post-test
22
Cont. Pre-test
26
group
26
Post-test

M

S.D

T

p

32.77 7.21
-2.463 * 0.023 *36.18 6.20
31.57 6.19
-1.0250.315

32.84 6.42

The data shown in Table 3 indicated that theexperimental group’s pre-test scores were higher
than the post-test scores. This difference was

The results of this current study support the claimthat the lexical-based learning approach in theclassroom leads to a positive effect on thedevelopment of the learners’ lexical abilities andgeneral language proficiencies, especially reading
ability. The experimental group’s lexical ability
scores and general language proficiency scoresfrom the post-test were significantly higher thantheir scores from the pre-test. In addition, theexperimental group’s lexical ability scores from thepost-test were significantly higher than those of thecontrol group.
The results exhibit that the general language
proficiency post-test scores of the experimentalgroup which are higher than those of the control
group, are not statistically significant. However,when we look at their three abilities of generallanguage proficiencies among the two groups, it isinteresting to find that there is a significant
difference in the reading ability as shown in table 4.
From this result, it is interpreted thatlearners’ lexical knowledge which includes
orthography, phonology, morphology and syntax,
semantics and pragmatics can lead to theenhancement of the learners’ reading abilities.
English reading ability is very important for
students of English in this knowledge-based society
where knowledge is provided mostly in English.
Thus, it’s clear that this research supports theconcept of raising students’ linguistic awarenessand is more powerful than teacher-centered. Lewis(2000: 35, 160) claims that it therefore aids
acquisition and helps learners develop their learning
skills as well. This research has also supported theresearch results reported by Laufer (1997) thatreading ability is greatly influenced by lexicalability.
Further, the post-test general language
proficiency scores of the experimental group revealthat there is a tendency for some weaker students tomake much greater progress than those of the better
students who received the same instructional
treatment. Phadvibulya and Luksaneeyanawin(2005: 228) also found similar results from theirresearch study and reported the development ofmany lower proficient students to the higher level,
based on Vygotsky’s concept of the ZPD,
cooperative learning and learner autonomy.
Designing technology enhanced learningmodels for face-to-face foreign language learning in
the classroom should now be considered andpromoted. Forcier (1996: 222) stated that thecomputer is not only a productivity tool for theteacher but also a tool that enhances the
productivity of the students. As shown in this study,
during the class time the teacher gives some goodsuggestions to the students and enables the highproficient students to help their friends after
finishing their given tasks. It is obvious that assisted
learning takes place in learners’ zones of proximal
development where they can do new tasks within
their capacities only with a teacher’s or peer’s
assistance.
It can thus be concluded that the lexical-based
approach can encourage learners to takeresponsibility for their own learning and improvetheir lexical abilities. Moreover, the emphasis on
lexical ability development can contribute tosuccessful reading comprehension. It is hopedthat the control role occupied by lexis and linguistic
description of lexical items in the reality of foreign
language learning will one day be reflected in theattention given to it in research and the classroom.

References
Forcier, Richard C. (1996). The Computer as a
Productivity Tool in Education. New
Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Laufer, Batia. (1997). The Lexical Plight in second
Language Reading. In James Coady &Thomas Huckin (Eds.), Second Language
Vocabulary Acquisition. 20-34. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Lewis, Michael. (1993). The Lexical Approach:
The State of ELT and a Way Forward. Hove,
England: Language Teaching Publications.
Lewis, Michael. (1997a). Implementing the Lexical
Approach: Putting Theory into Practice.
Hove: Language Teaching Publications.
Lewis, Michael. (1997b). Pedagogical Implicationsof the Lexical Approach. In James Coady& Thomas Huckin (Eds.), Second
Language Vocabulary Acquisition. 255-270.
Cambridge University Press.
Lewis, Michael. (2000). Teaching Collocation:
Further Developments in the
LexicalApproach. Hove: Language Teaching
Publications.
Miller, G.A. (1976). Semantic Relations andWords. In Mons Halle, Joan Bresnan &G.A Miller (Eds.), Linguistic Theory andPsychological
Reality.
60-118.
Massachusetts: The M.I.T. Press.
Sinclair, J. M., & Renouf, A. (1988). A Lexical
Syllabus for Language Learning. In Ronald
Carter & Michael
McCarthy (Eds.),
Vocabulary and Language Teaching.
140-160. Longman.
Taft, Marcus. (1991). Reading and the Mental
Lexicon. London: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Phadvibulya, Tavicha. & Luksaneeyanawin,
Sudaporn. (2005). A Hybrid Network
Technology-Enhanced Language Learning
Model: Responding to the Needs of 21stCentury Global Community. Proceedingsof the 6th Symposium on Natural Language
Processing.
1,
223-228.
Bangkok:
Chulalongkorn University.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1985). Thought and Laguage.
Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press.
Wilkins, D.A. (1972). Linguistics in Language
Teaching. London: Edward Arnold
Willis, J., & Willis, D. (1996). Challenge andChangein
Language
Teaching.
Heinemann.

The preliminary study on curriculum design with culture-based language
learning for university students
Hyung-ji Chang
Cu-V Global Program, Adjunct Professor, Catholic University of Daegu
maria5576@cu.ac.kr

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to propose the English
language learning curriculum for university
students on the basis of culture-based language
instruction. In this study, the 50 learners are
exposed by the target language culture with 18
hours of culture based English lecture andcommunal life with native speakers for one
semester. During the program students reported
their satisfaction and development of English
competence in terms of survey. On the basis of
Need Analysis of students, the study proposes theeffectiveness of culture teaching for university
students as well as suggestible English language
learning program.

Keywords
Curriculum,
Analysis

Culture-based

instruction,

Needs

Introduction
The goal of this study is to develop the curriculumof English language learning program for university
students on the basis of culture-based language
learning. According to Taba (1962), theconsiderations of curriculum design include sevenfactors; the diagnosis of the learner’s needs,
formulation of objectives, selection of content,
organization of content, selection of learning
experience, organization of learning experiences,and determination of what to evaluate and themeans of doing it. In the process of curriculum
design, the Needs Analysis (NA) of students isposed at the first stage, so this study is regarded as apreliminary study for the entire project of
curriculum design. For the diagnosis of the learner’s
need, the students’ demands to English language
learning program are analyzed in this study. Basedon the Needs Analysis (NA), the study elaborates
the instructional contents as for the second stage ofcurriculum design and proposes the culture-based
language learning.
Along with the 7th National Curriculum (NC) in
Korea, the enthusiastic demands on culture
supplemented, or culture centered English
instructions are requested (The Ministry of
Education and Human Recourses, 1997). And theeffectiveness of culture-based instruction for
Korean EFL children was reviewed by Chang(2007), and there is the intercultural-based content
between the target and native culture in order tomotivate and attract the EFL learners. With thebelief of the role of culture to facilitate the target
language acquisition, the survey is conducted bythree considerations; learners’ personal information,
concerns on contents and topics and preferable
teaching and learning methods in order to diagnose
the needs of learners.

1. Literature Review
1.1The purposes of English learning in
Korea
There exist many purposes of learning English
depending on the intrinsic and extrinsic
environments and requests around learners. Most
Korean university students reported that the reason
to take English courses is related to the promotionof conversational confidence as well as career
preparation (Seong, Chang & Kim, 2007; Lee &Lim, 2005; Chung & Kim, 2001). And the modified
and suggestible English curriculum is also
recognized by several researchers who intended tomatch the goal of English instruction with thedemands of learners. According to Joh (2002),
considering the students’ individual proficiency, theproficiency-based instruction can adjust theheterogeneous group of students to thehomogeneous group with shrinking the size of class.
Kim (2006) and Kim & Seong (2006) also proposed
the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) based
instructions which incorporate learner’s needs andthe target situation analysis (Hutchinson & Waters,
1987). Regarding the considerations of curriculum
design, after the diagnosis of learners’ needs, there
is a stage to clarify the objectives of instruction andthis study concerns the proficiency-based and ESP
centered instructions on the basis of responses byuniversity students and previous researchers. In
addition, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) isappended, because the subjects of this study are alluniversity students who have specific purposes tolearn English, which is the academic competence
and it is recognized as the branch of ESP. The
importance of EAP is introduced by Bell (1988) andhe illustrated the skill-based EAP training forpre-departure students at the British council in
Jakarta. In his research, students are exposed to theposition to cope with the challenges of academic
study, so they are requested to attain the academic
competence during the training program and that istheir specific purposes to learn English. Like Bell’s
program, this study also focuses on the group of
university students who have a specific purpose ofEnglish learning and it would be diagnosed by thesurvey.
1.2 Culture-based English instruction
With the demand of specific purposes of English
instruction as well as proficiency based instruction,
the instructional contents to facilitate the language
acquisition are also elaborated in this study. Amongthe various aspects, the belief that the Second
Language Acquisition (SLA) can be facilitated byculture-based instruction (Chang, 2007) irritates theculture-based English language learning program
for university students. According to Ellis (2000),
culture is imbedded in language, playing the role todetermine the characteristics of language, so L2
learners would experience the different culture andlanguage from their native culture and language
during the instruction. In addition, the aspects ofBrown (1980) to language learning also asserted
that learning of target culture is regarded as theequivalence learning of target language learning.
Therefore, the instruction, where the goal isspecified with ESP, EAP and proficiency-based one,
requests the curriculum of culture-based language
learning.
The culture-based language learning shares theperspectives with Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT). According to Brown (2001), there
are five characteristics in CLT and they areknowledge structure (Knowledge of the world),
language competence (Knowledge of language),strategic
competence,
psycho-physiologicalmechanism, and context of situation. In thecomparison, Knowledge of world and language areconsidered as the knowledge of target culture
referred as intercultural competence (Byram, 2000),and strategic competence and psycho-physiologicalmechanism are also given something in common
with the acculturation strategies. According toBerry and Sam (1997), the second language (L2)learners have shown their mental strategies on theprocess of acculturation. When L2 learners firstly
met the target and unfamiliar language and culture,they express their feeling of marginalization andseparation, which are also defined as culture shock.
However, after their recognition of big difference,L2 learners tried to assimilate themselves to thetarget and dominant culture rather than staying inalien status, and finally showed their comfort andconfidence with a strategy of integration. Theseacculturation strategies are also recognized in the
CLT based instruction with their strategiccompetence and mechanism. Along with the sharedperspectives with CLT, culture-based content isstrengthened in English language learning program.

2. Research methodology
2.1 Subjects
The targeted students in this study have a
specific purpose to learn English that matches withthe definition of ESP. They are enforced to study in
American University after two years of Korean
school as a part of their scholarship program. The
prominent motivation to learn English would expect
more intensified English language learning program.
So the 50 scholarship students are focused on thisstudy, and given their needs to their extracurricularEnglish learning program in order to receive more
proficiency and specific purpose based instruction.

2.2 Survey methods
A questionnaire (refer to appendix A) consists ofthree considerations: personal information, contents
and topics, and teaching and learning methods. For
the personal information, students are asked to theirbackground information like gender, the purpose ofEnglish learning, time spending for study English
as well as preferable materials to study. And thequestions about contents and topics are included to
specify the objectives of learning English and to
examine the preferable contents and topics in termsof learners’ views. In the last part of questionnaire,
the preferable learning and teaching methods are
regarded to propose the necessity of culture-based
instruction along with preferable activities for
instruction.

3. Findings and Suggestions
4. References and appendices4.1 References
Bell, Tim. (1998). A description of the skill-based
EAP training for pre-departure students at
the British Council in Jakarta. The Internet
TESOL Journal, 9(9).
Berry, J., W., & Sam, D., L. (1997). Acculturation
and adaptation. In J.W. Berry., M., H.,
Segall., & C., Kagitcibasi (Eds.),
Handbook of cross-cultural psychology.
Vol.3. Social behavior and applications(2nd ed.), 291-326. Boston: Allyn &Bacon.
Brown. H., D. (2001). Teaching by principles: Aninteractive approach to language pedagogy.

NY: Addison Wesley Longman
M. (2000). Assessing interculturalcompetenceinlanguageteaching.
Sprogforum, 18(6).
Chang, Hyung-ji. (2007). The culture-based
textbook design and instruction for Korean
EFL children. A dissertation for the
doctoral degree. Korea University.
Ellis,R. (2000). The study of second language
acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Hutchinson, T, & Waters, A. (1987) English forSpecific Purposes; A learning centeredapproach.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press.
Kim, Dong-ok., Jung, Dae-soo., Chang, Soon-real.,& Uhm, Chul-joo (1999). A desirable
curriculum model for Korean open
universities’ freshman English and English
department program. English Teaching.
54(1). 253-296.
Kim, Hyun Jin., Lee Jong Bok,, & Yun, Jae Heung.
(2006).
Job-oriented
ESP
curriculum
development to improve English major
students’ professional qualification. Modern
Studies in English language & literature. 50(2),151-175.
Kim, Hyun Jin., & Seong Myeong Hee.,(2006). A
Model for a Field-friendly ESP Curriculum
Development. Jungang English language &literature. 48(1), 85-104.
Lee, Yae Sheik & Im Hong Mi (2005). A study on
the General English Education, Secondary
Institute of Education, 53(3), 257-276.
Seong, Myeong-hee, Chang, Hyung-ji, & Kim,
Hyun-jin (2007). University students’
Needs toward the General English
instruction for the curriculum design.
Unpublished article. The Modern English
Education, 8(3).
Taba, H. (1962). Curriculum development: Theory
and practice. New York: Hartcourt, Braceand World.
The Ministry of Education and Human Resources.
(1997). The curriculum of Foreign
Language (1). Seoul: Dae Han KyokwaseoInc.
Byram,

4.2 Appendices
Appendix A. Survey questions of a need analysis
in the view of college students
Survey questions

Ⅰ. Personal Information
1. Gender: a. male b. female
2. What is the reason to learn English?
a. a part of curriculumb. develop your self
c. getting better job
d. interest in Western culturee. assist to course textbook reading
f. other: __________________
3. How much hours do you spend for lea
rning English?
a. less than 2 hrs b.2-4 hrs c.5-6 hrs
d. more than 7 hrs
4. What are your difficulties to learn English?
a. reading b. vocabularyc. speaking/listening d. grammar
e. writing
5. If your English competence is not fluent,
what is the reason?
a. lack of ability b. lack of knowledgec. no need for English
d. idleness of English learning or busy
schedule
f. lack of English learning methods
6. How do you use your English competence inthe future?
a. job b. social relationship c. traveld. education e. studying abroad
7. What is your preferable English learningmaterial?
a. course book b. English novel/essayc. newspaper d. TV and media
f. TOEIC and TOEFL
Ⅱ. Contents and topics
8. I believe that English instruction should
focus on daily based conversation.
a. strongly disagree b. somewhat disagreec. neutral
d. somewhat agree
e. strongly agree
9. I believe that English instruction should
focus on topic based content related to mystudy in college.
a. strongly disagree b. somewhat disagreec. neutral
d. somewhat agree
e. strongly agree* If you can’t agree with this opinion, pleasewrite down your reason.

**Indicate your opinion about the effective
topics for English learning.
Scalestrongly disagreestrongly agree
1
2
3
4
5

10. Travel/food
11. Social issue
12. leisure/hobby
13. career/business
14. College application in America
15. Holidays in America
16. Education system in America
17. Sports and cities in America
18. American family
19. Regions of the USA
20. Paralanguage/ money in America
21. Shopping custom in America
22. American Name/ dating custom** Indicate your opinion about the situation ofusing English in the future
Scaleleast usemost use
1
2
3
4
5
23. Communication with native speakers
24. Communication over the telephone
25. Mail or email in English
26. Internet search
27. Reading newspaper or magazine
28. Reading journal or articles
29. Presentation for study in college
30. Reporting the result of study
31. Job Interview

Ⅲ. Teaching and learning methods** Indicate your opinion about the effective
teaching methods of culture-based English
instruction
Scaleleast usefulmost useful
1
2
3
4
5
32. Text and translation based method
33. Reading comprehension based method
34. Topics with debate and discussion
35. Project with cooperative method
36. Presenting repots** Indicate your opinion about the preferable
classroom activities
Scale
least prefer12
3
37. On-line activity
38. Pair works
39. Lecture
40. Small group discussion
41. Presentation

most prefer
4
5

The Effect of Reading Aloud Practice on English Abilities ofCollege Students
Kouichi Ano

Faculty of International Studies, Bunkyo University
k-ano@shonan.bunkyo.ac.jp

Abstract
Japanese college students participated in the
English training program in which they wereinvolved in reading aloud practices such as
overlapping, buzz reading and shadowing. They
practiced reading two different English passages
aloud for about twenty minutes every day. The
program lasted for four months and theimprovement of their English abilities wasmeasured in two ways: TOEIC scores and quality of
their speeches in terms of fluency and accuracy.

Keywords
English training program, reading aloud, TOEIC,
fluency, accuracy

Introduction
Though reading aloud practice has been considered
one of the effective methods to acquire the basic
knowledge of phonology, syntax and vocabulary(Tsuchiya, 2004), less than twenty percent of seniorhigh school students practiced reading their
textbooks aloud on a daily basis and one third ofthem never read English passages aloud at home
(Ano,2006). Reading aloud has not been regarded
as an important activity in SLA researches, however,in a situation of English education in Japan, wherelearners learn English as a foreign language andseldom use the target language in their daily life, it
is a crucial issue to examine the effectiveness ofreading aloud practice. It is also useful to find out
what kinds of practices will help learners to
improve their English abilities.

1

Experiment

1.1
Purposes
The purpose of the study is to examine theinfluence of daily reading aloud practice on English
ability of Japanese learners in terms of scores of the
English proficiency test and the quality of theirspeeches.

1.2
Subjects
The subjects in the experiment are fifteen college
students: two boys and thirteen girls. Though thirty
one students were in the experiment as subjects atthe beginning of the study, sixteen of them failed tocontinue the daily practice of reading aloud in the
middle of the experiment. All of them were thestudents of a national university in Japan andbelonged to the faculty of education, humanities orscience.
1.3
Procedure
1.3.1
PretestAll the subjects took TOEIC test. Then they weretold to answer the following question in a CALL
room and their speeches were recorded.
Q: What did you do in your winter vacation? / How
did you spend your winter vacation?
1.3.2
Treatment
They participated in the “English training program”
which lasted for four months. The instructions
about the program were given in the orientation andthey continued daily reading aloud practice everyday. The training menus were as follows:
Listening 1- listen to the passage while looking at
the text.
Listening 2 - listen to the passage with the textbook
closed.
Overlapping – listen to the model reading and readthe passage aloud at the same time. They can lookat the text.
Buzz reading – read the passage aloud bythemselves.
Shadowing - listen to the model reading and say thepassage at the same time with the textbook closed.
The textbook used in the experiment was“Sokudoku Sokucho Eitango Core 1800” (Rapid
Reading, Rapid Listening, English Vocabulary Core
1800). It has sound CDs which include the model
reading for all the passages with natural speed bynative speakers of English.
Each lesson was studied for two consecutive

days and two lessons were covered in a day. A daily
practice took them about twenty minutes. Everyday
practice went like this:(1) Review of the previous lesson
Listening 2 – once
Overlapping – twice
Buzz reading – five times
Shadowing – three times(2) New lesson
Listening 1 – three times
Overlapping – five times
Buzz reading – three times
Since these are the minimum requirement, the subjects
often practiced more than these numbers. Each subject
was told to record the number of practices which they
pursued and submitted them every three weeks.
1.3.3
Posttest
After being involved in the program, each subject
took TOEIC test again. They were also asked toanswer the following question and their speeches
were recorded.
Q: What did you do in your Golden Week holidays?
/ How did you spend your Golden Week holidays?

2

Analysis

2.1
TOEIC score
TOEIC scores before and after the training programof all the subjects were compared in three different
points: Section 1 (Listening), Section 2 (Reading)and total scores.
2.2
Transcription of Spoken Data
All the recorded speeches were transcribed and thefollowing tags were inserted.
( ) silent pause<r> repetition<R> repair<J>Japanese words<L>laughter<C>cough
2.3
Fluency
In order to examine the qualitative improvement ofspeeches, numerical values of fluency was definedwith total numbers of words in one minute, frequencyof silent pauses, repetition, repair and mean length ofutterance. These five variables were integrated into
one value through principal component analysis.
2.4
Accuracy
Accuracy, another aspect of qualitative measurement,
was examined. All the grammatical errors in thescripts were checked and the frequency of errors wascalculated.

3

Results

3.1
TOEIC scores
Average scores of TOEIC for pretest and posttest
were shown in table 1.
Table 1: Average scores of TOEIC
pretestPost test
difference

Section 1(listening)
257.7
294.0
36.3

Section 2(Reading)
193.0
199.0
6.0

total
450.7
493.0
43.0

Though ten subjects improved their total scores
while five went down the scores, the average scores
increased by forty three points. They improved thescore of listening section more than reading section.
As for listening section, twelve subjects improved
their scores.
3.2
Qualitative improvement of speeches
Compared the speeches of posttest with those of
pretest, the quality of speeches of most subjects has
improved in terms of both fluency and accuracy.

4

Educational Implications

Since the experiment started in the middle ofJanuary and ended in the middle of May, thesubjects had only some English classes during themost of the experiment period. Through theinterview with the subjects, all of them said thatthey concentrated on this program without having
any other English study for months. This means
they improved both the score of proficiency test andthe quality of their speeches through pursuing
reading aloud practices.
It can be concluded that reading aloud practiceis effective to improve some aspects of English
ability of Japanese college students.
References
Ano, K.(2002) The relationship between Fluency
and Accuracy in the Spoken Utterances ofHigh School English Learners. STEP
Bulletin vol.14, 39-49.
Ano, K.(2006) The Influence of Learning Strategies
in Senior High School Days on English
Level of Japanese University Students.
Proceedings of the 10th Conference of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, 1-14.
Tsuchiya, S. (2004). Ondoku Shido [Instruction of
Reading Aloud] Tokyo: Kenkyusha.

A Study of What Students Think They Have Learned throughSynchronous Computer-Mediated Communication
Kenji NAKAYAMA

Waseda University
nakaken@waseda.jp

grammatical competence. This is largely due tothe lack of opportunities to use English in theauthentic communicative situations.
It isimportant to note that CCDL CMC can provide
such opportunities. (7)Abstract
This study focuses on synchronous
computer-mediated communication (CMC), whichis commonly referred to as ‘chat’, based on myexperience at Waseda University in 2006-2007.
The subjects are 72 freshmen enrolled in mywriting courses at Waseda University.
They
engaged in text-based synchronous CMC with
Korea University students. Exchanges out of classtime involved small groups of participants using
BizMate, a chatting system.
The purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to
explore what students think they have learned
through synchronous CMC and (2) to consider its
significance in my teaching context. First, thispaper analyzes the final essays written by mystudents, in order to probe what they thought they
had learned through synchronous CMC with Korea
University students. The essay topic was ‘some
advice to their juniors (the future freshmen) about
the chat activities in the course’. The students’reactions vary. Then, based on the findings, thepaper discusses the significance of CMC in myteaching context in terms of cultural awareness,interpersonal connections, autonomous learning,communication skills, language in chats, languageuse, and teacher’s role.

Keywords
CMC, chat, EFL, CCDL

Introduction
The rapid development of information andcommunication technologies in recent years is
associated with a corresponding growth in interestin computer-mediated communication (CMC) in
language learning/teaching. E-mails, chats, andvideo conferencing are indispensable in the
Cross-Cultural
Distance
Learning(CCDL)
programs at Waseda University. Nakano (2006)
argues:Some students suffer from inferiority complex
about their English, although they have sufficientThis paper will (1) give a brief overview of
CMC, (2) show the outline of my writing course,(3) analyze the students’ final essays, and (4)examine the significance of CMC, especially chats,
in my teaching context.

1

Computer-mediated communication

1.1

CMC in EFL learning
CMC is said to be the process of using
computers in order to facilitate person-to-person
interaction regardless of location.
The integration of CMC into EFL (English as
a foreign language) learning can increase both
exposure and use of English. CMC is also said tobenefit learners in terms of increased participation,
increased motivation, an opportunity for skills
development, and the promotion of learnerautonomy.
1.2

Synchronous CMC
There are some forms of CMC. CMC canallow language learners to “communicate withother learners or speakers of the target language ineither asynchronous (not simultaneous) orsynchronous (simultaneous, in real time) modes(Warschauer, M. & Kern, R, 2000: 12)”.
Synchronous CMC, where interaction takes
place in real time, includes online chats and videoconferencing. Asynchronous CMC, participants
are not necessarily online simultaneously,
encompasses emails, discussion boards, and mailinglists.
1.3

Chat
A ‘chat’ is a way to “to communicate in realtime, that is, instantaneously. Whatever you type
into a chat program is immediately visible to theother participants on their computers. (Teeler, D. &Gray, P., 2000: 4)”.
There are three basic
computer-based chat modes: text, audio and video.
The most widely used in education so far has beentext chat.
Using chats means that the target language islearnt by interacting with people from the realworld, in real time, and using language of the realworld, whether they are native or non-native
speakers.

2

Course description

This paper deals with “Practical Writing in
English 1B” and “Practical Writing in English 1E”,
the required courses for the freshmen at the
Department of English Language and Literature,
School of Education, Waseda University.
36
students were enrolled in “Writing Practice 1B”,
and “Writing Practice 1E” each in 2006-2007.
2.1

Course objectives
The course objectives were twofold:(1) to develop students’ writing skills(2) to develop students’ cultural awareness
2.2

Evaluation
The evaluation was based on:(1) attendance, participation (classes and chatsessions): 50 %(2) summaries after each chat session, presentations,final paper: 50 %The summaries were supposed to be an
extension of the chat session’s contents for thatweek and include personal opinions.
The students were required to write a final
paper about ‘some advice to their juniors (the future
freshmen) about the chat activities in the course’.
2.3

Chat session
Chatting was made a course requirement.
Students were supposed to chat online through thecomputers at Distance Learning Center.
Waseda University students were paired with
Korea University students. Students, in the formof small groups consisting of 3-5 persons, engaged
in a chat session once a week (30-45 minutes).
Text-based chatting was conducted through asoftware program called BizMate. It supports avideo stream, through which participants canvisually interact while typing on the computer
keyboard.
The topics of the chat sessions were as
follows:

Table 2: Topics in chat sessions

1st semester
wk 1
self-introduction, university culture
wk 2
fashionwk 3
sportswk 4date, marriage, divorce
wk 5
plastic surgery
2nd semester
wk 1
self-introduction, part-time job
wk 2
foreign countries
wk 3
datingwk 4
education
wk 5
free chatting

2.4

Course design
This section shows what was related with
CCDL in the course.

Table 1: Course outline

1st semester
wk 1
introduction, guidance
wk 2
how to use BizMate, topic
wk 3
self-introduction practice (with BizMate)wk 4-7
expressions for discussion, preparation
for chat sessions
wk 6-7analysis of chat logs
wk 8-12oral presentation: what they learned
through the chat sessions with their logs
2nd semester
wk 1
introduction
wk 2
topic (with BizMate)wk 3
information gap task (with BizMate)wk 4-5preparation for chat sessions
wk 6-11oral presentation with PowerPoint
wk 12
review

This course was mainly aimed at developing
students’ writing skills.
I introduced various
writing activities which were closely related to thechat sessions.
The students were given theopportunity in advance to think about the language
they would need so that they could be prepared forthe chat and less anxious when trying to type
quickly.

3

Research

3.1

Data collection
Data were collected from 72 students’ final
papers and analyzed in terms of what they thought
they had learned through the chat sessions. The
essay topic was ‘some advice to their juniors (thefuture freshmen) about the chat activities in thecourse’.
3.2

Findings
Table 3 shows the findings, followed by two
extracts from the students’ essays.

dissolves some interruption of partners and you cantype your opinion effectively.”

Table 3: Findings

to develop their awareness of cultural issues 27 (38%)
in Korea
to develop their awareness of Japanese 13 (18%)
cultural issues and events
to develop their interpersonal skills or 13 (18%)
social skills
that they should not be absent from or late 11 (15%)
for the chat sessions
that they should study in advance about the 18 (25%)
assigned topics (expressions and opinions)that they should be more interested in many 9 (13%)
things to hold their opinions
to develop their communication skills for 15 (21%)
carrying on chattingthat they should be more actively involved 17 (24%)
in chatting; that they should enjoy chattingthat the Korean students responded faster or 31 (43%)
had better typing skills
that it was efficient to use a web camera for 7 (10%)
a better understanding[ex 1]
that so-called ‘chat language’ made the 18 (25%)
communication faster[ex 2]
that they should not be afraid of making 7 (10%)
errorsthat there were some frequent mistakes in 7 (10%)
spelling and grammar (from their log data)that they should bring their dictionaries
5 (7%)
that they should use the expressions they 5 (7%)
had learned during the class
to use English in the authentic 19 (26%)
communicative situations
that they should study English harder than 13 (18%)
beforeother comments:
summary, assigned day, historical issue, copy and paste,
good relationship with Waseda peers[ex 1]“What I really like about Bizmate chatting is that we
can see each other’s face. It makes some kind ofrelief. I cannot describe it really well, but you will
understand what I mean. In general, you do not see apartner’s face when you chat on the internet.
However, on Bizmate chatting you can see it. You
can see if he/she laughs or not. Your face can tell
your feelings that you cannot express in words. So,
do not hide your face from the camera! It is fun tolaugh together with Koreans. I believe seeing eachother builds better relationship.”[ex 2]“And there is a method that will help you to cover
your typing speed. The method is to cut sentence into
pieces (this method is often used by Korean partners).
I will give you example. When you type somewhat
long sentence like ‘because of that fact many people
have to change their perspective of the world’, youtype it like ‘because of’ (press Enter Key), ‘that fact’,‘many people have to’, ‘change their perspective’ and‘of the world’. This method has another effect: it

4

Discussion

Based on the findings above, the significanceof CMC, especially synchronous CMC, in myteaching context is discussed in terms of culturalawareness, interpersonal connections, autonomous
learning, communication skills, language in chats,language use, and teacher’s role.
4.1

Cultural awareness
CMC can be effective for enhancing FL/SL
learners’ cross-cultural awareness. The students
can acquire new information and exchange ideas
with students from another culture.
My students developed a positive attitude
towards Korea and Korean people, and learned toaccept and respect differences in their viewpoints,
beliefs, and tradition. Some students reported thatthey exchanged some e-mails with Korean students,
which increased their interest and motivation.
4.2

Interpersonal connections
Learners can get to know each other better
through online social interaction. By using web
cameras, learners can participate in online
communications that almost resemble face-to-facecommunications.
My students reported that they developed
their interpersonal skills (listening, discussing,helping, etc.) and social skills (greeting others,interacting politely, showing respect, etc.). Somechat log data showed that the more fluent orcomputer literate peers helped and coached theweaker students, who were given time to think andkeyboard their ideas.
4.3

Autonomous learning
The students’ authentic and meaningfulinteractions with Korea University students via theInternet promoted their motivation to keep learning.
This motivation of learning supported them tobecome more responsible and willing to engage intheir own learning.
The students felt that they had to prepare forthe topics to be discussed in each session. Their
preparation helped them generate ideas for theirmessages. Some students reported that they knew
what was still needed to be learned in the future.
4.4

Communication skills
Another advantage to be obtained from CMC
is the development of communication skills such as
carrying on a chat, negotiating meanings, and so on,which are difficult to be achieved in the EFL setting.

In chatting, turn taking is not usually welldistributed. Some people tend to hold the floor orparticipate more than others.
Some students reported that turn taking did notexist and that they easily lost their opportunities tointervene. Some people only listened to theconversations taking place.
Some people
introduced new topics without finishing previous
ones.
Many students felt that their keyboarding skills
were slower and reported that they sometimes
missed a part of the chat. Better keyboard skills
are likely to develop naturally as a result of frequentchat practice.
4.5

Language in chats
The synchronous CMC causes “most radical
linguistic innovation … affecting several basic
conventions of traditional spoken and written
communication. (Crystal, D., 2001: 130)” Shortphrases, abbreviations, emotive symbols and so on
are frequently used in synchronous CMC.
The students were interested in new forms ofcues ( [: ]) = smile, [I am ANGRY] = to emphasize
emotion) and language ([btw] = by the way), for‘minimum effort in minimum time’.
Many
students made a presentation about the effective useof ‘chat language’ during the first semester.
Through some assignments, the students
became aware of the differences in style between
formal writing and conversational writing. They
also knew that an essay or formal term paper needs
a plan and careful reflection.
4.6

Language use
The integration of CMC into EFL learning issaid to increase both input (exposure) and output(use) of English in authentic social interactions.
Some students reported that they got adequate
access to English outside of the classrooms andpracticed what they had learned in the classroom.
The social nature of chats between EFL
learners can contribute to lower the affective filter,one of Krashen’s five hypotheses for language
acquisition, offering a relaxing atmosphere forlearning to take place. Most of the students
reported that they had a great time chatting with
Korean students.
4.7

Teacher’s role
I tried to give the students positive feedback
and encourage them to communicate and not to
worry
about
spelling,
grammatical,
andcapitalization mistakes. The students felt free toexpress themselves and their own opinions.
Students often need scaffolding which

includes some pre-teaching of new vocabulary andexpressions, or reviewing the use of particular
structures. It is up to the teacher to introduce
remedial strategies to encourage students tocontinue participating in the chat sessions.

5

Conclusion

CMC can be a powerful tool in the EFL
setting. CMC can(1) give learners more authentic exposure and more
opportunities to use the knowledge learned in theclassroom;(2) facilitate the connection with people across theworld;(3) make students become independent learners;(4) be advantageous in terms of such affective
factors as motivation, anxiety and confidence.
Synchronous CMC, which makes students
communicate with ‘real’ people in the ‘real’ worldin ‘real’ time, is indispensable in my teachingcontext.
It allows for a better and morecomprehensive awareness of the outside world andgenerates richer language leaning experiences andenvironments. Through chats, the students can(1) develop their interpersonal and social skills;(2) encourage their autonomous learning;(3) enhance their communication skills;(4) broaden their language awareness.
References
Brooks, D. W., Nolan, D. E. & Gallagher, S. M.
(2001). Web-Teaching2. New York: Kluwer
Academic/Plenum Publishers.
Chapelle, D. (2001). Computer Applications inSecond Language Acquisition: Foundations
for teaching, testing and research.
Cambridge: CUP.
Crystal, D. (2001). Language and the Internet.
Cambridge: CUP.
Kern, R. (2006). Perspectives on Technology in
Learning and Teaching Languages. TESOLQUARTERLY Vol.40, No.1, March 2006.
Nakano, M. (2006). General Framework: CCDL.
Cross
CulturalDistance
Learning
Teachers’ Manual Vol.1. CCDL ResearchCenter, Waseda University.
Teeler, D. & Gray, P. (2000). Use the Internet in
EFL.
Essex: Pearson Education/
Longman.
Warschauer, M. & Kern, R (eds). (2000).
Network-based
Language
Teaching:
Concepts and Practice. Cambridge: CUP.

The Design of Web-based Collaborative Environments for
Global Teacher Training: A Knowledge Building Community for
Future Assistant Language Teachers in Japan
Yuri Nishihori

Information Initiative Center, Hokkaido University
yuri@iic.hokudai.ac.jp

Abstract
The main objectives of this project are to design
and implement Web-based collaborative environments, and to help future and novice AssistantLanguage Teachers (ALTs) to have better chances toacquire professional knowledge in advance withsupport from experienced senior teachers, both
Japanese and former ALTs. Computer Support for
Collaborative Learning (CSCL) was adopted as aplatform for their online discussion. Results arereported by the analysis of system design and the
Web-based questionnaire conducted to theparticipants involved in the knowledge-building
forum.

Keywords
CALL, CSCL, teacher education, Web-based learning,knowledge building

Introduction
There has been a pressing need to propose more
effective preparation for ALTs on a practical level inJapan, since the Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology, Japan, announced
in 2002 that the number of ALTs should be
increased to the unprecedented number of over
8400. These ALTs are young overseas graduates
who assist in international exchange and foreign
language instruction in local governments, boardsof education and junior and senior high schools. To
cope with this rapid increase, however, surprisingly
few projects have been carried out for professional
training in the recent years within the educational
arena of ELT in Japan.
This paper discusses effective ways to meet theabove-mentioned pressing need, with regard to
appropriate preparation based on the questionnaire
survey given to 600 ALTs in Japan (Kushima &Nishihori, 2006). ALTs have little job training on apractical level at the orientation sessions offered atpresent, and virtually no individual preparation isprovided for them before coming to Japan. The

analysis leads us to a proposal of web-based global
training which is composed of a discussion forum
between future ALTs all over the globe andJapanese Teachers of English (JTE) in Japan, in
addition to experienced ALTs either in Japan or
anywhere in the world. This forum offers a good
opportunity for future ALTs to undergo pre-training
and join the teachers’ community in advance.

1

Literature Review

Much focus is placed on interaction (Ferry et al.,
2000; Schon, 1987; Vygotsky, 1978) in thediscussion forum, since this offers learners theopportunity to analyze information, explore ideas,
and share feelings among learners and instructors in
an e-learning course (Khan, 2005). For learning
communities, collaboration and knowledge building
are essential elements. In particular, knowledge
building is viewed as the creation of knowledge associal product (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994). A
number of studies have been carried out concerningknowledge building communities (Li, 2004).
In the field of professional teacher development,
recent studies have focused on the teacher
community of practice supported by networked
environments (Lave & Wenger, 1999). There havebeen interesting case studies conducted within an
Asian context (Liu et al., 2006; Tan & Kwok, 2005;
Chai & Tan, 2005). Our study was conductedfurther to extend this type of training to a global
context.

2

System Design: Principles for the Platform

In this research, we applied collaborative space
ontology (Takeuchi et al., 2006) to design andconstruct a web-based training platform, which was
implemented in a network environment. According
to collaborative space ontology, collaborative space
is classified into two spaces: one for practice tocreate community knowledge and the other for
education to pass it on to the next generation. In
essence, our system is designed to amalgamate both

functions within the same space. Our project is achallenge to realize learning environments in whicha learner or novice teacher can draw on theexpertise of other experienced learners and seniorteachers effectively in an on-line forum to createand disperse community knowledge.
Several viewpoints have been taken into
consideration with the design of this platform. The
actual knowledge building can be seen in thecomment box, under a certain topic which has beenvisualized as a tree in this Forest Forum.
Contributions from each member can be visualized
in this forest which takes the form of a visualdisplay of the actual community. Each member isindicated by the color of the group they represent in
the comment box, and also by a flower in the tree.
The learning process is visualized by theassessment of discussion which is made by a futureor novice ALT using methods such as a “good”
button and a final evaluation box. A wealth of
information such as the nature of the discussion,
who is participating, and how the discussion isevaluated can be made at a glance by following thisprocess. We can witnesses this creation ofknowledge once we are in this forum.

3

System Design: Developments & Analysis

3.1
Training in the Learning Community
Forest Forum is an online community whose
members are composed of future and novice ALTs,
JTEs and former ALTs. Its aim is to support young
people who are interested in working as an ALT toprepare for their professional career. Members get
together to grow a topic tree by having future andnovice ALTs posting questions, and former ALTs
and JTEs answering them.

comment positively by clicking the “good” button.
When the discussion reaches the stage of eightcomments, a butterfly will appear. When thediscussion reaches the next stage of sixteen
comments, a second butterfly will appear. When the
future ALT clicks the “satisfied” button for the final
evaluation of the topic, a rainbow-colored butterfly
will appear.
3.2
Knowledge Building Process
The knowledge building process can be visualized
through the discussion flow in the Forum.
Contribution by each participant is traced by thecolor of a flower which is the same as that of the
background in the text.

Figure 2: Color and Text Matching
Interaction is visualized in the discussion flow
following each contribution from start to finish.
Starting Stage↓A future ALT asks a question about the ALTʼ s job.
Responding Stage↓A JTE or an experienced ALT answers the question.
Interacting Stage↓ Participants further interact by asking andanswering additional questions. During the courseof the discussion, a future ALT evaluates answers
to the original question.
Closing Stage↓ The future ALT evaluates the whole discussion
when she/he finds the answer to the initialquestion satisfactory, and then closes the topic.

In the Forest Forum, each tree has a discussion flow
in sequence. Once a particular tree, i.e. a topic, isselected, the details of the future ALT’s question
appear in the text.
Figure 1: Forest Forum as a Community
3.3
A tree appears when a question is posted. The
newest tree always appears on the upper-left.
Clicking the title will take a member to the detailed
question page. A flower will appear when acomment on a question is posted. The number offlowers is equivalent to the number of comments.
The color shows the status of the respondent. The
flower will blink when the future ALT evaluates the

Evaluation and Reflection in the Train ofThought
It is of great importance to provide learners withmeta-awareness around the discussion. In theknowledge building collaborative space, this can beachieved by the design which offers possibilities forinteraction and reflection over the train of thought
accomplished in collaboration among participants.
Our project offers this opportunity through its

design, which enables reflection during the courseof interactive discussion.
The “good” button plays a role for evaluation
during the course of discussion in that a future ALT
can evaluate any answer made by senior
experienced teachers. In this way, novice teachers
can acquire meta-awareness for their profession.

Other contributions can easily be seen by various
colored texts posted by senior teachers. In this way,
an amalgamation of knowledge can be viewed andtraced as a whole at a glance.
The ultimate stage is marked by the “close this
topic” button. When future ALTs need no more
answers and want to close the topic, they make a
final evaluation on the whole discussion.

Figure 3: The “good” button

Figure 5: Closing Button

By clicking the good button, a “blinking” flower
will appear on both the tree and the comment box
so that evaluation can be visually identified byother members in the forum community.
The above evaluation process is incorporated
in the discussion flow to make the train of thoughtin the forum. The contributions of each member,which are displayed in their assigned colors, can bevisualized at a glance in the course of the discussion.
The main stream of the flow is the comments by afuture or novice ALT. These are in white colored
text which is placed toward the left edge of the
discussion forum, so that it can be physically
identified as a major role.

4

Data Collection & Research Findings

The data was collected from October 11 to 15 withregard to the evaluation of the initial stage of thesystem’s operation from August 20 to October 10 in2007. The anonymous questionnaire was conducted
on-line to the participants in the Forest Forum bothin English and Japanese. The English version wasmade for both those who are interested in teaching
English in Japan and novice ALTs who have justarrived in Japan to teach, as well as the experienced
former ALTs. The Japanese version was made forJapanese teachers of English.
4.1

Attitude to the Community and Change
in Outlook
There were four responses in the English version:
two from future or novice ALTs, and two fromformer ALTs. Although there were only a verysmall number of answers, we have gainedinteresting results about the effects of this system.
Regarding the attitude to the knowledge
building community and the effect on the outlookof the participants, the following questionnaire
items illustrate the results.

Question 4 : To what extent did you feel a sense of
belonging to the community in this forum?
Choices: 1. greatly 2. fairly 3.a little 4.not at all
Question 5 : After joining the Forest Forum, did you
think the forum effected a change in youroutlook?
Choices: 1.greatly. 2.a little. 3.Undecided.4. Not at all.

Figure 4: The Train of Thought

Table 1 Questionnaire Results of (4) –(6)Answernoviceexperienced
(4)
3
1
2
3
(5)
3
1
3
3
(6)
1

Both groups showed favorable results with regard
to their attitude and the change of their outlook. In
Question (6), one of the future ALTs has specified
the change by choosing the item: I became moreinterested in the ALT’s job.
With regard to the level of satisfaction
concerning interaction on the Forum, theparticipants all answered the question (10) with‘perfectly’ or ‘pretty much’.
Question: Were you satisfied with the answers to yourquestion(s)?
1.perfectly 2.pretty much 3.not really 4.not at all

Table 2 Questionnaire Results (10)Answernoviceexperienced
(10)
2
1
1
Looking at the awareness by the Japaneseteachers, Items 3 illustrates interesting results. Thisis open-ended questions which are translated into
Japanese by the present author.
Item 3: Did you become aware of anything yourself
by the answers from others? Please illustrate if any.
Person 3: I realized the difference between Japaneseand people from other countries concerning therelation between a teacher and students.
Person 4: I reconsidered my opinion, when I found adifferent opinion from my own.
Person 5: It was interesting to know other teachers’
opinions about each topic. It was also helpful to feelanxiety and feelings of ALTs.

We should assume that the experience of this forum
was influential to these teachers. Although the data
is limited, this system shows a general tendency ofa possible influence to participants.

5

Conclusions and Further Considerations

This paper presented a description of the systemdesign which was constructed for Web-based
collaborative environments to help future andnovice ALTs with support from experienced
Japanese teachers and former ALTs. The data wascollected in order to analyze the effectiveness for
future and novice ALTs to have better chances toacquire professional knowledge at the initial stageof development. The results indicate that bothgroups of teachers demonstrated greater gains fortheir professional development. The findings willencourage the researchers in refining the knowledge
building community for future professional
development.
We plan to further develop this Forest Forum tosupport on-line training in the Web-based
collaborative environments. In order to make it

successful, evaluation is of critical importance asshown by the quantity of the data we gained toconclude quantitatively. It is our future work toanalyze this system with a much more detailed
survey to learners’ awareness toward collaboration.

Acknowledgements
This study is supported by Grant-in-Aid for
Scientific Research (B) No. 18320086 from Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

References
Chai, C. S. & Tan, S.C. (2005). Fostering learning
communities among teachers and students:
potentials and issues. In C.K. Looi et al. (eds.),
Towards sustainable and scalable educationalinnovations informed by the learning sciences.
IOS Press.
Kushima, C., & Nishihori, Y. (2006). Reconsidering
the role of the ALT: effective preparation for
ALTs based on the questionnaire survey.
ARELE (Annual Review of English Language
Education in Japan) Journal, 17, 221-230.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1999). Legitimate
peripheral participation in the communities ofpractice. In R. McCormic, & C. Paechter (eds.).
Leraning and knowledge. 21-35. Thousand
Oaks, CA:SAGE Publication.
Li, Q. (2004). Knowledge building community:
keys for using online forums. Research &Practice to Improve Learning, 48 (4), 24-28.
Liu, I., Chen, M. & Sun, Y. (2006) The Design of a
Web-based learning platform: a case study in
Taiwan. In Mizoguchi et al. (eds.), Learning byeffective
utilizationoftechnologies:
faciletating intercultural understanding. IOS
Press.
Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1994). Computer
support for knowledge-building communities.
The Journal of the Learning Science, 3 (3),265-283.
Takeuchi 㧘 M., Hayashi 㧘 Y., Ikeda, M., andMizoguchi, R. (2006) A collaborative learning
design environment to integrate practice andlearning based on collaborative space ontology
and patterns. Proc. of 8th International
Conference of Intelligent Tutoring Systems(LNCS No. 4053). 187-196.
Tan, C. & Kwok, P. (2005) Knowledge Building inInter-school Learning communities: reflections
from a case on project learning in Hong Kong.
Towards sustainable and scalable educationalinnovations informed by the learning sciences.
IOS Press.

Poster presentation

Using Differential Item Functioning to Detect Individual
Differences of Japanese EFL Learners
Eiichiro Tsutsui1, Michiko Nakano2, Yusuke Kondo3, & Kazuharu Owada4

1
3

International Centre, Hiroshima International University, 2School of Education, Waseda University

Media Network Centre, Waseda University, 4College of Business Administration, Ritsumeikan University
tsutsui@ic.hirokoku-u.ac.jp

Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to investigate theapplicability of differential item functioning (DIF)
in the analysis of the questionnaire data obtained
from the research of individual differences (IDs). In
this study, we will focus on self-determination
theory (SDT). Developed by Ryan & Deci (2000),
SDT is now widely applied in the field of IDs,
especially in the field of motivation research. SDT
hypothesizes the developmental stages of human
motivation, starting from “Amotivation“, changing
into “External Motivation” and finally transforming
to “Intrinsic Motivation”. In order to examine thestaged development of Japanese learners’
motivational needs, we translated the SDT
questionnaire items developed by Noels et al.
(2000) and created a Japanese version. We
conducted the questionnaire on 1000 Japanese
university students. Our questionnaire consisted of
27 questions: Its 21 items are based on Noels et al.’s
scales and the remaining 6 items correspond to
Gardner and Lambert’s (1972) instrumental andintegrative motivations. The results of factor
analysis indicated that the factors extracted in thisstudy fairly matched Ryan & Deci’s classificationsof motivations. However, their hypothesis ofdevelopmental stages of self-determination was notsupported by our research results. DIF analysis
showed that individual differences played a role inmotivation.

to compare and contrast the reading test
performance of Arabic-speaking learners with thatof Mandarin-speaking learners. According to her
research results, the Mandarin-speaking groupperformed incredibly well on 4 items which requirebottom-up, local strategies (i.e., lexical, scanning,synonym, and matching keywords), while theArabic-speaking group significantly performed wellon 3 items, where one needs to regulate the
top-down, global strategies (e.g., skimming,
connecting, and inferencing). In order to ensure thefairness of all kinds of tests, it is very important todetect DIF.
In this study, we will examine whether or
not the SDT can be applicable to Japanese EFL
learners. According to Ryan and Deci (2000), theSDT hypothesizes the developmental stages ofhuman motivation, starting from “Amotivation“,changing into “External Motivation” and finallytransforming to “Intrinsic Motivation”. In order toexamine Japanese learners’ motivational needs, wetranslated 21 SDT questionnaire items that weredeveloped by Noels et al. (2000) and we created aJapanese version.
Also, we added 6 items by referring toGardner and Lambert’s (1972) instrumental andintegrative motivations. The former motivation
comes from one’ social needs, while the latter istriggered by social relationships. Items wereselected through the analyses of factor analysis andthe Rasch (1960) model.

Keywords
Self-determination Theory, Rasch, DIF, Individual
Differences

2. Motivation and gender
2.1. Motivation scales

1. Introduction

A factor analysis extracts the following sevenfactors, which correspond to Deci and Ryan’s,
theoretical classifications, overall.

According to Embretson & Reise (2000), DIF(Differential Item Functioning) is studied toinvestigate whether or not two or more examining
groups have the different relationship to a latentvariable or a multidimensional latent vector.
Abbot (2006) employed a DIF procedure

1. Amotivation
2. External (Instrumental) regulation
3. Introjected regulation
4. Identified & Integrative regulations

5. Intrinsic motivation (knowledge)
6. Intrinsic motivation (accomplishment)
7. Intrinsic motivation (stimulation)

2.2. DIF analysis
In this study, DIF effects are calculated by
WINSTEPS (Linacre, 2006), which employs thefollowing formula.

6. Conclusion
DIF analyses indicate that individual learnercharacteristics play a role in motivational intensityand directions. In this presentation, we will also
discuss how language teachers can deal with thedifferent types of learner’s motivations and othercharacteristic traits.

Referencesd1 − d 2t=( DIFS .E.1) 2 + ( DIFS .E.2) 2
where
d1: item difficulty for group 1
d2: item difficulty for group 2
DIFS.E.1: standard error of d1
DIFS.E.2: standard error of d2
with df=n-2.
In the case of a DIF analysis, it is crucial toensure that the ability of the targeted groups shouldbe equal (Pae, 2004). Therefore, we focus on 111
males and 94 females at the same proficiency level.
As a result, DIF is detected among external
and instrumental regulations. The male group issignificantly motivated by external and instrumental
factors (t(203)=-3.4, p<.01), as in figure 1.

Figure 1: DIF (DTF) for males and females

3. Motivation and academic backgrounds
The results will be presented at the conference.

4. Motivation and anxiety
The results will be presented at the conference

5. Motivation between global strategy users
and local strategy users
The results will be presented at the conference.

Abbott, M. L. (2006). ESL Reading Strategies:
Differences in Arabic and Mandarin
Speaker Test Performance. Language
Learning, 56:4, 633–670.
Deci, E.L., and Ryan, R.M. (2000). The ‘What’and ‘Why’ of Goal Pursuits: Human
Needs and the Self-Determination of
Behavior,” Psychological Inquiry, 11 (4),
227–268.
Embretson S.E., and Reise S.P. (2000) Item
Response Theory for Psychologists. New
Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Publishers.
Gardner, R.C., & Lambert, W.E. (1972). Attitudes
and motivation : Second language learning.
Newbury House.
Linacre, J. M. (2006). WINSTEPS Rasch
Measurement Computer Program. Chicago:
Winsteps.com.
Noels, K.A., Pelletier, L.G., Clément, R., &Vallerand, R. J. (2000). Why Are You
Learning a Second Language? Motivational
Orientations
andSelf-Determination
Theory. Language Learning, 50, 57-85.
Pae, S. (2004). DIF for Examinees with Different
Academic Backgrounds. Language Testing,21(1), 53-73.
Rasch, G. (1960). Probabilistic models for someintelligence and attainment tests. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.

Examining predictors of second language speech evaluation
Yusuke Kondo1,3 Eiichiro Tsutsui4, Aya Kitagawa1, Hajime Tsubaki2,3,
Shizuka, Nakamura2,3, Yoshinori Sagisaka2,3, and Michiko Nakano1,3

Graduate School of 1Education, 2Global Information and Telecomunication Studies,
3

Language and Speech Science Research Laboratories, Waseda University,

4

Inernational Communication Center, Hiroshima International University

yusukekondo@asagi.waseda.jp, tsutsui@ic.hirokoku-u.ac.jp,
aya@fuji.waseda.jp, hjm-tsubaki@asagi.waseda.jp, shizuka@akane.waseda.jp,
sagisaka@waseda.jp, nakanom@waseda.jp

Abstract
This study examines predictors of subjective
evaluation in second language speech. The raters
evaluated the recorded speech by Asian learners ofEnglish, and the evaluation scores of the speech
were calculated based on multi-faceted Raschmodel. The learners’ speech was analyzed in termsof speech rate, pause control, and rhythmic control.
These objective measurements were used as
predictor variables in the multi-regression analysis
to predict the evaluation score. The results showed
the high predictability of the score by the predictor
valuables among which the index of speech rate
was the dominant predictor.

Keywords
Second language, Speech evaluation,
Response Theory, Multi regression analysis

Item

Introduction
Attempts have been made in the field of speechscience to predict subjective evaluation of second
language (L2) speech with the objective
measurements. In Muto, Sagisaka, Naito, Maeki,
Kando, and Shirai (2003), they focused on temporalfeatures as predictors of subjective evaluations.
Muto et al. (2003) investigated the relationshipbetween subjective evaluation and objective
measurements in terms of rhythmic control in orderto establish an automatic evaluation system for L2
speech.
The framework in Muto et al. (2003) was
extended in Kondo, Tsutsui, Nakano, Nakamura,
Tsubaki, and Sagisaka (2007). This study examined
predictors of L2 speech evaluation in view oflanguage learning. While multi-regression analysis
was adopted, which is the same method as in Mutoet al. (ibid.) in order to investigate the predictabilityof subjective evaluation by objective measurements,
in Kondo et al. (2007), there were four differencesfrom Muto et al. (ibid.): (1) evaluation scores wereanalyzed based on multi-faceted Rasch model; (2)multiple evaluation items were used to evaluate
learners’ speech while in Muto et al. (ibid.) a single
evaluation item was used to evaluate learners’
rhythmic features; (3) the objective measurements
were selected from the previous studies in the fieldof language learning; (4) a passage was used asreading material, while in Muto et al. (ibid.)
relatively short sentences were used.
The results of Kondo et al. (2007) indicatedthat the index of learners’ speech rate is thedominant predictor of the subjective evaluation, andthe second influential predictor is the index ofrhythm. In this study the high predictability(adjusted R2=.74) was obtained compared with thatof Muto et al. (2003). These results are attributed tothe three facts: (1) the raters evaluated several
aspects of learners’ speech using multiple
evaluation items; (2) the evaluation scores wereanalyzed based on multi-faceted Rasch model andwere converted to interval scale; (3) a short passage
was used as reading material, which might have let
the raters catch learners’ speech characteristics
more easily than through short sentences.
Although the previous study obtained the highcoefficient of determination in their analysis, no
speculation has taken place upon learners pause
control. The present study, based on the results ofKondo et al (2007), investigates the influence oflearners pause control on L2 speech evaluation as
well as speech rate and rhythmic control.

1

Method1.1
ParticipantsParticipants were thirty-three undergraduate or
graduate students in Asia whose first language
backgrounds were Chinese, Tagalog, Korean, Malay,
Thai, and Japanese. The participants’ backgrounds
are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1: The participants’ background
Age (year)
Study of English (year)

M
23.0
12.0

S.D.
3.6
4.1

Range
11
16

1.2
Recording procedure and material
The participants came to a room for recording
individually, gave their self-introduction, andreceived the instruction for reading material. Thenthey read the reading material, and digitally
recorded using Roland R-09 and a condenser
microphone, SONY ECM-MS957. It took around
fifteen minutes for each participant to complete thisprocedure.
The reading material that the participants read
was a phonetically balanced passage, “The North
Wind and the Sun” (Appendix A), which is sofamous that the students at university level must
know it. This passage is also used in the NIE corpus(Deterding and Ling, 2005), and is used in thephonetic description of the International Phonetic
Association.
1.3
Speech evaluation
1.3.1
Raters and rating procedure
Raters consisted of six Japanese teachers of English
whose academic backgrounds were Applied
Linguistics or its related area. They attended therater training where they discussed the criteria of
Common European Framework of References(CEFR) (Council of Europe, 2001) and grasped thecharacteristics of learners of six levels by seeing thevideo (North and Hughes, 2003).
After the workshop the raters evaluated therecorded speech individually on the website. They
used eleven evaluation items to which 6-point
Likert scale was adopted according to CEFR: (1)Voice volume, (2) Voice pitch, (3) Speech rate, (4)Vowel quality, (5) Consonant quality, (6) Deletion,(7) Epenthesis, (8) Rhythm, (9) Intonation, (10)Position of pause, and (11) Frequency of pause.
1.3.2

Common European FrameworkofReferences
CEFR is a widely used guideline on learning,teaching, and assessing L2 and describes six levelsof learners with descriptors. In reception,

production, and interaction in the modes, bothspoken and written modes, namely six categories,
the descriptors give Can-do statements to thelearners’ activities. In addition to the descriptors inglobal scales, such as spoken interaction, andwritten production, CEFR presents the descriptors
in local scales such as phonological control andgrammatical accuracy.
North and Hughes (2003) provides samples oflearners as benchmarks in order to assure that ratingprocedures reflect the construct of CEFR. It is,moreover, possible to compare our learners withothers if our rating procedures are implemented inrelation to CEFR, which is one of the aims of CEFR
(Council of Europe, 2001: 21).
1.3.3
Multi faceted Rasch model
The learners’ scores were estimated based on multi
faceted Rasch model, which is an extension ofRasch model. The analysis was done with software,
FACETS (Linacre, 2006). In this model, item
properties and trait level can be separately
estimated. The model is depicted in the equation
below:
log(Pnmijk/Pnmijk-1)=Bn - Am - Di - Cj - Fk
where
Bn = ability of examinee n
Am = difficulty of task m
Di = difficulty of skill item i
Cj = severity of judge j
Fk = difficulty of category k relative to category
k-1
Pnmijk = probability of rating of k under thesecircumstances
Pnmijk-1 = probability of rating of k – 1
To establish inter-and intra-rater reliability, and to
scrutinize items, the scores of the misfit of raters
and items were adopted. The score of the misfit isan index of the difference between observed scoresand expected scores (McNamara, 1996: 169-176).
1.4
Objective measurements
The learners' speech was orthographicallytranscribed and automatically segmented by anautomatic speech recognizer (Hidden Markov
Model Toolkit) using the Viterbi algorithm.
The target features of learners’ speech in thisstudy are speech rate, rhythm, and pause control.
They are operationalized as follows:
Index of speech rate:
S = (T – E) / TD

S is the index of speech rate, T is the total numberof syllable a learner uttered, E is the total number ofsyllable unneeded (e.g. repetitions, fillers, and false
starts), and TD is the total time duration. Thismeasure is called pruned syllables per second,which provides a useful index about learners’
fluency (Derwing, Rossiter, Munro, and Thomson,2004).
Index of rhythm:
R=A/ U
R is the index of rhythm, namely the ratio of
unstressed to stressed syllables, A is the averagetime duration of accented syllables, and U is theaverage time duration of unaccented syllable. The
average ratios of English native speakers are closer
to .5 or .4 (Derwing, Rossiter, Munro, and Thomson,2004).
To operationalize learners’ pause control,
pauses are divided into three categories: sentential
pause, phrasal pause, and within-phrase pause. The
number of pause is counted in each category. The
examples are provided in Table 2. As Osada (2003)
pointed out, it is a controversial issue to definesilent pause. In this study we define silent pause as
silence over 100ms according to Kondo et al.
(2007).
Table 2: Examples of pause categories
Category
Sentential
pause

Example…when a traveler came along
wrapped in a warm cloak. <P>
They agreed that the…
They agreed <P> that the one
who succeeded in making…
PhrasalAnd at last <P> the North Wind
pause
gave up the attempt.
…the North Wind was obliged toconfess that <P> the Sun was
the stronger of the two.
Within-phrase The <P> North Wind and the Sun
pause
were disputing…
…the Sun shone out <P> warmly
and immediately the traveler…
Note: <P> stands for silent pause.

1.5
Multi-Regression Analysis
Multi regression analysis was adopted to investigate
the predictability of the evaluation score by theobjective measurements: the criterion variable is theevaluation score, and the predictor variables, theindices of speech rate, rhythm, and pause control.
Stepwise procedure is adopted, and variables whose
significance level of partial correlation coefficient islower than .05 were deleted.

2

Results and discussion

2.1

Correlation between evaluation score
and objective measurements
The participants were divided into three groups
according to their evaluation scores: high, mid, andlow level. Figure 1 shows the differences of theaverage number of pause in each pause category ineach group. In sentential pause, there was nodifference among three groups, but in phrasal pause
and within-phrase pause, the learners in higher level
tended to make fewer pauses than those in lower
level.
This tendency was also found in the index ofspeech rate, and rhythm though in varying degrees.
The correlation coefficients between these indicesand the evaluation score are showed in Table 3.
10
8

LOW
MID

6

HIGH

4
2
0
Sentential pause

Phrasal pause

Within-phrase pause

Figure 1. The Differences of Pause Control
Table 3: Correlations between score and measures
ES
SR
RH
SP
PP
WP
ES
1
-.83 -.60 -.15 -.64 -.53SR
1-.45 -.34 -.75 -.54
RH
1-.15 -.44 -.49SP
1-.32 -.19
PP
1
-.67
WP
1
Note: ES, SR, RH, SP, PP, and WP stand for evaluation
score, index of speech rate, and rhythm, average numberof sentential pause, phrasal pause, and within-phrase
pause respectively.

As Table 3 indicates, the dominant predictor was
the index of speech rate, and the second was theaverage number of phrasal pause, but highcorrelation was found between the index of speechrate and the average number of phrasal pause. Thereis no way of telling the second and later predictors
in this correlation table.
On the whole, the speech rate obtained
relatively high correlation with other predictors, but
the correlation of the sentential pause with otherpredictors was relatively low. The other predictors
were moderately correlated with each other. These
results indicated that all the predictor variables atissue, except the average number of sentential pause,
could be considered components of one construct.

2.2

Predictability of evaluation score by
objective measurement
Two predictor variables were found to bestatistically significant; the index of speech rate,rhythm. The significance of the model was verified(F(2, 32) = 44.80, p < .01). The model indicates thatthe evaluation scores can be predicted by the twovariables to large extent (adjusted R2 = .73). The
equation below was obtained:Ŷ = 1.35a1 – 5.88a2 – 1.29

where
a1 is the index of speech rate
a2 is the index of rhythm
This result means that among all the variables, these
two indices independently predict the evaluation
scores. The average number of phrasal pause had ahigher correlation with the evaluation score than theindex of rhythm, but the correlation of the phrasal
pause with the index of speech rate is so high that
only a small portion of the score might be able to bepredicted by the phrasal pause.

3

Conclusion

This study investigated the predictability of theevaluation scores in L2 oral reading by theobjective measurements related to suprasegmental
features: speech rate, rhythmic and pause control. It
revealed that pause insertion is one of the clues bywhich the raters evaluate the learners’ speech.
However, the index of the speech rate used in thisstudy is partially influenced by pause duration andnumber, so that the index of pause control could not
be a significant predictor.
In order to obtain higher predictability ofsubjective evaluation by objective measurements,
we need to investigate the relationships between theevaluation scores and other features of learners’
speech, such as intonational and segmental features.
Considering the coefficient of determination,
however, we can conclude that these features are
relatively less influential on L2 speech evaluation.
Acknowledgements
This study is supported by Grant-in-Aid for Young
Scientists (B) No. 19720145 from Japan Society for
the Promotion of Science.
References
Council of Europe. (2001). Common European
framework of reference for languages:
Learning,
teaching,
assessment.
Cambridge: CUP.
Derwing, T. M., Rossiter, M. J., Munro, J. M., &Thomson, R. I. (2004). Second language
fluency: Judgments on different tasks.
Language Learning. 54, 4. 655-679.
Deterding, D., & Ling, L. E. The NIE corpus of
spoken Singapore English. Deterding, In D.,
Brown, A., & Ling, L. E. (Eds). (2005).
EnglishinSingapore.
Singapre:McGraw-Hill Education.
Hidden Markov Model Toolkit. ver. 3.4.
Kondo, Y., Tsutsui, E., Nakano, M., Nakamura, S.,
Tsubaki, H., & Sagisaka, Y. (2007). The
relationship between subjective evaluationand objective measurements in Second
language oral reading [Eigo gakushusha ni
yoru ondoku ni okeru shukanteki hyoka tokyakkanteki sokuteichi no kankei].
Proceedings of the 21st General Meeting of
the Phonetic Society of Japan. 51-55.
Linacre, J. M. (2006) Facets Rasch measurement
computer program. Chicago:Winsteps.com.
McNamara, T. F. (1996). Measuring second
language performance. Essex: Pearson
Education Limited.
Muto, M., Sagisaka, Y., Naito, T., Maeki, D., Kondo,
A., & Shirai, K. (2003). Corpus-basedmodeling of naturalness estimation intiming control for non-native speech.
Proceedings of Eurospeech 2003. 401-404.
North, B & Hughes, G. (2003). CEF illustrative
performance samples for relating language
examinations to the CEF of languages:
Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEF)
English(Swiss
Adult
Learners).
Eurocentres.
Osada, N. (2003). The Effects of Silent Pauses on
Listening Comprehension: A Case ofJapanese Learners of English as a Foreign
Language.
Unpublisheddoctoraldissertation. Waseda University: Tokyo.
Trofimovich, P., & Baker, W. (2007). Learning
prosody and fluency characteristics of
second language speech: The effect ofexperience on child learners’ acquisition of
five
suprasegmentals.
AppliedPsycholinguistics, 28, 251-276.
Appendix A: Reading Material
The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was thestronger when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak.
They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making thetraveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger thanthe other.
Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but themore he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak
around him; and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt.
Then the Sun shone out warmly, and immediately thetraveler took off his cloak. And so the North Wind was obliged
to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two.

Development of Grammar (Expectancy) Strategies: Expecting the
Following Sentence Constituent
Akihiro Kobayashi

Graduate School of Education, Waseda University
kobayashi@moegi.waseda.jp

Abstract
The current study (1) examines, through a survey,
whether any relationships or tendencies can befound between learners’ ability to expect theconstituent that is likely to follow a certain word or
structure, their use of learning strategies, and theirproficiency level and (2) invites a discussion on thesignificance of developing strategy items orinventory concerning grammar. The survey isconducted of Japanese learners of English, whose
proficiency level seemingly varies fromintermediate to low-level, and the data gained arestatistically analyzed to show features on learners’
strategy use and scores in grammar and proficiency
tests. The analysis provides the discussion on
developing strategy items and instructing thosestrategies to foster learners’ ability to expect thefollowing constituent, especially for low-level
learners.

Keywords
learning strategy, grammar, expectancy, constituent

Introduction
Language learning strategies are ones that help
learners learn a (second or foreign) language
effectively. It has been argued that learning
strategies are helpful to improve learners’ autonomy,
that the use of appropriate strategies for the tasks orsituations at hand is necessary, and that strategy
instruction or training, explicit or implicit, iseffective in bringing learners to higher achievement.
As Wenden (1991) argues, more proficient learners
show higher level of autonomous learning. Thismeans that learners with higher proficiency canmore or less manage or responsible for their own
learning process, which can lead them to evenhigher proficiency. Thus, lower-level learners canimprove their proficiency by learning to use
appropriate strategies through instruction or training,
and this leads to raising their consciousness of theirown learning. What matters here is what (kinds of)strategies are helpful and appropriate for learners at
different proficiency levels.

1

Background of the study

Various studies have proposed and developed
strategy items and inventories concerning overall
learning behavior, each language skill (reading,writing, listening, and speaking), and vocabulary
learning, but not concerning grammar, though it isoften recognized as an essential language
component as well as vocabulary.
It seems, from the author’s experience, thatapparently low-level learners do not necessarily use
less strategies than relatively more proficientlearners. They often appear to (try to) use strategies
like “paying attention to keywords in the text” and“making use of their own background or previous
knowledge” when, for example, reading a text, only
to fail to understand what is written in the text.
Such learners are not likely to be successful inusing appropriate strategies. One of the possible
problems many of them face appears to be theirlack of ability to understand basic syntactic
structure at the single-sentence level, and to expect(or guess) what constituent is likely to follow acertain word or phrase (e.g. a transitive verb isusually followed by an object (or an equivalent),
and a preposition by a noun (phrase)). This aspectof expectancy is not included in the strategy items
proposed so far, some of which mention grammar
but often within the framework of overall learningor each language skill. Thus, the current study aims
to explore whether grammar expectation can be oneof the predictors of learners’ proficiency, and how
or to what extent learners’ ability of grammar
expectancy (and proficiency), and their strategy use
are related to each other.
In the survey, the focus of the grammaticalstructures to be investigated is limited only to basic
sentence structure. In many Japanese classroom
settings, students traditionally learn that in principle
English sentences can be categorized into five
types: (1) S+V, (2) S+V+C, (3) S+V+O, (4)S+V+O+O, and (5) S+V+O+C (S, V, C, and O
stand for subject, verb, complement, and object,
respectively). Most learners often grasp themeaning of sentences and teachers often give
explanations based on this categorization, and thus
the concept of sentence patterns can be familiar tolearners in general. The reasons for choosing
sentence pattern as the target for the survey are that(1) the sentence pattern(s) of a sentence depend(s)on the verb and thus the possible pattern(s) asentence is likely to take can be inferred whenrecognizing a set of S+V; (2) understanding themeaning of a sentence requires a full knowledge ofsentence patterns (making mistakes in identifying
the pattern disturbs understanding the meaning);and (3) from the author’s experience, those who are
seemingly low-level learners more frequently
appear to feel difficulty in accurate understandingof each sentence, and therefore of the message of
the whole text as well.

2

SurveyHypotheses
The hypotheses to be examined in the current
study are:(1) No significant correlation can be found between
learners’ proficiency and their strategy use. (Moreproficient learners do not necessarily use morestrategies or more often.)(2) More proficient learners show higher correct
expectancy on sentence patterns.
(3) Learners showing higher correct expectancy on
sentence patterns are more conscious of whatpattern(s) a sentence may take, and attach more
importance to what constituent(s) will follow acertain word or phrase.

concerning (the extent of) learners’ consciousnessof and their belief on sentence patterns andgrammar expectancy.

3

Analysis and discussion

The data are statistically analyzed to show
relationships between proficiency, grammar
expectancy, and strategy use. The generaltendencies are explored according to learners’
proficiency level. The results gained from theanalysis are carefully examined to evaluate theeffectiveness of grammar expectancy. Learners,
especially low-level learners, are recommended tomake themselves conscious of sentence patterns, inother words sentence constituents and how they arearranged to form the meaning. Further research is
required as to identifying concrete strategies toenhance learners’ grammar expectancy, and theeffectiveness of instructing those strategies.

2.1

2.2
ParticipantsParticipants are university students, most of whom
are Japanese freshmen, with a few students from
China included. For the Chinese students, English is
one of the foreign languages (they have learned
Japanese and attend classes conducted exclusively
in Japanese). The participants can roughly be said
to vary from intermediate to low levels.
2.3
Components of the survey
The participants took (1) TOEIC Bridge(R)-type
test (exactly the half volume of the original TOEIC
Bridge(R)) to measure overall proficiency, (2)grammar expectancy test to measure the accuracyof understanding sentence patterns, and (3) strategy
use questionnaire to elicit the daily use of learning
strategies. The strategy items in the questionnaire
are selected from the strategy inventory developedby Purpura (1999) and its Japanese translation(available in Maeda (2001)), considering thelearning situations where Japanese learners are in
general. In the questionnaire was added a few items

References
Maeda, K. (2001). Nihon no Kokosei Eigo
Gakushusha ni yoru Eigo Gakushu
Horyaku Shiyou --- Gakushu Horyaku
Sokutei no tame no Kiso Kenkyu. Nihon
Gengo Tesuto Gakkai Kenkyu Kiyou. 4,
95-106.
Purpura, J. (1999). Learner Strategy Use andPerformance on Language Tests: A
Structural Equation Modeling Approach.
Cambridge: CUP.
Wenden, A. (1991). Learner Strategies for Learner
Autonomy.

Study on Students’ Attitude
Towards World Englishes and Non-native English Teachers
Kyunghee Choi

English Language Teaching, Department of Tourism, Hanyang Women’s College
khchoi@hywoman.ac.kr

Abstract
The objectives of this paper are first to investigate
how students perceive the relatively new concept“World Englishes” and second to find out whether
they prefer native English teachers or non-native
local English teachers. A new paradigm of teaching
and using English as a world language has beensuggested and studied by some researchers in recent
years. Local varieties of English have been studied
and some are even recognized as a standard varietyof local English. Many Korean students still
consider British English or American English the
only Standard English for them to admire and tomaster. This paper examines how Korean students
perceive Standard English and native/non-native
English teachers in relation to the notion of World
Englishes by conducting a questionnaire survey on
two different groups. One group consists of students
of a 2-year college who have never taken a course
on world Englishes, thus are not familiar with the
new concept. The other consists of students of a4-year university who have taken a course on world
Englishes. The former group shows a strong
preference towards British English or American
English while the other group shows a relatively
less preference towards the so-called Standard
English. However, in terms of their preference
toward teachers, the result is reversed.

Keywords
World Englishes, Standard English, localized
Englishes, native English teachers, non-native
English teachers

Introduction
In this world of free trade and globalization, it ismore likely that Korean people use English with
non-native speakers of English rather than native
speakers. It is imperative and beneficial for us torecognize the existence of local varieties of English
and to become more aware of the characteristics of
localized Englishes instead of worshippingStandard English. When educating students, wehave to teach standard norms and rules of English

grammar and core vocabulary. But at the same time,
it is vital for us to understand various varieties ofEnglish practiced around the world and to study
characteristics of Korea English as well.
The concept of world Englishes needs to be
discussed and made known not only to English
teachers and researchers but also more importantly
to students to help them set free from the bondage
of Standard English. This paper examines whatsome Korean college students think of world
Englishes and teaching of English by non-native
local teachers and native teachers of English.

1 Theoretical background
1.1 Standard English
Jenkins (2003) states that Standard English “ispurely a social dialect” (p. 32) that is being
promoted through an education system. Various
definitions on Standard English have been given by
many researchers but none of them are concrete or
finalized. But one thing common in somedefinitions is that it involves educated usage andeducated people. Park and Nakano (2007) argue
that Standard English is a dialect of those in power.
Kahane (1992) argues that American English was
only a colonial substandard in 1780. AustralianEnglish was labeled non-standard or substandard
until 1970s.
The notion of Standard English is only a myth. It
is not a tangible entity we can reach or grasp. Parkand Nakano (2007) and other researchers (Jenkins,
2003; Jin, 2005; Kirkpatrick & Zhichang, 2002;
Xiaoqiong, 2004) suggest that, instead of being
obsessed with British English or American English
and native teachers, it is wiser and more realistic topursue a standard or to be more specific a localized
standard.
1.2 Localized Englishes
There are, however, some difficulties in codifying
local varieties of English. Deciding what criteria
have to be considered is another obstacle in theprocess of codification. Butler (1997) suggests fivecriteria that have to be met in order for one variety

to be considered a standard. A variety of English
should be judged upon whether it has a systematic
pattern of pronunciation, a set of localized
vocabulary, history, literary creativity, and reference
works. However, as Choi’s (2007) study on East
Asia Englishes suggests, there are few languages
that satisfy all the criteria. Bolton (2000) in his
study of Hong Kong English also suggests thatwhether the five criteria are persuasive or powerful
is not important. The important thing, according tohim, is to create a space in which Hong Kong
English can be discussed. Jenkins (2003) suggests a
different view that there lies a difficulty in the factthat a codified Asian English needs to satisfy those
who use it for communication intranationally while
it also has to satisfy those from outside world
especially from native speaking countries
internationally. Besides, it also has to satisfy those
non-native speakers who use it for international
communication purposes with non-native speakers
from other countries.
1.3 NS English teachers vs. NNS English
teachers
As English is being used as an international
language or a global language, the distinction
between native and non-native is meaningless andblur. The term native/non-native causes some
negative impacts on teachers whose English
proficiency is high. Some problems lie in theassumption that native teachers are automaticallycapable of teaching English as a foreign language
even though they have never learned or taught
English as a foreign or second language.
Phillipson (1992) suggests that educated local
teacher is an ideal English teacher. Seidlhofer(1999) even suggests that non-native speakerteachers can take advantage of their status as
non-native speakers for they can develop theirassets for the benefit of their students. Koreanteachers should have more confidence in teaching
English while they have to keep trying to improvetheir general English ability. Well trained
non-native teachers can teach a foreign language
better than native teachers of the target language.

2. Research methods
2.1 Subjects
The total number of participants is 159. 118
students were sophomores in a 2 year-college inSeoul in 2006. Their major was tourism and had
never taken a course on world Englishes or relatedareas. Even though they did not formally study
world Englishes, some of them heard about it fromtheir teacher who is the researcher of this paper. The
group of these 118 women students is labeled “HGroup.” All the students in this group are Korean

from Korea. On the other hand, 41 students went to
a 4 year university in Seoul. They took the course
entitled “World Englishes and Miscommunication”
in the spring semester in 2007. The course wastaught by the same researcher. This group of 41
students is labeled “K Group.” Three students in K
Group were Malaysian, one was Chinese, one was
Uzbekistan, one was Taiwanese, and one was
Korean American who was born and raised in the
United States. The rest 34 students were from Korea
but most of them had lived abroad except a few.
2.2 Questionnaire
The questionnaire (see Appendix) conducted on
both H Group and K Group includes four sections
in each of which contains 5 questions. In the firstsection, the questions concerning American English
and British English as Standard English andownership of English are being asked. The second
section deals with issues of world Englishes andrecognition of localized Englishes especially Korea
English. The third section focuses on what students
think of the so-called native teachers while thefourth section asks questions in relation to
non-native Korean teachers.
2.3 Research Questions
1) The students who have taken the course on world
Englishes get rid of the myth of Standard English
and have better and positive attitudes towards
World Englishes.
2) The students who have taken the course prefer
non-native local English teachers.
2.4 Analysis and discussion
As Table 1 and Table 2 show, the two groups show
a significant difference in Section 1. More they
were educated and informed of world Englishes
they are less obsessed with the notion of Standard
English. This result coincides with that of Jin’s
study (2005). In the second section, the fivestatements are concerned with World Englishes andKorea English. The second section was especiallydesigned to find out what the students think of
Korea English. Overall, the two groups do not show
a significant difference between them in Section 2,
meaning that they both are not yet ready to accept
the existence of Korea English. The change in theattitudes of K Group students towards Standard
English did not affect their attitudes towards Korea
English. A similar result was suggested by Jin(2005).
The third section focuses on preference of native
English teachers while the fourth concerns
non-native English teachers. While the third section
shows no significant mean difference between thetwo groups, the fourth indicates a very big
difference between them. As Table 2 indicates, thetwo groups show a big difference in Section 4.
Table 1: Mean comparison of each question between
H Group and K GroupSct Q Schl No. Mean Std. Deviation Sig. (2-tailed)
1 1
H 118
4.47
.676
0.000
K 41
3.85
.910
(p < 0.01)
2
H 118
3.41
1.235
0.002
K
41 2.71
1.188(p < 0.01)
3 H 118 2.36
1.051
0.897
K
41 2.39
1.115(p > 0.05)
4 H 117 3.47
1.126
0.001
K
41 2.731.361(p < 0.01)
5 H 117 2.68
1.113
0.013
K
41 2.201.005(p < 0.05)
2 6 H 117 3.56
1.322
0.180
K
41 3.90
1.393(p > 0.05)
7 H 118 3.55
1.083
0.000
K
41 2.831.070(p < 0.01)
8 H 116 3.44
1.057
0.614
K
41 3.541.051(p > 0.05)
9 H 118 1.94
.909
0.004
K
41 2.46
1.185(p < 0.01)
10 H 118 2.75
1.403
0.206
K
41 3.05
1.024(p > 0.05)
3 11 H 118 2.10
.946
0.000
K
41 2.221.255(p < 0.01)
12 H 118 3.42
1.016
0.676
K
41 3.34
1.257(p > 0.05)
13 H 116 2.97
.903
0.957
K
41 2.98
1.332(p > 0.05)
14 H 118 3.19
1.101
0.876
K
41 3.221.333(p > 0.05)
15 H 118 3.20
.975
0.409
K
41 3.37
1.113(p > 0.05)
4 16 H 118 3.51
.885
0.000
K
41 2.78
1.061(p < 0.01)
17 H 118 3.64
.929
0.007
K
41 3.151.014(p < 0.01)
18 H 118 3.71
.848
0.014
K
41 3.29
1.146(p < 0.05)
19 H 118 3.50
.922
0.345
K
41 3.32
1.105(p > 0.05)
20 H 117 3.15
.887
0.003
K
41 2.631.067(p < 0.01)
Note: Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.99

Table 2: Mean comparison of each section between
H Group and K Group
Section Schl No. Mean Std.Deviation Sig. (2-tailed)
1
H
588
3.28
1.284
0.000
K
205
2.78
1.256
(p < 0.01)
2
H
587
3.05
1.326
0.286
K
205
3.16
1.250
(p > 0.05)
3
H
588
2.98
1.090
0.502
K
205
3.04
1.320
(p > 0.05)
4
H
589
3.50
.907
0.000
K
205
3.03
1.104
(p < 0.01)

3. Conclusion
The result of this study informs that the students who
took a course on world Englishes have become lessobsessed with American English or British English
as Standard English and come to understand theexistence of local varieties of English used anddeveloped around the world. However, they have not
yet agreed with the notion of Korea English. Theirpreference for non-native local teachers is not greaterthan that of the other group students who have nevertaken a course on world Englishes. Thus, the first
hypothesis has proven to be correct while the second
one has not. The reason that these university students
do not yet support for Korea English can be
attributed to the fact that main characteristics ofKorea English have not yet been defined and agreed
upon by many researchers in the academic fields
concerned.
On the other hand, while H Group students
strongly support for the statement that American
English or British English is Standard English andAmerican people or British people have the right todecide how English should be, they do show stronger
preference for non-native English teachers. The
students in H Group who were generally lessconfident of their English ability may feel lessstressful with Korean teachers of English. They areusually nervous to produce anything that is not“good” and “normative” and to misunderstand what
native speaker teachers say. Lower level students
may feel more comfortable with Korean teachers ofEnglish who can better understand their mistakes anddifficulties. However, for lower level students,
education on world Englishes is still necessary since
they are the ones who are usually too shy tocommunicate in English with foreigners because of
their “incorrect” pronunciation and grammar. Theirvariety of English may be on the basilectal level orthe mesolectal level. They can move up to theacrolectal level only by learning and using thelanguage in any given situation.
References
Bolton, K. (2000). The sociolinguistics of Hong
Kong and the space of Hong Kong English.
World Englishes, 19, 265-285.
Butler, S. (1997). Corpus of English in Southeast
Asia: Implications for a regional dictionary.
In M. Bautista (Ed.), English is an Asian
language: The Philippine context. (pp.
102-124). Manila: The Macquarie Library.
Choi, Kyunghee. (2007) East Asia Englishes. In
Kung-Ja Park, & M. Nakano (Eds.). Asia
Englishes and Miscommunication (pp.
115-137). Seoul: Korea Univ. Press.
Dayag, D. (2004). The English-language media in
the Philippines. World Englishes, 23, 33-45.
Hung, T. T. N. (2000). Towards a phonology of Hong
Kong English. World Englishes, 19,337-356.
Jenkins, J. (2003). World Englishes: A resource bookfor students. London: Routledge.
Jin, J. (2005). Which is better in China, a local or anative English-speaking teacher? English
Today, 21, 39-46.
Kachru, B. (Ed.). (1992). The other tongue. English
across cultures. Urbana, IL: Univ. of Illinois
Press.
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., & Zhichang, X. (2002). Chinese
pragmatic norms and ‘China English.’ World
Englishes, 21, 269-279.
McArthur, T. (2003). English as an Asian language.
English Today, 19, 19-22.
Park, Kyung-Ja, & Nakano, M. (Eds.). (2007). Asia
Englishes and Miscommunication. Seoul:
Korea Univ. Press.
Phillipson, R. (1992). ELT: The native speaker’s
burden? ELT Journal, 46, 12-18.
Plat, J. (1975). The Singapore English speech
continuum and its basilect ‘Singlish’ as a‘creoloid.’ Anthropological Linguistics, 17,363-374.
Seidlhofer, B. (1999). Double standards: teacher
education in the expanding circle. World
Englishes, 18, 233-245.
Strevens, P. (1985). Standards and the standard
language. English Today, 1, 5-8.
Trudgill, P., & Hannah, J. (1994). International
English. London: Arnold.
Xiaoqiong, H. (2004). Why China English should
stand alongside British, American, and theother ‘world Englishes.’ English Today,
20(2), 26-33.
Appendix
Questionnaire
Section A
1. Standard English is British English or American
English.
12
3
4
5
2. English belongs to the UK or the USA.
1
2
3
4
5
3. It is British or American English speakers who
have right to decide how English should be.
1
2
3
4
5
4. I am ashamed of my Korean (local) accent andtry to get rid of it when I speak English.
1
2
3
4
5
5. If English is used differently from British or
American English, it must be wrong.
1
2
3
4
5
Section B
6. I have heard of World Englishes.
1
2
3
4
5
7. Korea English (My local variety of English)

should be recognized and stand alongside British or
American English.
1
2
3
4
5
8. More lectures should be given on World
Englishes and Korea English.
1
2
3
4
5
9. I am proud of my Korean (local) accent when I
speak English.
1
2
3
4
5
10. Korea English (My local variety of English) isused differently from British or American English.
It should be learned by foreigners, especially thenative speakers of English who want tocommunicate with Korean (my local) people in
English.
1
2
3
45
Section C
11. I do not want a Korean (Malaysian, Chinese,etc.) teacher to teach me English.
1
2
3
4
5
12. I want a native English speaker teacher to teachme English since his/her English is Standard
English.
1
2
3
4
5
13. Native speaker teachers provide more reliablelinguistic knowledge.
1
2
3
4
5
14. Native speaker teachers correct me better when
I make mistakes.
1
2
3
4
5
15. Eventually, I will speak native like English if I
study with a native speaker teacher.
1
2
3
4
5
Section D
16. I learn more with Korean (Malaysian, Chinese,etc.) teachers of English since they explain
grammar better than native speaker teachers.
1
2
3
4
5
17. I learn more with Korean (Malaysian, Chinese,etc.) teachers of English since they can sometimes
explain in the Korean (my) language and that helps
me understand English better.
1
2
3
4
5
18. Korean (Malaysian, Chinese, etc.) teachers help
me better with difficulties in learning English since
they have experienced similar difficulties.
1
2
3
4
5
19. Korean (Malaysian, Chinese, etc.) teachers ofEnglish set a good example of successful English
learners. That motivates me to study hard.
1
2
3
4
5
20. I want to have a Korean (Malaysian, Chinese,etc.) teacher as my English teacher since his/herEnglish is more realistic for me to achieve as alearning target.
1
2
3
4
5

Developing CEFR-based Can-do Descriptors to Assess
Practical Communication Skills of Japanese Learners ofEnglishEiichiro Tsutsui1, Yusuke Kondo2, & Michiko Nakano3

1

International Centre, Hiroshima International University , 2Media Network Centre, Waseda University
3

School of Education, Waseda University

tsutsui@ic.hirokoku-u.ac.jp, yusukekondo@asagi.waseda.jp
nakanom@waseda.jp

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to develop can-do
descriptors to assess Japanese EFL learners’
practical communication skills. The can-do
descriptors in this study are based on Common
European Framework of Reference (CEFR), which
is one of the most well-known guidelines forlanguage teaching, language learning, and language
assessment. We created a bilingual self-checklist
for participants enrolling in an English conversation
course, Tutorial English, developed by Nakano(2006). The questionnaire items for the checklist
include 99 CEFR statements concerning spoken
production, spoken interaction, language strategy,
and language quality. 2619 Japanese university
students self-assessed their own practicalcommunication skills by using the checklist, andtheir tutors who are native or near-native speakers
of English evaluated 982 learners with the same
checklist. Thus, we compare and contrast the resultsof learners’ self-assessment and those of tutors’
assessment. The data is analyzed by using thetwo-parameter logistic model (2PLM) of Item
Response Theory (IRT). The IRT analysis will sheda light on the developmental process of practicalcommunication skills and self-regulation capacities.
We will also discuss how our research findings canbe applied in practical language teaching contexts
in Japan.

Keywords
Common European Framework of References,
Item Response Theory,
Communication strategies,
Communicative Competence

1. Introduction
The Common European Framework (CEF) is one of
the most well-known guidelines for language

teaching, language learning, and language
assessment. The CEFR has been developed by theCouncil of Europe (2001) and it has been
world-widely used by educators and language
practitioners for several decades. Nakano (2006)
developed textbooks for Tutorial English courses in
Waseda University with reference to the CEFR and
she adjusted the levels of textbooks in terms oflanguage quality as well as conversational tasks andactivities. In Kondo et al. (2007), ESL learners’
speech performance skills were rated by Japanese
language teachers. During the rater training, all
the raters referred to the CEF criteria. Thus, CEF
has been usefully applied in language teaching andassessment in Japan.
This study examines whether or not the
CEF-based can-do descriptors are applicable topractical language teaching and testing contexts inJapan. We created a bilingual self-checklist forparticipants enrolling in Tutorial English. The
questionnaire items for the checklist include 99
CEF statements concerning spoken production,spoken interaction, language strategy, and language
quality. By using the self-checklist, 2619 Japanese
university students reported their own practicalcommunication skills, and 982 students of themwere assessed by their tutors who are native ornear-native speakers of English. Thus, the results oflearners’ self-assessment are compared with thoseof teacher’s assessment. The data is analyzed byusing the 2PLM of IRT. The following results will
be reported: (1) Whether or not the sequence of
CEF levels corresponds to the sequence of Japaneselearners’ task difficulties, (2) whether or not the 4
subtests (i.e., spoken production, spoken interaction,
language strategy, and language quality) arecorrelated, (3) Whether or not teachers’ assessment
and learners’ self-assessment are consistent, (4)Whether or not their theta estimates correlate withthe proficiency test scores. We will also discuss
how our research findings can be applied inpractical language teaching contexts in Japan.

model. As a result, the descriptors proved to bestable even in a different context.

2. Tutorial English

Table 1: Examples of can-do descriptors (global)(Adapted from Council of Europe, 2003)

Tutorial English is an English conversation course,
developed in Waseda University (Nakano, 2006). It
provides a wide range of oral communication
activities through small group classes with amaximum of four students. This course focuses on
the language use and encourages students toactively engage in performing tasks andparticipating in role-plays and academic discussions
by using new expressions and communication
strategies that they have learned. According to theresults of WeTEC, Web-based Test for English
Communication, the course is divided into six
levels:Beginner,
Basic,
Pre-intermediate,
Intermediate, Pre-advanced, and Advanced. The
task difficulties in the textbooks are carefully
adjusted with special reference to the six levels of
CEFR.

Level

Description

A1

Can understand and use familiar everyday
expressions and very basic phrases aimed
at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete
type.

A2

Can understand sentences and frequently
used expressions related to areas of mostimmediate relevance (e.g. very basic
personal and family information, shopping,local geography, employment).

B1

Can understand the main points of clear
standard input on familiar matters regularly
encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.

B2

Can understand the main ideas of complex
text on both concrete and abstract topics,
including technical discussions in his/herfield of specialisation.

C1

Can understand a wide range ofdemanding, longer texts, and recognise
implicit meaning.

B: Independent User
B1: Threshold
B2: Vantage

C2

Can understand with ease virtually
everything heard or read.

C: Proficient User
C1: Effective Operational Proficiency
C2: Mastery

4. Self-Checklist

3. CEFRAs shown in Figure 1, CEFR defines second
language (L2) proficiency in three broad bands (A:Basic User, B:Independent User, C:Proficinent User,in ascending order), each of which is subdivided toyield six levels (A1, A2; B1, B2; C1, C2) (Councilof Europe, 2001: 24).

A: Basic User
A1: Breakthrough
A2: Waystage

Figure 1. CEFR levels

Thus, can-do descriptors describe what sortof functions a learner at each level can perform
in a particular context. As an example, global
descriptors that represent the learner at each
CEFR level are given in table 1.
Some empirical studies on the descriptors havealready been done. North & Schneider (1998)
conducted questionnaire-based surveys in EU andanalyzed the items by using the Rasch rating scale

In order to create this self-checklist sheet, 99 items
were selected from CEFR descriptors. The 99 items
consist of 39 items of spoken interaction(SI), 25
items of spoken production(SP), 15 items oflanguage strategies(LS) and 20 items of language
quality(LQ) descriptors. Because the students are
all Japanese, and almost all of the language teachers
are non-Japanese, we created a bilingual selfchecklist sheet.
It would be tiresome and scarcely beneficial forstudents as well as tutors to answer all the 99 items.
Thus, 4 different self-checklists were produced
because of the time restrictions of the course. As
shown in figure 2, A1, A2 and B1 CEFRdescriptors were prepared for the beginner andbasic levels of students in the Tutorial English

course, A2, B1, B2 for the pre-intermediate level
B1, B2,C1 for the intermediate, and B2, C1, and C2
for the pre-advanced and advanced levels. By doing
this, we experienced at least one-third reduction in
the number of items in each checklist.

the self-checklist in this study. While students were
working on their self-assessment, tutors assessed
982 students in terms of their communication skills
by using the same checklist. They failed to assess
all students because of the time restrictions.
Table 2: Participants
The number ofstudents
participating in
self-assessment

The number ofstudents
assessed bytutors

32
417
591
601
704
274
2619

13
153
225
229
266
96
982

Beginner
Basic
Pre-Intermediate
Intermediate
Pre-Advanced
Advanced
Total

Figure 2:

Four different types of descriptors

As shown in figure 3, the role of this selfchecklist is schematized with minor revisions of an
ideal flowchart of the curriculum development
proposed in Brown (1995).

Each descriptor of the self-checklist isassessed by a 4-category rating scale: (1) can’t do itat all, (2) can't do it very well, (3) can do it to acertain degree, and (4) can almost do it perfectly,
from the left to the right. Yashima (2004) points outthat Japanese people tend to choose an option in the
middle and avoid choosing its extreme end.
Therefore, 4-point scales are employed in thissurvey, although the four options are finally reduced
to binary formats in the IRT analysis: (0) can’t and(1) can.

6. Self-Checklist

Figure 3:

Role of Self-checklist:(adapted from Brown, 1995)

The purpose of the self-checklist is
five-fold: (1) To identify Japanese EFL learners’
needs and weakness of communication skills, (2) toadjust learning and teaching objectives of thecourse, (3) to review the tests, (4) to reconsider thetask difficulties of textbooks and activities in thecourse, and (5) to give a feedback to the tutors
according to the research results. Along with thereview of the Tutorial English course, we try to
improve the quality of our scaling descriptors.

5. Participants and Methods
On the final day of the course, 2619 students
assessed their own communication skills by using

After reducing the four-category scales into two,
we conducted the 2PLM estimation by using
BILOG-MG 3.0. Students’ self-reported data andtutors’ assessment data are analyzed separately.
Thus, item difficulties( β), item discriminations(α) and students’ trait levels(θ) were calculated.
As a result, item difficulties of learners’
self-assessment are correlated fairly well with thoseof tutors’ assessments. [r=.85, .97, .90, .83 (SI, SP,
LS, LQ, respectively)] However, the trait levels
obtained self-assessment and those of tutor’s
evaluations are not correlated very well. [r=.28,.19,.20, .18 (SI, SP, LS, LQ, respectively)] On the one
hand, students and tutors have a shared consensus
on what sort of communication skills or functions
are difficult/easy to students (i.e., perceived itemdifficulties). On the other hand, learners’
self-reported capacity-levels are not in consistency
with the trait levels assessed by tutors. In general,
tutors are more lenient about students’ skills andcapacities, while students tend to severely assess
their own skills and capacities. In addition, tutors’
item discriminations are higher. Seemingly, tutors’
assessment is more valid than self-assessment;
however, in terms of the correlations with WeTEC
scores, there is hardly any difference betweenself-assessment andexemplified in table 3.

tutors’evaluation,

as

Table 3: Correlation Coefficients(WeTEC Scores * trait levels)
SelfAssessment

TutorAssessment

Spoken Interaction

.334

.319

Spoken Production

.326

.366

Language Strategies

.394

.357

Language Quality

.208

.312

Figures 4 and 5 indicate the characteristic
curves of the descriptors at each level (from A1 to
C2). Overall, the IRT results correspond to CEFR
levels. Thus, the CEFR-based can-do descriptors
are applicable in assessing Japanese EFL learners’communication skills, after some minor revisions.

Figure 4:

Characteristic Curves of overall items(Students’ self-evaluations)Figure 5:

Characteristic Curves of overall items(Tutors’ evaluations)

7. Discussion
Overall, as stated before, there are hardly any gaps
in item difficulties between students’ selfassessments and tutors’ evaluations, in terms of ourcorrelational study. But the following 5 items are
exceptions.
SI9 ( βfor students (S): 1.462 βfor tutors:-0.695 Difficulty Difference(D): 2.157)
I can make simple transactions in shops, post
offices or banks.

LS02 (S: 0.990, T: -0.927, D: 1.917)
I can very simply ask somebody to speak
more slowly.
LS01 (S: 0.626, T:-1.001, D: 1.627)
I can say when I don’t understand.
SI23 (S: 1.553, T: 0.040, D: 1.513)
I can maintain a conversation or discussion
but may sometimes be difficult to follow whentrying to say exactly what I would like to do.
LQ11 (S: 1.189, T: -0.081, D: 1.270)
I have sufficient vocabulary to express myself
on matters connected to my field and on mostgeneral topics
As for SI07, we believe the original descriptor
was not carefully translated into Japanese. Thus, thediscrepancy may be caused. Therefore, SI07 needs
revision. In anxiety-triggered situations such as
LS02, LS01, and SI23, the item difficulty oflearners is much higher than that of tutors. The gapof LQ11 shows learners do not feel that they havepractical or active vocabulary to handle common
and general topics.
8. Conclusion
As one of the performance-based assessments, theself-checklist developed in this study will be helpfulwhen Japanese learners’ practical communication
skills need to be assessed. Moreover, the use of thisself-checklist can also encourage Japanese learners’
independent learning. This is because the learners
can be given tangible and feasible goals so that they
can overcome their individual weaknesses andhopefully advance to the next CEF-R level.
According to our research results,
generally, the performance skills perceived by
Japanese learners are lower than those assessed bylanguage teachers, especially in the anxietytriggered situations. This means Japanese learners
should have more confidence. In order to raise theirconfidence, two approaches are indispensable: (1)Learners must be taught communication strategies
or strategic vocabulary, enough to cope with
anxiety-induced situations, and (2) they should betrained by teachers in the classroom, andindependently outside the class.
Selected References
Brown, J.D. (1995). The Elements of Language
Curriculum: A Systematci Approach toProgram Development. Massachusetts:
Heinle & Heinle Publishers
Council of Europe (2001). Common European
Framework of Reference for Languages:
learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

The effect of previewing item-stems and answer options, and the effectof repetition of a text in listening comprehension tests
Ken’ichi Otsuka

Ibaraki National College of Technology
otsuka@ge-ibaraki-ct.ac.jp

Abstract
This study describes the effects of task types ofmultiple-choice listening comprehension tests on
item difficulty and item discrimination. Six
different formats were administered and results
showed that non item-stem and answer option
preview with repetition format likely to facilitate
test-takers’ understanding the most while taskdifferences did not seem to have impacts on item
discrimination.

repetition format. Item-stems and answer options
are both visually provided prior to listening and thetext is broadcast once only, (5) Format V (identicalwith the original format of senior high school
entrance examination): answer options previewed
with repetition format. Answer options are visuallyprovided prior to listening and the text is broadcast
twice, (6) Format VI: answer options previewed
with no repetition format. Answer options arevisually provided prior to listening, and the text is
broadcast once only.

Keywords
listening comprehension test, question previewing,
answer option previewing, repetitions.

Introduction
Previewing of item-stems (questions) and answer
options by test-takers in multiple-choice listening
comprehension tests has been reported as having a
positive influence on the test results (e.g., Sherman,
1997; Yanagawa, 2003, 2004, 2007). Some studies
also suggest repetition of a text in a listening
comprehension test facilitates test takers’
understanding as well (e.g., Iimura, 2004). On theother hand, only limited research has focused on therelationship between previewing item stems,
previewing answer options, and hearing the text a
second time.
In order to examine the effects of thesedifferent tasks, the following six different test
formats were administered in this study: (1) Format
I: no answer options and item-stems previewed withrepetition format. Neither item-stems nor answer
options are visually provided prior to listening andthe text is broadcast twice, (2) Format II: no answer
options and item-stems previewed with norepetition format. Neither item-stems nor answer
options are visually provided prior to listening andthe text is broadcast once only, (3) Format III: bothanswer options and item-stems previewed withrepetition format. Item-stems and answer options
are both visually provided prior to listening and thetext is broadcast twice, (4) Format IV: both answer
options and item-stems previewed with no1

Method1.1
Participants
A total of 232 first and second grade senior highschool Japanese learners of English participated in
the study.
1.2
Materials
1.2.1
Pre-test
A pre-test was arranged in order to distribute six
different formats of the main test to six
homogeneous groups. A set of test (30 items) was
adopted from a listening comprehension section in a
3rd grade STEP test as a pre-test. STEP was chosenbecause it is one of the established English
proficiency tests, and 3rd grade test is designed forthe purpose of measuring ability of candidates injunior high school graduate level. One point wasgiven per correct answer.
1.2.2
Main test
A set of listening comprehension test (8 items) was
adopted from a listening comprehension section in acertain public senior high school entrance
examination. In the original test, there are four shortdialogues followed by two questions each.
Test-takers listened to a short dialogue performedby two speakers (a boy and a girl) and answered
two orally questions by choosing an appropriate
answer from four multiple-choice items that wereprinted on a test sheet, that is to say, answer options
could be seen before and while listening to a text.
Based on the original formats, six exploratory

versions of the test were constructed as explained in
the Introduction section. One point was given percorrect answer.

2

Results and analyses

2.1
Pre-test
ANOVA found that the participant distribution
procedure had been successful in producing
equivalent groups of comparable listening ability (F(5,226)=1.27, p=.28ns).
2.2
Main test
Table 1 displays Ns, Ms, and SDs for each format.
ANOVA showed that there are statisticallysignificant differences between forms (F(5,226)=13.15, p=.00). Post-hoc test by Bonferroni
method reveals that some statistically significant
differences were found as Table 2 summarizes.

2.4
Item discrimination power
Table 4 shows item discrimination power index.
ANOVA showed no statistically significant
differences among the six formats (F(5, 42)=2.44,
p=.97ns).
Table 4: Item discrimination
Item
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
0.13 0.38 0.05 0.55 0.49 0.32
1
0.47 0.12 0.63 0.46 0.70 0.39
2
0.00 0.65 0.65 0.21 0.14 0.33
3
0.50 0.35 0.57 0.43 0.64 0.65
40.59 0.35 0.53 0.60 0.21 0.54
50.43 0.56 0.44 0.20 0.21 0.32
6
0.61 0.55 0.44 0.44 0.49 0.45
7
0.32 0.42 0.40 0.40 0.43 0.38
8M
0.40 0.44 0.48 0.42 0.43 0.43
Note: Means were calculated after all indexes weretransformed by Fisher’s z-transformation formula.

Table 1: Ns, Ms and SDs for item format
N
format I
39
format II
41
format III
38
format IV
36
format V
42
format VI
36
Note: Full mark=8.

M
6.79
5.27
6.61
5.75
6.60
5.00

SD
1.01
1.55
1.42
1.30
1.23
1.31

Table 2: Summery of Bonferroni post-hoc test
I
II
III
IV
V

II
p=.00

III
p=1.00
p=.00

IV
p=.01
p=1.00
p=.08

V
p=1.00
p=.00
p=1.00
p=.08

VI
p=.00
p=1.00
p=.00
p=.24
p=.00

2.3
Item difficulty
Table 3 shows item difficulty of each format.
ANOVA showed that there is statistically significant
differences between forms (F(5, 42)=4.02, p=.00).
Bonferroni post hoc test revealed that there isstatistically significant difference between Form I
and Form VI (p<.05)
Table 3: Item difficulty by format
Item
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
M

I
0.90
0.63
1.00
0.85
0.93
0.88
0.68
0.85
0.84

II
0.39
0.68
0.68
0.68
0.76
0.73
0.61
0.73
0.66

III
0.92
0.69
0.87
0.82
0.92
0.90
0.67
0.77
0.82

IV
0.68
0.71
0.74
0.68
0.84
0.84
0.34
0.68
0.69

V
0.81
0.50
0.93
0.81
0.98
0.98
0.71
0.91
0.83

VI
0.45
0.55
0.63
0.68
0.78
0.73
0.43
0.78
0.63

3

Conclusion

The main findings of this study can be summarized
as follows: (1) repetition facilitates test-takers’
understanding, (2) previewing item-stems andanswer options may destruct test-takers’
understanding, (3) task differences do not influence
item discrimination power.
References
Iimura, H. (2004). Listening no kaisuu to listening
process no kankei [Relationship between thenumber of repetition and process of listening
comprehension]. Paper presented at the 30th
Conference of Zenkoku Eigo Kyouiku Gakkai[The Japan Society of English Language
Education], Nagano, Japan.
Sherman, J. (1997). The effect of question preview
in listening comprehension tests. Language
Testing, 14, 2, 185-213.
Yanagawa, K. (2003). Relative Difficulty of Three
Multiple Choice Listening Comprehension
Item Formats for Japanese High School
Learners of English. The Bulletin of the
Graduate School of Education of Waseda
University Separate Volume, 10, 2, 1-14.
Yanagawa, K. (2004). Tashi sentaku shiki listening
test no mondaibun to sentakushi no teiji jiki
ga tesuto parformance ni ataeru eikyou [Theeffectofquestionpreviewinginmultiple-choice listening comprehension test
on test-takers’ performance]. Tokyo: STEP
BULLETIN, 16, 30-42.
Yanagawa, K (2007). Effects of stems and/or option
preview on item difficulty and discrimination.
Japan Journal for Research on Testing, 3,
3-13.

Why do we need to teach communication strategies to Japanese
EFL learners?
Eiichiro Tsutsui1, Kazuharu Owada2, Yusuke Kondo3, Koichi Ano4,
Norifumi Ueda5, & Michiko Nakano6

1
2
3
5

International Centre, Hiroshima International University,

College of Business Administration, Ritsumeikan University,

Media Network Centre, Waseda University, 4Faculty of International Studies, Bunkyo University,

Faculty of Foreign Language Studies, Mejiro University, & 6School of Education, Waseda University
tsutsui@ic.hirokoku-u.ac.jp

Abstract
The purpose of this study is two-fold. Firstly, we
illustrate Japanese EFL learners’ anxiety andcommunication apprehension. Secondly, we
consider how learners can be aware of their own
anxiety and learn to gain their confidence. In thisstudy, two experiments were conducted. The firstexperiment is to show how far anxiety can be arobust indicator of Japanese EFL learners’
proficiency by administering a questionnaire basedon FLCAS (Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety
Scale: Horwitz et al., 1986) and PMLP (Preliminary
Measurement for Learner Preference: Ely, 1986).
The second experiment is to show how far Japanese
EFL learners have failed to learn to regulate
anxiety-management strategies by conducting aquestionnaire of can-do statements with reference
to the Common European Framework of Reference(CEFR). In doing so, the production skills ofJapanese learners can be compared with those of
EU learners. Our findings show that teachinganxiety-management strategies is indispensable sothat the learners will be able to manage their own
anxiety/confidence. Thus, we will find a way toraise learners’ awareness of their own anxiety andencourage them to use communication strategies
more proactively.

Keywords
Communication strategies, anxiety, communication
apprehension, individual differences

1. Introduction
The purpose of this study is to investigate Japanese
EFL learners’ anxiety and discuss why and how
Japanese learners of English need to lower theirown anxiety and overcome their negative attitude

toward language learning and language use.
Anxiety is regarded as one of the important factorsof individual learner characteristics (Dörney, 2005).
Thus, many studies have so far been done on
Japanese EFL learners’ anxiety. (Yashima et al.,
2004; Tsutsui et al., 2005; Motoda, 2005; Noro,2005). According to Kolpf’s (1984) cross-culturalcomparisons of communication apprehension
among people in different countries, the Japanesegroup attained the highest percentage ofcommunicatively apprehensive people, followed by
the Americans and the Chinese. On the other hand,
Tsutsui et al.’s (2004) survey concerning Japanese
EFL learners’ preferred language courses indicatesthat “daily English conversation” attains the first
rank. However, other speaking-oriented courses
such as speech presentation, discussion, debate
courses do not interest the survey participants.
According to the result of a factor analysis, “daily
English conversation” is not included in the
speaking-oriented courses. The SEM analysis
shows that the preference of the speaking-oriented
courses is associated with ones’ degree of anxiety.
To sum up, on the one hand, Japanese learners may
have some ‘willingness to communicate’(MacIntyre, 1994) but on the other, they easily
avoid the uncomfortable environments triggered bytheir own anxiety or communication apprehension.
Since the survey is targeted at intermediate andadvanced levels of students in one of the top private
universities in Japan, the result might not depict awhole picture of Japanese learners’ characteristics.
However, we believe they should increase theopportunities to use communication strategies andthey should be trained to regulate anxietymanagement strategies more proactively.
In this study, we conducted 2 experiments.

The first experiment is to investigate a relation
between Japanese EFL learners’ proficiency andtheir degree of anxiety. The participants are 1789
Japanese university students. In order to measure
the degree of anxiety, we conducted a questionnaire
based on FLCAS and PMLP. For proficiency
indices, we collected reports of their proficiency
test scores. The proficiency tests include TOEIC,TOEFL, and WeTEC, an online computer adaptive
test developed by Nakano (2006).
The second experiment is to show how far
Japanese EFL learners have failed to learn toregulate anxiety-management strategies, compared
to EU learners. For this analysis, we conducted aquestionnaire of can-do statements based on the
CEFR. The subjects are 2619 Japanese University
students. The results show that Japanese learners
do not use anxiety-management strategies.

2. Anxiety Scale
2.1 FLCAS and PMLPThe Japanese translation version of FLCAS
originally consists of 33 items, and Yukina (2003)
found 4 factors. Tsutsui et al. (2005) found 3 factors
as meaningful, and employed 12 items after
excluding some overlapped items. PMLP consistsof 12 items in Yukina (2003), which can be reliably
reduced to 9 items in 2 factors. Judging from thehigh correlations among these 5 factors, we
combined FLCAS and PMLP items and reduced to
11 items in 4 factors. As shown in table 1, 4 factors
are (1) class avoidance, (2) speech anxiety, (3) inclass anxiety, and (4) complexity tolerance.
Table 1: Anxiety ScaleClass
Avoidance
Item11*0.944

Item08-0.856

Item06*

0.587

SpeechAnxiety

Item03*0.891

Item02*0.844

Item01*0.557

In-class
Anxiety

Item050.818

Item040.657

Item070.645

Complexity
Tolerance

Item10*0.728

Item09*0.685

2.2 Proficiency and anxiety
Our correlation studies on 1789 Japanese university
students show that the correlations between
proficiency (i.e.,TOEIC scores) and anxiety (factor
scores obtained from factor analysis) are relatively
high: class avoidance (r=.50, p<.01), speech anxiety(r=.37, p<.01), in- class anxiety (r=.44, p<.01), andcomplexity tolerance (r=.43, p<.01), althoughseemingly one’s anxiety can not be associated withtest constructs, (i.e., what a test measures).
Moreover, a stepwise multiple regression analysis
indicates that 4 dimensional anxieties explain 28%
variance of proficiency test scores.
F(4,1784)=248.46, p<.001, △R2=.28
Ŷ= -50.234x1-17.152x2+19.427x3-13.618x4++556.34
Ŷ = Proficiency test scores
x1: Class Avoidancex2: In-class Anxiety
x3: Complexity Tolerance
x4: Speech Anxiety

3. Anxiety-related performance deficits
Tsutsui, Kondo and Nakano (2007) created abilingual self-checklist for Japanese EFL learners.
The self-checklist is helpful to students who wish toacknowledge their present practical skills and makerealistic and progressive efforts in speaking English.
The self-checklist consists of 99 can-do statements.
In order to assess their production skills, interaction
skills, strategy regulation capacities, and strategic
language use, can-do descriptors concerning (1)spoken production, (2) spoken interaction,(3)language strategy and (4)language quality aretaken from Common European Framework ofReference (CEFR).
Although the self-checklist is initiallydesigned as a self-reflection tool for learners, thelearners’ tutors (N=982) evaluated their practicalcommunication skills by using the same checklist
descriptors. The results of item difficulty estimatedby the two-parameter logistic model are shown infigure 1. Item difficulties yield an upward trend as
the levels of descriptors go higher. The only
exception is the level of C1 descriptors in that themean value of C1 (0.89logit) is slightly higher thanthat of C2 (0.81logit). The mean values of 4
different skill descriptors in each CEFR level arepractically identical.
Using the self-checklist, 2619 Japanese
university students assessed their practicalcommunication skills. The data is also analyzed by
2-parameter logistic model. The mean values ofitem difficulties in each level of descriptors are
given in figure 2. There is an overall upward trend
in item difficulty; however, it should be noted that‘language strategy’ fluctuates more strangely thanthe other three categories. Especially in A2, theitem difficulties are inconsistent.
Anxiety-related situations represented initem 65 (A2:I can say when I don’t understand) anditem 66 (A2:I can very simply ask somebody to
speak more slowly) may deteriorate Japaneselearners’ speech performance. Interestingly, on theother hand, their tutors tend to be oblivious of thisfact, as evidenced in figure 1. Therefore, its
awareness-raising is necessary not only for
language learners but also for language teachers,
especially who teach Japanese EFL learners.

explained why and how they are doing this.

Figure 3: Online counseling system (1)Figure 1: Item difficulties of Can-dostatements by each CEFR level(Tutors’ evaluations)Figure 2: Item difficulties of Can-dostatements by each CEFR level(Learners’ self-reports)

4. Consciousness-raising approach
Cotterall & Reinders (2004) provide a verypractical framework of strategy-based language
teaching. Their approaches are staged as follows:(1) to raise awareness of the strategy, (2) to model
the strategy, (3) to try out the strategy, (4) toevaluate the strategy, and finally (5) to encouragetransfer of the strategy to new contexts.
To begin with, we need to find ways ofraising awareness of learners’ characteristics (i.e.,anxiety, strategy use, motivation). Let us propose amodel for awareness-raising. We create an online
counseling system on English learning. Learners
work on the questionnaire based on anxiety,strategy use, motivation and they are individually
given their own standardized scores as well as
educational tips according to their scores,
immediately after their response.
As in figure 3, first, the learner is

As illustrated in figure 4, learners respondquestionnaire items on 5 scales from (1) strongly
disagree to (5) strongly agree.

Figure 4: Online counseling system (2)According to the response patterns, theirgeneral tendency (i.e., strengths and weaknesses)
and individualized educational tips are shown infigure 5.

Figure 5: Online counseling system (3)・ Communicate nicely with classmates.

5. Conclusions
The educational tips given in section 4 may not be
spectacular. However, we believe down-to-earth
approaches are necessary to make learners as wellas teachers tangibly aware of the role of anxiety inlearning English. After that, we should take feasible
actions for confidence development or anxiety
regulation. Otherwise, Japanese learners’ anxiety
may persistently affect their learning andperformance.
Figure 6: Online counseling system (4)As exemplified in figure 6, individualized
scores associated with strategy use, anxiety
management and motivational temperature are
given. Students are informed that their sores are
fluid and changeable, and thus they are encouraged
to change themselves. Counseling is given from thefollowing perspectives. We specially referred to
Brown (2002) and Motoda (2005)’s strategic
approaches to anxiety management.
(1) Planning for attitudinal change
・ Be aware of strengths and weaknesses.
・ Practice more (Increase opportunities to speak
and listen).
・ Practice efficiently (Avoid just listening routinesand try active listening such as note-taking or
shadowing).
・ Think positively and never say ‘never’ or ‘can’t.’
・ Prepare more before class and actively engage inclass.
・ Review more outside class.
(2) Planning for practical goals
・ Be practical. (Try not to engage in too difficult or
too impractical tasks).
・ Find your weaknesses by checking can-do
descriptors at your level.
・ Enjoy learning (Using pop music or movies)
・ Plan what you are going to say before speaking(3) Risk-taking
・ Don’t be a perfectionist.
・ Tolerate someone’s mistakes
・ Know making mistakes are important.
・ But make mistakes work later on. (Take a mental
note of what mistakes you have made or write it
down.)(4) Ask for help or information seeking
・ Have specific questions and nicely ask teachers.
・ Make opportunities to communicate withsomeone in English. (Have a chat online.)
・ Share effective and efficient learning tips withclassmates and teachers.
・ Google successful learners’ learning tips online

References
Brown H.D. (2002). Strategies for Success: A
Practical Guide to Learning English. New
York: Longman
Cotterall, S., & Reinders H. (2004). Learner
Strategies: A Guide for Teachers. Singapore:
SEAMEO Regional Language Centre
Dörney, Z. (2005). The Psychology of the Language
Learner: Individual Differences in Second
Language Acquisition. New Jersey:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Ely, C.M. (1986). An analysis of discomfort,risk-taking, sociability, and motivation in
the L2 classroom. Language Learning. 36,
1-25
Horwitz, E.K., Horwitz, M.B., & Cope, J. (1986).
Foreign language classroom anxiety. The
Modern Language Journal. 70, 125-132
Klopf, D. W. (1984). Cross-cultural apprehension
research: A summary of Pacific Basinstudies. Avoiding communication: Shyness,
reticence and communication apprehension.
Beverly Hills: Sage
MacIntyre, P.D. (1994). Variables underlying
willingness to communicate: A causal
analysis. Communication Research Reports.
11, 135-142.
Motoda, S., (2005). L2 anxiety: Theory andpractice. Hiroshima: Keisuisya
Noro, T., (2005). The Mechanism of "Listening
Stress": How Do Anxiety-Related Variables
AffectListening
Comprehension?
JACET Bulletin, 41, 111-122
Tsutsui, E., Ueda, N., and Nakano, M. (2005). A
multi-dimensional approach to analyzing
individual differences of Japanese language
learners of English. Proceedings of the 11th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 257-264.
Yashima, T., Zenuk-Nishide, L., & Shimizu, K.
(2004) The influence attitudes and affect on
willingness to communicate and L2
communication. Language Learning. 54,
119-152.

Integrating Debate and Drama in an Intermediate College
English Course
Yasuko Shiozawa

Faculty of International Studies, Bunkyo University
yasuko@shonan.bunkyo.ac.jp

Abstract
The author conducted a “Media English Course”
that integrated debate and drama. First, the students
were familiarized with media English, reading anddiscussing a variety of news articles on the Internet.
Next, the participants debated, based on a certain
simple format, on some of the issues they had dealt
with. The last phase involved extensive reading
on a specific issue they were concerned about andmaking a script of a conflict scene related to theissue, followed by acting out the scene. Most
activities were conducted in small groups of two tofour students.
The debate and drama were performed
dynamically, which gave the students confidence
and satisfaction.
Critical thinking and groupdynamics seem to have been developed through thecourse.

Keywords
debate drama
critical thinking

media English college English

designated bulletin board (BBS) on the Net.
Mini text-based debate between two students
was also conducted regularly for 15 minutes eachclass; the students were paired up and exchanged
arguments several times quickly in a written form.

2

DebateIn the second phase, the students were engaged inoral debate activities based on a simple format
commonly used at high schools. Debate topics
were taken from the popular articles from the BBS.
Each topic was then tailored to a proposition. For
instance, “Balancing career and family” waschanged to “Career is more important than family”.
The class was divided into groups of four or fiveand given their topic and side.
After research on their issues, the students
decided on their roles in the group and prepared
their speech. Each group practiced debating twice.

3

Dramatization

The Media English course, consisted of fourteen
90-minute sessions, was aimed at building ability to
discuss current issues in English. The students
involved were 18 juniors, majoring in international
communications. The course roughly consisted ofthree phases: the warm-up phase focusing on
interactive pair work, the second phase practicing
debate, and the last phase dramatizing the conflict.

The last phase involved further reading on a
specific issue the students were concerned about
and making a script of a conflict scene related to theissue, followed by acting out the scene.
The students chose topics such as “shotgun
marriage” and “mobile phone”. The students were
instructed to designate specific roles in the play.
For instance, when the topic was mobile phone, one
character could be a child and another could be hermother.

1

4

Introduction

Warm-up activities

In the first phase, the students were familiarizedwith media English and short debate-like activities.
At the beginning, the instructor chose an article thatinvolved a controversial issue. Class discussed thecontent and vocabulary. Then, the students were
instructed to choose an article on their own equallycontroversial as the first one.
They thensummarized the article and posted it along with
their comment and useful expressions on a

Discussions

The author conducted a questionnaire after thecourse. Due to the limited number of participants,
no statistic data was available; however, the course
was evaluated quite favorably on the whole. The
debate and drama were both considered effective toimprove their listening and speaking skills.
Moreover, the students came to think deeply aboutsocial problems. Students were also forced tothink quickly and differently. As for dramatization,
students tried hard to come up with realistic

situations and lines in groups.
The students also experienced some difficulties.
Preparation for arguments took long. In drama,some felt embarrassed to speak with emotion.

5

Conclusion

The “Media English Course” to integrate debate
and drama helped the students analyze current
issues as well as build oral communication skills.
Debate, both in oral and written form, fosteredstudents’ spontaneity and critical thinking. On theother hand, dramas, where situations arecontextualized, seem to have developed theircreativity and imagination.
In order for the students to benefit more fromthis course, modification is necessary.
Forinstance, students may need more time andexercises to lower inhibition and maximize groupdynamics.
References
Maley, A and Duff , A. (2005) . Drama Techiques.
Cambridge: CUP.
Goodnight, L. (1993). Getting Started in Debate.
Chicago: National Textbook Company

Using diaries to investigate teachers’ perception of rating
schemes
Jyi-yeon Yi

Department of English Education, Chongshin University
jyyi@chongshin.ac.kr

Abstract
Whilst diary study is used for pedagogical purposes,
course evaluation and basic research, this study
aims to explore the possibility of using it toinvestigate how teachers perceive and use rating
schemes. Three English teachers who worked atvarious high schools in Korea rated 224 scripts
written by 112 Korean high school students for thisstudy. The teachers assessed the scripts twice, firstaccording to their subjective holistic scoring andthen using the FCE scale for writing assessment,
and they kept diaries on their rating process foreach assessment. The analysis of their diaries shows
the teachers’ rating patterns and tendencies,
problems with the rating schemes and theirunderstanding of the rating schemes. All of thesefindings will contribute to the investigation of thevalidity of the rating schemes and identification of
the aid and guidance that they might need forassessment.

Keywords
Diary study, qualitative study, writing assessment,
rater

Introduction
Diary studies have attracted attention fromresearchers who are interested in gathering
qualitative data, especially since Bailey (1983), as
reviewed in Howell-Richardson and Parkinson(1988). The studies using these recordings areclassified into one of ethnographical studies in thatthey are intended to reveal existing phenomenon
and generate hypothesis (Bailey, ibid; Woodfield &Lazarus, 1998). This study will use the term “diary”
as it appears to be more widely employed.
These kinds of diary studies have been
employed for various purposes: pedagogical
purposes, course evaluation and basic research. It is
worth noting that while diaries can be used for avariety of purposes as mentioned above they cannot
be used for all of these purposes at the same time.
Therefore, the purpose of the diary needs to be
determined at the outset of a diary study.

1

Purpose of the study

This study starts with the assumption that diaries
can also be used for purposes other than thosementioned above, such as assessment. This is anattempt to explore such a possibility: the use ofdiaries as a qualitative research method forinvestigating how teachers perceived and used
rating schemes for assessment, and to discuss
assessment-related implications of using diaries forthis purpose.

2

Methodology of the study

The scripts for this study were obtained by asking
112 high school students in 1st and 2nd year at aforeign language high school in Korea to do two
writing tasks (an informal letter to a foreign friend
suggesting places to visit in Korea, and a formal
essay explaining the advantages and disadvantagesof using the Internet).
The three teachers in this study, known Teachers
A, B and C, were Korean teachers of English atdifferent high schools. They had worked as English
teachers for twelve years, five years and thirty-four
years respectively, and had never acted as
professional raters.
They were invited to use two scoring schemes
for the assessment: subjective holistic scoring andthe FCE rating scale for writing assessment (FCE
Handbook, 2001). These two kinds of rating
schemes were chosen to investigate how theteachers perceived and used rating schemes forassessment across the two rating schemes. For theirrating process, they were asked to make a diary
entry just after assessing and scoring each script.

3

Data analysis

I followed the process outlined in the literature (e.g.
Halbach, op.cit; Lakshmy & Lee, 2002), reading theobtained diaries and trying to find salient featuresand patterns in them. Some patterns were found in
relation to the purpose of this study, and grouped
under the following three headings: rating patterns

and tendencies; problems with the employed rating
schemes; teachers’ understanding of the rating
scheme.

4

Findings

4.1
Rating patterns and tendencies
It was found that diaries could reveal whichassessment features the raters focused on in the caseof subjective holistic scoring. For example, all theraters in this study paid attention to content andgrammar, as can be seen in (1.1), and in addition tothese features, they considered different features
depending on the proficiency level of the scripts, forexample, length and/or grammar when assessing
low-level scripts such as Band 2 scripts (see (1.2)),
organisation and intelligibility for intermediate level
scripts such as Bands 3 and 4 (see (1.3)), andexpressions and sentence structure which looked
natural and like native English for Bands 5 and 6.
They also showed central tendency in rating thatmeans avoiding assigning the lowest and the highest
bands. On the other hand, when they were using the
FCE rating scale, even though they were using thescale, they sometimes considered their own
subjective criteria. For example, Rater A consideredlength that was explicitly not included in the scale.
(1.1)
Band 3This script could be good because it isfairly long and well organised. But as I
looked at it more closely, I found a major
error in it. It is that this script deals withthe myth of Ulsan Rock rather than therequired content from the prompt--placesin Korea which are worth visiting.
Additionally, it has basic grammaticalerrors and does not include connectors
which can be seen in other students’
writings. Therefore, I think Band 3 is mostappropriate for this script.1(1.2)
Band 2
There are grammatical errors in almost
every clause. Most of them are caused by
the use of inappropriate vocabulary, andconsequently there are many clauses
which are unintelligible. Additionally, thewriter makes errors in the use of verbs.
That is, since he/she does not know theexact meaning of the verbs he/she makes
errors by either using a preposition
1

wrongly or omitting it after a verb. What isworse, it is too short. I suppose there arefew aspects that would help this put script
in a good band.

All the diary entries and think-aloud protocols
obtained for this study were originally made in
Korean. I have translated them into English.

(1.3)
Band 3This script is at the very middle level, I
think. Whilst communication is relatively
good on the whole, it has errors in terms ofdifferentiating between singular vs. plural,tense and word classes. The errors,
however, are local rather than global, sothey do not affect the communication ofclauses. So I marked it as Band 3.
4.2
Problems with the rating schemes
Diaries helped to reveal the problems with eachrating scheme. In this study, while the raters wereassessing according to their own subjective criteria,
they sometimes considered an aspect of scripts that
did not correspond with any recognised measure orcomponent of writing ability (see (2.1)), they were
not always confident of their rating but they
wondered if their rating was appropriate for it (see(2.2)), and their criteria for some levels, especiallythe highest and the lowest, were unlikely to beclearly established (see (2.3)).
(2.1)
Band 3
I hesitated between Bands 2 and 3 for thisscript. It could be Band 2 in that it is only
half as long as the other scripts, is poorly
organised and shows poor sentence
construction and grammar. There are few
well constructed sentences without
grammatical errors. This notwithstanding,I assigned it Band 3, because it looks as
though the writer has made an effort.
(2.2)
Band 4
If I assign Band 4 to this script, I think it
would be very harsh. This is because thisscript is fairly good in terms of length,organisation and content. However, its
weak point is that the writer tried to use avariety of expressions and this resulted insome awkwardness. While I read throughthe first half of the script I thought theseawkwardexpressions
would
not
negatively affect the grade, but in thesecond half, they negatively affected myimpression of it and in turn the grade,becausethey
sometimes
hinderedcommunication and intelligibility, and theformer is one of the most important
assessment categories for me. However, I
wonder if it is fair to mark it down merely
because of a few sentences that are notintelligible, even though the script
communicates well on the whole. I am notsure whether the grade I assigned is fair.
(2.3)
Band 2This script is extremely short – just one
paragraph long. And not only is it short,
but it contains many grammatical errors,so I can’t help but assign it to Band 2. But
if I mark it as Band 2, I’m not sure which
scripts deserve to be put in Band 1.
Band 6This script is excellent - the best so far. It
is fantastic in organisation, genre format
and paragraphing, and each point isequally developed and written veryclearly. There are just a few grammaticalerrors. But even though it is written well,I hesitated in assigning Band 6 to thisscript because I’m not sure whether it isreally good enough to deserve Band 6,
given that Band 6 is the highest band andwould mean “perfect”. Even though I am
unsure about this, I assigned Band 6 tothis script because it is the best bit ofwriting I have seen so far.
As for the FCE scoring, the diaries revealed that theteachers found some assessment categories anddescriptors inappropriate for the specific test-takers
and context. They found one of the assessment
categories in the scale unnecessary (Register), sinceintermediate level test-takers such as Korean highschool students do not command a variety ofregisters depending on language use context, but
focus on making grammatical sentences per se. The
teachers’ diaries also revealed that they thought thatsome additional assessment categories should be
included in the scale, such as ‘length’ and‘development of idea’. With regard to descriptors,
the teachers found that the use of vague quantifiers
such as “all”, “some”, “little” and “limited”, andambiguous words such as “effectively”, “clearly”
and “inadequately” made it difficult to grasp the
differences between descriptors. They also pointed
out that the scale lacked descriptors that could deal
with frequently observed phenomena in specifictest-takers’ scripts, and that this made it
inconvenient to use.
4.3

Teachers’ understanding of the rating

schemes
The diaries were also helpful in revealing how theteachers understood the FCE scale. The issue of howteachers understand the rating scale they are usingneeds to be investigated in terms of validity. If theirunderstanding does not coincide with the use
suggested or intended by the developers of the scale,or if some assessment categories or descriptors are
not clear to the teachers, the validity of their rating
and use of the ratings are likely to be questionable.
The diaries were found to be helpful in investigating
this point. For example, the raters for this study
found some assessment categories unclear to them,such as Appropriacy of Register and Format, Range
and Target Reader, as can be seen in (3.1).
(3.1) Band 4….The most peculiar error in this script isthat it is not well-paragraphed and iswritten in a very colloquial style. Since
this is the case, I suppose that marks will
have to be cut in terms of both Accuracy
and Register, but I am not sure. Still, I am
unsure about the category of Register.
Band 4… To be honest, I’m not sure about how
to assess the Range of scripts. It might be
partly because I haven’t fully grasped theconcept of Range, and partly because
there is little difference between Koreanhigh school students’ scripts in terms of
vocabulary and structure. To me most
scripts look similar in this category…..
Band 4This script is well organised in that it
consists of opening, body and closing, andin that each of three points in the body isdeveloped equally in three paragraphs.
Unfortunately, although the required
content from the prompt was to discuss
the advantages and disadvantages of theInternet, this script discusses only thedisadvantages of the Internet. It seems tome, therefore, that this script does notsatisfy the requirement of Content. Apartfrom this problem, the content of thisscript doesn’t look good. So I wonder
how much I should mark it down in termsof Content. Further, given that half of the
major content is omitted, I suppose that
this script only achieves half of its
purpose, so there is good reason to assign
a low band in terms of Target Reader aswell. But I am not sure whether I am rightand whether I understand the concept ofTarget Reader….. .

5

Conclusions

This study has shown that diaries can be used torecord teachers’ internal thought processes duringassessment, revealing how they understand therating schemes and find them to use, and what kindof problems exist in their rating and the rating
schemes themselves. Given these findings, it wassaid that diaries can be adopted for assessment
purposes, in addition to the purposes mentioned in
the literature: for pedagogical purposes, for course
evaluation and for basic research. The investigationof teachers’ perceptions and use of rating schemes
could highlight any problems rating schemes may
have either before they are to be introduced, orwhen existing rating schemes in use need to be
examined. This is desirable in light of two aspects:
in investigating the validity of assessment, which
has become a main concern in assessment since the1980s; and in identifying the aid and guidance thatteachers may need when using a rating scheme inquestion. The former is possible, given that diaries
could reveal whether a rating scheme in question isappropriate and valid for the specific context,
teachers and learners. Therefore, it seems
reasonable to suppose that diaries could be
employed as a possible validation method, alongwith the other methods suggested in other studies(e.g. Fulcher, 2003), such as think-aloud protocols,interviews and questionnaires. As for the latter,teachers’ diaries enable rating scale developers todevelop or revise manuals, descriptors andassessment categories for a rating scheme so as toaid teachers. They also enable teachers to realize
the problems with their subjective holistic scoringin terms of concerns about the validity ofassessments.
References
Bailey, K. 1983. ‘Competitiveness and anxiety inadult second language learning: looking at
and through the diary studies’ in H. W.
Seliger and M. H. Long (eds.). Classroom
Oriented Research in Second Language
Acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury
House Publishers.
FCE Handbook. 2001. Cambridge: University ofCambridge ESOL Examinations.
Fulcher, G. 2003. Testing Second Language
Speaking. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.
Gray, J. 1998. ‘The language learner as teacher: theuse of interactive diaries in teacher training’.
ELT Journal. 52,1, 29-37.
Halbach, A. 1999. ‘Using trainee diaries to evaluatea teacher training course’. ELT Journal.

53,3, 183-190.
Hamp-Lyons, L. 1991. ‘Scoring procedures for ESL
contexts’ in L. Hamp-Lyons (ed.). Assessing
Second Language Writing in AcademicContexts (pp. 241-276). Westport, Conn.:
Ablex Publishing.
Howell-Richardson, C. & Parkinson, B. 1988.
‘Learner diaries: possibilities and pitfalls’ in
P. Grunwell (ed.). Applied Linguistics inSociety. London: CILT/BAAL.
Jarvis, J. 1992. ‘Using diaries for teacher reflection
on in-service courses’. ELT Journal. 46,2,
133-143.
Lakshmy, A. & Lee, H. 2002. ‘Diaries: listening to‘voices’ from the multicultural classroom’.
ELT Journal. 56,3, 227-239.
Parkinson, B., Benson, C. & Jenkins, M. 2003.
‘Learner diary research with ‘Cambridge’
examination
candidates’.
Edinburgh
Working Papers in Applied Linguistics. 12,45-63.
Woodfield, H. & Lazarus, E. 1998. ‘Diaries: areflective tool on an INSET language
course’. ELT Journal. 52,4, 315-322.

Tense and Aspect in English, French and Mandarin Chinese
Proposal for a Pedagogical Tool

Lih-Juang Fang
Institut of Applied Human Sciences, Paris University - Sorbonne
fanglihjuang@yahoo.com

Abstract

1.1

Our work starts by providing evidence to define thenotions of tense and aspect and their intricate
relations at a meta-linguistic level. We compare andanalyze then discourses in English, French andMandarin Chinese by focusing on the
cognitive-semantic facets of these notions. We also
try to attribute temporal-aspectual values to thegrammatical forms of the tenses expressed in
English and French. Along with these values, we
introduce the notional invariants in a graphical form,
which we believe to be an efficient tool to makethese notions and their temporal-aspectual
relationship clear at discourse level. By doing so,
we hope to help learners not only to understandthese abstract notions, but also to give them a handin the context of FLT/FLL.

The linguistic literature abounds in work devoted tothis problem. It shows that these notions are not
only intimately interwoven, but also essential fortrue mastering of language, be it for analysis(understading) or synthesis (language production).
The work done by Vendler, Comrie, Verkyul,
Co Vet and Smith are classic. These authors haveoffered various categories and classifications.
Another often cited reference is Reichenbach’s“Typology of tense”. The core of his work is anattempt to “formalize” time relations with regard todifferent situations. Tense is caracterized by threeperspectives, S, E and R. The S stands for the Timeof Speech, the E, the Time of Event and the Rmarks the Time of Reference.

Keywords
Tense, aspect, semantics, FLT, FLL.

Introduction
Language learning is a difficult and time consuming
task, particularly when it comes to the mastering of
abstract notions such as tense and aspect, awell-known problem for many native Chinese. The
difficulties are probably rooted in the fact that the
Chinese language uses different resources toconvey these notions (temporal adverbs andaspectual markers), while western languages rely onverb choice and conjugation.
Still, Chinese do tell stories like people all over
the world. How do they express the “concept oftime”? Conversely, how do English or French
speakers adapt themselves while being deprived ofa verbal system (conjugations) in order to convey
this information? The answer is, that while there islittle doubt that tense and aspect are universal,
every language has its set of resources, i.e. its own
aspect (semantic) and tense (grammatical) system[Huang, 1988].

1

The problem of tense and aspect

1.2

Related work

Our point of view concerning tense andaspectBasically, we consider Tense to be amorpho-syntactic variant in grammar. For example,
in French, the verb “PARLER” has to be inflectedby taking into account the person, the mood and thetime. We will use the term tense as a synonym ofverb conjugation, for example the “présent”,“imparfait”, etc.
One question that arises then is: do Tenses
express the notion of Aspect? Does each tense form
convey a different aspectual meaning? Our answer
to the question is positive. We consider the tense to
be a kind of time specification accomplished via
morphemes in the verbal system.
Time is universal, hence language independent.
Aspect is our cognitive transposition of time of thedifferent events. .Aspect is linguistically mediatedvia adverbs, prepositions, verbs, etc. Verbs are a bit
specical, as they have two facets, both of which are
aspectual : the morpho-syntactic - tense, and theirinherent semantic aspectual values. This being sotense and aspect are strongly related, interacting insintricate ways.
Tenses, on the other hand, locate the events that
sentences represent on a time line. This is to becontrasted with the internal “temporal contour” ofthe event, which is specified within the aspectualsystem. As for aspect, it is how we perceive andinterpret an event. It is the temporal relation ofdifferent situations expressed in a sentence / aparagraph .

2States, processes, events and theirsemantico-cognitive values

In our work, we adapt the three types of aspectual
situations defined by J.-P. Desclés [Desclés, 1993],
namely states, processes and events. We study these
aspectual situations by showing how they are
expressed (prepositions, verbs), how they can be
represented and how they manifest themselves in a
concrete discourse. We will give examples of themhereafter in French, English and Mandarin Chinese.
2.1

State

A state is defined as a static situation, without
discontinuity and change (even in the smallest
fraction of time). All phases of the situation areequivalent.
1

Aspectual type
Permanent state2

Contingent state

2.1

Final state

2.2

Resultative statea.

Resulting fromunaccomplishedprocessb.

Resulting fromaccomplishedprocessc.

d.

Resulting from asequential event
Resulting fromreconstructive
process

2.3

Passive state

2.4

Consequential state

ExampleLa mer est salée. 海水是鹹的。
The sea is salty.
Il est malade en ce moment. 他
此刻生病著。He is sick for the
moment.
La porte est ouverte. 這門開著。
The door is open.
Donc, tu as perdu ta carte ! 所以你的卡丟 了 。So, you havelost your card !
Depuis ce matin, Jean nettoie lacave. Il est fatigué. 忠從一早打掃地下室到現在，他累了。John
has been cleaning the basement
since this morning. He is tired.
La campagne est blanche : il aneigé pendant 5 heures. 鄉間景
色一片雪白：下了五個小時的雪。The countryside is all white
as it had snowed for 5 hours.
Jean a été au Musée du Louvre.
忠去過羅浮宮。John has been to
Louvre museum.
Tu as une augmentation desalaires : comme tu es content !
你加薪啦，瞧你多樂呀！
You've gotten a wage raise :look how happy you are !
La porte a été ouverte (par leconcierge). 門被（管理員）打開了。The door is opened (by thegardian)Jeanne restait à la maison après
son accident de travail. 栴在工
作受傷後一直待 在 家裡。Jane
has stayed at home since her
accident at work.

2.5

State of activity

2.2

Process

La machine est en marche. 機器
運轉著。The machine is running.

A process describes a situation that is likely to
evolve; not all the phases of the situation areequivalent.
Aspectual type
Process1

Progressive
process2

Non-progressive
process

2.1

Unaccomplishedprocess

2.2

Accomplishednon-achieved
process

2.3

Accomplishedachieved process

ExampleIl était en train de déjeuner
quand sa mère arriva. 他媽到的時候 ， 他正 在 吃 午 飯。He washaving lunch when his motherarrived.
Pierre travaille en ce moment. 皮
耶此刻在上班。Peter is working at
this moment.
Pierre dînait quand je suis rentré
hier. 我昨天回來的時候，皮耶在吃晚飯。Peter was having dinnerwhen I came home yesterday.
En ce moment, Paul essaye deréparer le robinet. 此刻保羅在試
著修水龍頭。At this moment, Paulis trying to fix the tap.
Jean a réparé le toit de sa maison
pendant une heure ce matin. 忠
今早花了一個鐘頭修他房子的屋
頂。John has spent one hour to fix
the roof of his house this morning.
Pierre a terminé l’emballage descadeaux qui étaient tous destinés
à ses amis. 皮耶把要送朋友的禮
物都包裝好了。Peter has finishedwrapping the gifts that are all
destinated for his friends.

2.3
Event
An event is not related to a fixed, static reference.
Aspectual type
Événement(Evt)
1

Punctual(aoristic)

2

Achieved event(perfective)

3

Identical(habit)

3

event

event

ExampleLe roi a régné pendant 35 ans. 國
王 當 政 了 35 年 。 The king has
reigned for 35 years.
Le cerf-volant tomba du ciel. 風箏從天上墜落。The kite fell from thesky.
Il a fini le contrôle technique de sa
voiture. 他完成了車子的安檢。He
has finished the security check-up
for his car.	
 Jacques mange à midi pile. 傑克每
天準時正午吃飯。Jack has lunch at
12 sharp.
À l'époque, il fumait la pipe. 在那
個時代，他抽煙斗。At that time, hesmoke pipes.

Aspecto-temporal expressions
Mandarin Chinesein

As many may know, Mandarin Chinese (MC) does

not have grammatical tense [Li & Thompson, 1981].
Indeed, MC employs mainly adverbial expressions
and relies heavily on context. Yet, unlike the classic
Chinese, the modern Chinese uses various aspectual
markers, such as : 了(le˙), 過(guo`), 在(zai`) and著 (zhe ˙ ), to express aspectual nuances. We will
present the aspecto-temporal values of these 4markers.
在(zai˙) : as many other Chinese words, it ispolysemical. It can be a locative preposition or an
aspectual marker which marks a process with
progressive and unaccomplished value.
著(zhe˙) : it marks often the « state of activity »value of an event, hence it is often durative andcontinuous. It suffixes a sub-ordinate action (verb)
when another verb occurs in the sentence. (小李聽著歌吃早飯 – Xiao Li prend son petit déjeuner enécoutant des chansons – Xiao Li listens to music
while taking his breakfast.)
過 (guo`) : like 在 (zai`), it can be used as a
spacial marker, used as suffix for certain transitive
verbs, such as, cross (over). As an aspectual marker
it is mainly used in the « past », but it could be also
employed in the future (a projection), however it
expresses « experience », « accomplished » withperfective value.
了(le˙) :it is a quite polemic marker in Chinese
linguistics. Some linguists consider it as identicalregardless of its position, while others take it into
account as aspectual marker (verbal suffix) or
sentence particle. We believe that there are some
sublte changes depending on its position. Whensuffixed to a verb, its value is perfective,
accomplishment of an action (perfective event). But
when the sentence stops right after V+了 (le ˙) +COD, the listener expects some more words tocome, ,some more context. Otherwise, mostly inpatterns such as : V+ 了(le˙) +quantifiers + COD,
this marker expresses the perfective value. Whenused at the end of a sentence, it tends to express thechange of state.
Grammatical forms ofverbs in English andFrench• past, present perfect,
past prefect• passé composé, futur
simple, futur antérieur• present perfect, past
perfect• passé composé,
présent, futur simple• past, present perfect• passé composé• present, past
• passé composé• present progressive,

aspecto-temporal
value
resultative(perfectif)

Change of(transition)

state

ChineseAspectualmarker了

了Resultative state

了Consequential
stateétat d’activité

了著

past progressive• présent, imparfait,
futur antérieur• present• présent, passé simple• present• présent, passé

Permanent stateØFinal state

了• present progressive,

Progressive
process

在

Accomplishedachieved process了, 過Accomplishednon-achieved
Unaccomplishedprocess了

Achieved event了, 過Identical eventØ

Punctual eventØ

Accomplishedevent (expérience)過composépast progressive• présent, imparfait• present perfect, past
perfect• passé composé• present perfect• passé composé• present progressive,
past progressive• imparfait• present perfect, past
perfect• passé composé• present, past• présent, past
• past• passé simple• past, future• passé composé, futur
simple, futur antérieur

4

在, 著

Pedagogical tool

Given our experience in teaching and learning
foreign languages, we find visual/audio tools very
useful, especially with regard to explaining abstract
notions. Many psychologists share this view,
considering visual memory as important as audio or
kinetic memory. This is why such tools are often
used or built by researches of the CALL community[Ligozat & Zock, 1992]. We aim at elaboratingsuch a tool, as computers are particularly well
suited to visualize the underlying meanings of asentence and their abstract forms.
4.1

Graphical representation

Along with the identified temporal-aspectual value,
we present the figurative invariant (a non-linguistic
intermediate) as sole terminology. In other words,
we will use the following graphical representation,
open interval, closed interval, open to the right, etc.,
to illustrate the different types of aspecto-temporalsituations mentioned in Section 2.
The following table shows that the sentences(a)-(c) and their translated equivalents in English
and in French are almost the same ( "I have read","j’ai déjà lu"). Yet, they are clearly different in
Mandarin Chinese regarding the aspectual markers :-le˙ & -guo`. One can clearly see the semantic
nuances by looking at the figures presented in theleft column. The aspectual markers are used toexpress different “intentions/foci”.

Graphic representation

a)
T
0

b)
X

Examples我讀了這本小說。 J’ai lu
ce roman.
I have read this novel.

Furthermore, we analyse a whole paragraphwith these graphic to stress the aspecto-temporal
relation amongst several situations described in the
discourse. See example below :我讀過這本小說。 J’ai
(déjà) lu ce roman.
I have (already) read thisnovel.

0c)

我讀過這本小說了。 J’ai
(déjà) lu ce roman. I haveread this novel.

xT0

TensesAspectE1 : j’appelai Aïda chez une voisine

passé simple

event

P1 : qui la gardait quelque temps en attendant

imparfait

unaccomp. process

E2 : de la remettre à la brigade de mineurs

infinitif

event

S1 : Cette petite fille était la seule belle chose

imparfaitstate

E3 : qui me soit arrivée depuis trois jours (TR)passé subjonctif

event

E4 : je la sentis intimidée

passé simple

event

x

x

TR
S1

E4
E3

E1
P1

4.2

Perspectives

Obviously, our graphical representations needs tobe tested at a greater scale in order to confirm thatthey are at least intuitively meaningful and“understandable” even by a linguistically“innocent” language learner. We think that ourapproach is generic enough to be used for otherlanguages: Spanish, Japanese, …etc. Likewise, asimilar approach could be taken to study otherlinguistic sub-systems, i.e. verbs, adverbs, but thisis clearly work for the future.
References
Comrie, B. (1976) : Aspect : an introduction to thestudy of verbal aspect and related problems,
Cambridge University Press.
Desclés, J.-P. (1993): "Un modèle cognitifd'analyse des temps du français : méthode,T0

E2

réalisation informatique et perspectives
didactiques", SCIAL, Clermont-Ferrand.
Huang, L. M. (1988): Aspect : A general system
and its manifestation in Mandarin Chinese,
Taipei, Student Book Co., Ltd.
Li, C. N. and Thompson, S.A. (1981), "Mandarin
Chinese : a functional reference grammar",
University of California Press.
Ligozat, G. et Zock M. (1992), How to Visualise
Time, Tense and Aspect? COLING-92,
Nantes, France.
Lyons, J. (1977): Semantics. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Reichenbach, H. (1947): Elements of Symbolic
Logic. New York, McMillan.
Smith, C. (1991): The parameter of aspect,
p27-p66 ; p343-390, USA, Kluwer.

The Relationship between Learning Strategy Preferences andEnglish Proficiency: A Case Study of Japanese University
Students
Satoshi Yoshida

Waseda University
satoshi-tko.jpn@akane.waseda.jp

Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between
learner’s learning strategy preferences and theirEnglish proficiency. In order to examine thefrequencyoflearning
strategyuse,questionnaire-based survey was conducted on 164
Japanese university students. The questionnaire
used in the present study was a short version ofStrategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL;
Oxford, 1989), which is established by Tsutsui et al.
(2006). The data were factor analyzed so as to findthe specific factors. The participants’ English
proficiency was measured by the score of TOEIC or
Web-based Test for English Communication(WeTEC). These scores were reported in thequestionnaire if the participants have taken one ofthese tests. 94 students reported their scores.
The data collected by the questionnaire and thescores reported from the participants were analyzed
to explore the relationship between learners’
strategy preferences and their English proficiency.
This study found that two factors which can beinterpreted as Social Interaction strategy andPositive Language Use strategy are correlated with
WeTEC scores.

Keywords
Language Learning strategy, English proficiency,
Japanese EFL learner, SILL

Introduction
There are several ways to classify the learning
strategies. In particular, Oxford (1989) establishedimpressive taxonomy. She made 80 types oflearning strategies in SILL (version5.1) andclassified them into 6 subcategories: Memory,
Cognitive,
Compensation,
Meta-Cognitive,
Affective, and Social strategy.
Though it is said
that the scheme of this classification was “marredby a failure to make a clear distinction between
directed at learning the L2 and those directed atusing it” (Ellis, 1994, p.539), SILL was frequently

used by many researchers (e.g., Lee, 2004). In
Yukina (2003), SILL was employed in order toinvestigate the relationship between individual
factors and English proficiency, and the datacollected by SILL were analyzed by factor analysis
so as to examine the relationship between thelearning strategies and English proficiency.
Tsutsui et al. (2005, 2006) also used SILL andconducted the exploratory factor analysis in order toreduce the total number of items in thequestionnaire. As the result, they extracted 9
factors in which various strategies were clearlyclassified and reduced the number of questionnaire
items to 25. This well-organized questionnaire
was used in this study to investigate the relationshipbetween leaning strategy preference and English
proficiency.

1

Survey1.1
Research Question
1. Is there the correlation between learning strategy
preferences and scores of English tests?
2. Is it possible to replicate the result shown by
Tsutsui et al. (2006), using the same version of
SILL?
1.2
Questionnaire
The questionnaire distributed to the participants
was a short version of SILL which is established by
Tsutsui et al. (2006) according to the result of factor
analysis they conducted. The number of items
contained in the original version of SILL wasreliably reduced to 25. As the responding form,
6-point Likert scale ranging from strong
disagreement (1) to strong agreement (6) was
employed because Japanese people tend to choose
the middle point if the number of scale was an evennumber.

1.3
The Participants and their English
Proficiency
The participants in this study were 164 Japanese
university students: 162 undergraduates and 2
graduate students. All of them were enrolled in
English class and study English as a foreign
language.
Their English proficiency wasmeasured by TOEIC or WeTEC. 94 students
reported their scores of tests. The scores of
TOEIC were converted into WeTEC scoresreferring to the score comparison sheet which is
officially provided by Waseda University
International. The students were divided into 3
proficiency levels according to the scores (N=94,
M=724.7): Group A is advanced group (N=24,
M=861.6, SD=56.2); Group B, intermediate group(N=39, M=722, SD=29); and Group C,
pre-intermediate
group(N=31,
M=622.1,
SD=42.3).

2

Factor analysis

The exploratory factor analysis was conductedaccording to Tsutsui et al. (2005, 2006). (1)Promax
Rotation was adopted, since the correlations among
factors were expected. (2) The number of factors
is decided when an eigenvalue is just greater than
1.0. (3) The factor loadings were more than .35.
As the result of the analysis, 7 factors
were extracted: STR 1- STR7. 1 item was deleted
because its factor loading was not more than .35.
These factors were renamed based on Tsutsui et al.
(2006). The items which consist of each factor
were shown below.
(STR 1) Social Interaction strategy (STR): 5
items
e.g.,
• I ask English speakers to help.
• I ask English speakers to correct me when I
talk.
• I practice English with other students.
(STR2) Rational Planning STR: 4 itemse.g.,• I plan my schedule so that I will have enoughtime to study English.
• I have clear goals for doing the tasks.
(STR3) Positive Language Use STR: 5 itemse.g.,• I make summaries of information that I hear orread in English.
• I write notes, message, letters, or reports in
English.
• I try to read the passages quickly and makeguesses to understand them.

(STR4) Repetition and Substitution STR: 5
items
e.g.,
• If I can’t think of an English word, I use aword or phrase that means similar things.
• I say and write new English word many times.
• I study English repeatedly(STR5) Associative Memory Use STR: 3 itemse.g.,• I place the new words in a group with otherwords that are in some way.
• I list all the other words I know that are related
to the new words.
• I think of relationship between what I alreadyknow and new things I learn in English.
(STR6) Grammatical Analysis STR: 2 itemse.g.,• I try to use the illustrative sentences indifferent combination to make new sentences.
• I use familiar words in different combination to
make new sentence.
(STR7) Mnemonics STR: 3 itemse.g.,• I physically act out the new words.
• I associate the sound of new words with thesound of familiar words.
• I make encouraging statements to myself sothat I will continue to try hard and do my bestin language learning.
Tsusui et al. (2006) found 9 types ofstrategy: Rational Planning STR, Communication
STR, Social STR, Associating Memory STR,
Analytic Grammar STR, Anxiety Management STR,
Practical Writing STR, Repetition STR and
Mnemonics STR, whereas 7 types were found in
this study. The reason for the difference must bethat items relating to learner’s anxiety could notconsist of one factor. These items were involvedin the other factors or deleted. Another reason
must be that items relating to writing strategies andreading strategies were comprised of one factor
which is interpreted as Positive Language Use STR.

3

Result3.1
Frequency of strategy use
The frequency of learning strategy use was shownin Figure 1. Figure 1 indicates that Repetition andSubstitution STR is most frequently used by thelearners. Interestingly, it is also indicated that thelearners tend to use Associative Memory Use STR
more frequently than Mnemonics STR.

Social Interaction STR and Positive Language Use
STR, the difference in the frequency between eachgroup was remarkable. It can be said that themore advanced the learners become, the moreinteractions they require. As for the Rational
Planning STR, ceiling effect is found.

The frequency of strategy use
Social Interaction STR
Rational Planning STR
Positive Language Use STR
Repetition and Substitution STR
Associative Memory Use STR

Social InteractionSTR

1

2

3

4

5

Figure 1: The frequency of strategy use (N=94)
3.2
Correlation between each factor and
WeTEC scores
I examined whether the 7 factors extracted from thefactor analysis are correlated with WeTEC scores ornot. As the first step of the analysis, Pearson’s
Correlation Coefficient between WeTEC scores andeach factor score was calculated. Table 1 shows
the results.
Table 1: Correlation between WeTEC scores andthe extracted factors
STR1
Pearson’s
Correlation
Coefficient

STR2

STR3

.283**.048.534**

STR5

STR6

STR7

STR4
.045

Pearson’s
.127
-.196
-.060
Correlation
Coefficient
STR1 to STR 7 means 7 extracted factors.
** indicates the probability level, 0.01.
* indicates the probability level, 0.05.

Table 1 indicates that Social Interaction STR and
Positive Language Use STR yielded the statisticalsignificance with WeTEC scores.
Also, itindicates that there are negative correlations
between Grammatical Analysis STR and WeTEC
sores, and between Mnemonics STR and WeTEC
scores.
Next, the relationships between frequencyof strategy use and level of English proficiency arereported. Each figure shows the frequency ofstrategy use by each group. The frequency ofstrategy use was calculated as the average of thefactor scores.
As Table 1 indicates, the positive
correlations were found between WeTEC scoresand the frequency of strategy use such as Social
Interaction STR, Positive Language Use STR,
Repetition and Substitution STR, and Associative
Memory Use STR. In particular, concerning the

0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5

Group AGroup B
Group C

Social InteractionSTR

Figure 2: The frequency of Social Interaction STR use byeach group
Rational Planning STR
Average of factor scores

0

0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5

Group AGroup B
Group C

Ratinal Planning STR

Figure 3: The frequency of Rational Planning STR use byeach group
Positive Language Use STR
Average of factor scores

Mnemonics STR

Average of factor scores

Grammatical Analysis STR

1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5
-0.6

Group AGroup B
Group C

Positive Language UseSTR

Figure 4: The frequency of Positive Language STR use
by each group

Figure 7 and 8 show negative correlations between
the frequency of strategy use and the levels ofEnglish proficiency. Both figures indicate that thelearners in each group infrequently use
Grammatical Analysis STR and Mnemonics STR.
With regard to the frequency of Mnemonics STR,
the advanced group and the pre-intermediate groupuse this strategy more frequently than theintermediate group.

Average of factor scores

Repetition and Substitution STR
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5

Group AGroup B
Group C

Repetition and S STR

Figure 5: The frequency of Repetition and Substitution
STR use by each group

Average of factor scores

Associative Memory Use STR
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5

Group AGroup B
Group C

Associative Memory UseSTR

Figure 6: The frequency of Associative Memory Use STR
use by each group

Average of factor scores

Grammatcal Analysis STR
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5

Group AGroup B
Group C

Grammatical Analysis STR

Figure 7: The frequency of Grammatical Analysis STR
use by each group

Average of factor scores

Mnemonics STR
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5

Group AGroup B
Group C

Mneonics STR

Figure 8: The frequency of Mnemonics STR use by eachgroup

4Conclusion
This study found close correlations between
English proficiency and two strategies which areinterpreted as Social Interaction STR and Positive
Language Use STR. However, this study could
not replicate the results in Tsutsui et al. (2006)
because the number of participants was different.
They conducted questionnaire-based surveys onhuge number of participants across several
universities whereas only 94 students in a university
participated in this study. From the results, I
found that it is necessary to investigate the otherindividual differences together with learning
strategy preferences as in Tsutsui et al. (2006), in
order to explore the relationship between learner’sinternal factors and their English proficiency.
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my special thanks toEiichiro Tsutsui, who gave me a sample
questionnaire.
I also wish to thank Yusuke Kondo, Norifumi Ueda,
Kouichi Ano, Kenji Nakayama and Michiko
Nakano.
References
Ellis, R. (1994) The Study of Second Language
Acquisition. Oxford: OUP
Lee, M-B.
(2004) An Investigation of theRelationship between Motivation andLanguage learning strategies. Journal of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, 8(1), 45-57.
Oxford, L. R. (1989). Language Learning
Strategies; What Every Teacher Should
Know. Newbury House
Tsutsui, E., Ueda, N., & Nakano, M. (2005). A
multi dimensional approach to analyzing
individual differences of Japanese language
learner of English. Proceedings of the 11th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics,
Tsutsui, E., Owada, K., Kondo, Y., & Nakano, M.
(2006). A diagnosis of Japanese EFL
Learners’
Individual
Differences.
Proceedings of the 11th Conference of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics,
Yukina, K. (2003) Exploring Relationship between
English Proficiency and Individual Factors
during Junior High School Years in Japan.
Unpublished
Doctorial
Dissertation,
Graduate School of Education, Waseda
University.

The Role of Anxiety in Self-perception of L2 Competence
Hyun Jin Kim
Cheongju National University of Education
Hjkim37@cje.ac.kr

Abstract
The present study was published in Kim (2006). It
investigated the relationship between anxiety andperceived competence in a specific L2 performancetask. Eighty five nonnative pre-service elementaryteachers participated in the study. They completed
scales of anxiety and self-perceptions ofcompetence on the microteaching task, and they
performed the task. L2 competence was assessed interms of general L2 communication, classroom
language and language teaching skills. The resultsof the study confirmed and extended the findings
from the previous study (MacIntyre, Noels &Clément, 1997). Intercorrelations were foundamong perceived L2 competence, actual L2
competence, and L2 anxiety, and among general L2
communication proficiency, classroom English andlanguage teaching skills. It was also found thatanxious pre-service teachers were likely tounderestimate their L2 communication, classroom
language and language teaching skills while lessanxious teachers tended to overestimate theircompetence.

Keywords
Anxiety, perceived competence, actual competence,
self-rating

1

Introduction

In second language acquisition, anxiety is
associated with other affective variables, or learning
processes and accomplishment, and has been
continually studied while relatively little study has
been made on perceived competence. Research on
perceived competence will show the process ofanxiety affecting performance and completion oftask and help to better understand the second
language learning process.
Within this context, this research attempts torelate anxiety to the tendency of self-evaluation on
L2 competence. In this study Korean students at auniversity of education who are in training to beteachers and who are non-native speakers (NNS) of
English were tested to ascertain how anxiety affects
L2 perceived competence.
Specifically, this research attempted to find out:
1. Does L2 learning anxiety of these students as L2

learners influence their L2 perception ofcommunicative competence?; 2. Does L2 teachinganxiety of these students as future L2 teachers
influence biases in their L2 perception of teachingability?; 3. Are there any relationships between L2competence and L2 teaching ability?

2

Methods

2.1
Participants
The participants were 104 junior-year students fromthree classes at a university of education who weretaking a teaching practice course. They werelearning L2 teaching skills by practicing the use ofclassroom English and English teaching methods.
They were asked to respond to the questionnaires tomeasure anxiety and perceived competence a week
before they participated in the task during the classsession. A total of 85 students who conscientiously
completed the questionnaires were selected foranalysis.
2.2
Instruments
To measure L2 communication anxiety, twelve
items from MacIntyre and Charos (1996) were used.
To measure classroom English anxiety and English
teaching anxiety, four items from Lee (1999) andKim and Kim (2004) each were used. Following
MacIntyre and Charos (1996), the subjects wereasked to mark the degree of anxiety a scale ranging
from 0 to 100%. The self-evaluation instruments
were made up of items to measure self-perceptionsof L2 communicative competence, classroom
English competence, and English teachingcompetence.
Tomeasureself-perceptionofL2communicative competence, twelve items ofperceived competence from MacIntyre and Charos(1996) were used. For self-perception of classroom
English competence and English teachingcompetence, six items for each category weredeveloped respectively based on Lee (1999).
To measure students’ actual performance of L2
communication competence, classroom English
competence, and English teaching competence, amicroteaching task was assigned two weeks before
performance.

3

Results and conclusion

This study tested the NNS student-teachers todetermine how perceived L2 competence and actual
L2 competence are related to anxiety and how
anxiety influences perceived competence. The
results of the study revealed the following.
First, there were significant correlations
between self-perception and actual competence ofthe student-teachers in three areas: communicativecompetence, classroom English competence, andEnglish teaching competence.
Second, both self-perception and actual
competence of classroom English competence andEnglish teaching competence were in negative
correlation with anxiety. This anxiety showed
higher correlations with perceived competence thanwith actual competence.
Third, there were significant correlations amongcommunicative competence, classroom English
competence, and English teaching competence for
NNSE student-teachers. There were correlations
among self-evaluations of the competence in thethree areas. Also, there were correlations among
actual evaluation and anxiety in the three areas. The
fact that actual competence in the three areas isclosely related to each other implies thatcompetence in the three areas transfer to each other,helping mutual development.
The findings that the student-teachers
underestimate or overestimate their competence
depending on anxiety suggest the following inreference to L2 training process. First, the L2teacher trainers need to use training strategies toreduce anxiety, which is the cause ofunderestimation of their competence. At the sametime, they may train student-teachers to use
communication and learning strategies that might
help to reduce anxiety. Besides, they need todevelop success-oriented training tasks throughwhich the learners can continuously experience
success of task completion to increase their low
self-efficacy, the source of anxiety.
However, the learners’ tendency to overestimate
or underestimate their competence should not besolely approached with uniform criteria. Generally,an overestimation of one’s own competence creates
more opportunities for practice and experience andis more positive than underestimation. But at thesame time, with overestimation, if the learners
expect a too high accomplishment relative to theirability, and if the outcomes fall short of their
expectation, then they will experience a setback. Ifsuch experience is repeated, then they may create anegative attitude toward the development of L2
competence and L2 teaching competence.

References
Kim, Hyun Jin. (2006). The role of anxiety in
self-perception of L2 competence: With afocus on nonnative elementary pre-service
teachers’ L2 and language teaching skills.
Korean Journal of Applied Linguistics,
22(1), 143-164.
Lee, Y. (1999). Chodeung yeong-o suepeuipyeongga bangan (How to assess primary
English teaching). Foreign Languages
Education, 6, 197-222.
Kim, S. Y., & Kim, J. H. (2004). When the learnerbecomes a teacher: Foreign language
anxiety as an occupational hazard. English
Teaching, 59(1), 165-185.
MacIntyre, P. D., & Charos, C. (1996). Personality,
attitudes, and affect as predictors of second
language communication. Journal of
Language and Social Psychology, 15, 3-26.
MacIntyre P. D., Noels, K. A., & Clément, R.
(1997). Biases in self-ratings of second
language proficiency: The role of language
anxiety. Language Learning, 47, 265-287.

A Comparison of Immigrants in Taiwan with respect to their
Language Use and Language Attitude: Southeast Asia brides
and Japanese spouses in Tainan
Le-kun Tan and Wi-vun Taiffalo ChiungDepartment of Taiwanese Literature, National Cheng Kung University
lichun1226@yahoo.com.tw, uibuntw@yahoo.com.tw

Abstract
International marriage between countries has
become more and more common in the
globalization era. There is no exception to Taiwan.
The purpose of this study is to investigate Taiwan’s
new immigrants’ local language ability, languages
use in family, and language attitude and choice
toward local and original ethnic languages.

Keywords
language use, foreign brides, language proficiency,
international marriage

Introduction
International marriage between countries has
become more and more common in the
globalization era. There is no exception to Taiwan.
According to the statistics of Taiwan’s Ministry ofInterior1 (2007), there were a total of 396,133
foreign spouses in Taiwan by September 2007.
They account for 1.72% of Taiwan’s total
population. Among the foreign spouses, they weremainly from China (259,579), Vietnam (77,828),
Indonesia (26,192), Thailand (9,058), Philippine(6,132), Cambodia (4,608), Japan (2,604), andKorea (822). As for gender difference, most of themwere female (370,003), and they account for 93% of
the foreign spouses.
In Taiwan, the Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese
languages are commonly used in daily life.
Therefore, most of the foreign spouses except those
who speak Mandarin Chinese or Southern Min from
China, have to learn either Mandarin Chinese or
Taiwanese in order to get better communication
with the local people in Taiwan. To assist the newly
arrived immigrants to be acquainted with local
languages, the Taiwanese government frequently
offer free language classes for them. Once theimmigrants acquired the local language(s) and1

Available at <www.ris.gov.tw/ch4/static/st1-9-95.xls>

became bilingual, will they pass their originalethnic language to their children or not? The
purpose of this study is to investigate the newimmigrants’ local language ability, languages use infamily, and language attitude and choice toward
local and original languages.

1

Methodology

This study was conducted with questionnaires.
Questionnaires were collected based on subjects’
subjective answers. A total of 77 foreign spouses
were interviewed from April to July 2007. The
subjects were originally either from Japan orSoutheast Asian countries, and they all currently
reside in Tainan city in southern Taiwan. Theirsocio-economic and educational background aresummarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Subjects’ socio-economic and educational
background background
Southeast Asian / JapaneseMale Female /Male Female
0
62
10
15
*
28
43
34

numberAge in average
Incomezero*
under20000*
20000-29999*
30000-49999*
50000-99999*
Above 100000*
education elementary *junior high*senior high*university*
graduate
*

2

27
23
10
0
0
0
21
15
22
3
0

*
1
1
*
4
3
0
0
4
1
5

2
4
2
4
2
1
0
0
1
11
3

Results and discussions

2.1
Language ability in local languages
Due to time and budget limits, subjects’ language
ability in local languages (thereafter LALL) was
evaluated based on subjects’ subjective answers,

rather than on objective language tests. Subjects’language ability was summarized in Table 2, in which
5 means highest language ability (native speaker) and1 means lowest (never learned).

Table 2. Immigrants’ language ability in Mandarin
Chinese and TaiwaneseSoutheast Asian
Femaleave. 3.1
s.d. 0.9
ave. 2.4
s.d. 0.9

M. Chinese
Taiwanese

Japanese
Male
2.8
1.5
1.8
1.3

Female
2.7
0.7
1.4
0.5

Statistical correlation tests were employed to
predict the potential factors in affecting immigrants’
LALL. The preliminary results reveal that
immigrants’ LALL has NO positive relation to thefollowing factors: 1) time having been stayed in
Taiwan, 2) numbers of friends in Taiwan, 3) family
size, 4) income, and 5) educational level. In contrast,
statistical results show that time spent in learning
local language has positive relation to LALL in thecases of Japanese spouses. However, there is no
positive relation in the cases of Southeast Asian
spouses.
日本籍配偶中文能力和學習時數的關係

Table 3: Language abilities of Southeast Asian
spouses’ children
M. Chinese

Taiwanese Ethnic language

average

4

3.08

1.27

5: Native
4: fluent
3: good
2: poor
1: neverlearned

34.6%
30.8%
34.6%
0.0

7.7%
19.2%
46.2%
26.9%

0.0
0.0
3.9%
19.2%

0.0

0.0

76.9%

2.2

Language use in family

Table 4. Language use in family
Southeast AsianJapanese

45%

20%

0
0
37.5%
2.5%

60%
6.7%
0
13.3%

7.5%

0

2.5%

0

5%

0

M. Chinese-only
Ethnic Language-only
Taiwanese-only
Chinese + TaiwaneseChinese + ethnic lg.
Chinese + Taiwanese+ ethnic lg.
Taiwanese + ethniclg.
Chinese + Hakka

6
R2 = 0.3918

5

2.3

4

Language attitudes and choice

18-1學習總時數3

線性 (18-1學習總時數)2

Table 5: Time spent in official class in learning
spouse’s ethnic language

1

Learners Time in
ave.
(％)

0
0

2

4

6

Figure 1: Correlation between Chinese language
ability and time spent in learning in the cases ofJapanese spouses
東南亞籍配偶中文能力和學習時數的關係
6
5
4

學習總時數

3

線性 (學習總時
數)2

R = 3E-05

2
1
0
0

2

4

6

Figure 2: Correlation between Chinese language
ability and time spent in learning in the cases ofJapanese spouses

Taiwanese husbands(of Taiwan-Southeast
Asia marriages)
Southeast Asian wives(of Taiwan-Southeast
Asia marriages)
Japanese spouses (ofTaiwan-Japan
marriage)
Taiwanese husbands(of Taiwan-Japan
marriage)
Taiwanese wives(of Taiwan-Japan
marriage)

Targetlanguages
Southeast
Asianlanguages

0

0

71.7

375

Chinese,Taiwanese

79.3

420

M. Chinese

92.9

540

Japanese

100615Japanese

Table 6. Attitudes toward language education forthe second generation
ChineseChinese first and thenethnic language
bilingual of Chineseand ethnic language
Ethnic language first
and then ChineseSoutheast Asian
73.1%

Japanese
7.1%

23.1%

0

3.8%

57.1%

0

35.7%

3
Preliminary conclusions
Statistical results show that time spent in learning
local language has positive relation to LALL in thecases of Japanese spouses. However, there is no
positive relation in the cases of Southeast Asian
spouses.
Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese are more
likely to be used in the family of Taiwan-Southeast
Asian international marriage. In contrast, Japaneseare more frequently to be used in Taiwan-Japan
intermarriage family.
In the Taiwan-Japan intermarriage family, husband
and wife are more willing to learn each other’s
ethnic language through official language class.
However, in the Taiwan-Southeast Asia family, only
Southeast Asian wives are willing to learn
husband’s local language. On the contrary,
Taiwanese husbands are not willing to learn
Southeast Asian languages.
References
Bilings, M. L. 1990, Some factors affecting thebilingual development of bicultural children
in Japan. AFW Journal, April, p.93-108
Colin Baker 1993, Foundations of Bilingual
Education and Bilingualism. Multilingual
Matters Ltd. 岡秀夫訳・編 1996 バイ
リンガル教育と第二言語習得 大修館
書店
Cummins, J. ＆ Mulcahy, R. 1978, Orientation tolanguage in Ukranian-English bilingual
children. Child Development 49, p.
1239-1242
Dawe, L. C. 1983, Bilingualism and mathematicalreasoning in English as a second language.
Educational Studies in Mathematics 14(1),p. 325-353
Edith Harding-Esch & Philip Riley 2003, The
Bilingual Family, Ed 2 Cambridge
University Press.
Masayo Yamamoto 2002, Language Use in
Families with Parents of Different Native
Languages:
An
InvestigationofJapanese-non-English and Japanese-English
Families. Journal of Multilingual andMulticultural Development Vol.23, No.6,
p.531-554
Paulston, C. B. 1975, Ethnic relations and bilingual
education: Accounting for contradictorydata. Working Papers on Bilingualism 6,
p.368-401
Su-chiao Chen & Hao-ting Mai & Ya-ting Jiang
2007, Language Maintenance and Shiftamong the “Vietnamese Brides” and Their
Children in Taiwan. Proceedings ofConference on Multi-Development andApplication of Language and Linguistics
National Cheng Kung University.
Tosi, A. 1982, Mother-tongue teaching for thechildren of migrant, in V. Kinsella(ed.)
Surveys 1: Cambridge Language Teaching
Surveys. Cambridge University Press.
Urie Bronfenbrenner 1986, Ecology of the Family
as a Context for Human Development:
Research
Perspectives
Developmental
Psychology vol. 22 No. 6, p.723-742. 山本
雅代訳 2006 バイリンガル・ファミリー 明石書店
王瑞壎 2004 〈大陸和外籍新娘婚生子女適應與
學習能力之探究〉《台灣教育》No.626,
p.25-31
江亮演、陳燕禎、黃稚純 2004 ＜大陸與外籍配偶生活調適之探討＞《社區發展季刊》No.
105, p. 66-89
吳秀照 2004 〈東南亞外籍女性配偶對於發展遲
緩子女的教養環境與主動經驗初探──從
生態系統觀點及相關研究分析〉 《社區發展季刊》 No.105, p.159-175
何青蓉 2003 〈跨國婚姻移民教育的核心課題：
一個行動研究的省思〉 《教育研究集刊》
Vol.49, No.4, p.33-60
邱琡雯 2000 〈在台東南亞外籍新娘的識字/生活
教育：同化？還是多元文化？〉 《國立台灣師範大學社會教育學系社會教育學刊》 No.29, p.197-219
夏曉鵑 2006 〈新移民運動的形成──差異政治、
主體化與社會性運動〉 《台灣社會研究季刊》 No.61, p.1-71
夏曉鵑 2000 〈資本國際化下的國際婚姻──以台灣的「外籍新娘」現象為例〉 《台灣社會研究季刊》 No.39, p.45-92
莫藜藜、賴佩玲 2004 〈台灣社會「少子化」與
外籍配偶子女的問題初探〉 《社區發展季刊》 No.105, p.55-65
陳佩足、陳小云 2003 〈外籍新娘子女的語言發展問題〉《國小特殊教育》 No.35, p.68-75
陳湘淇 2004 〈國小一年級外籍配偶子女在心智能力、語文能力及學業成就表現之研究〉

國立台南師範學院國民教育所碩論
馮燕 〈從系統與生態觀點看家庭倫理的變遷與調適〉 《理論與政策》 No.48, p.159-175
曾嬿芬 2006 〈誰可以打開國界的門？移民政策
的階級主義〉 《台灣社會研究季刊》
No.61, p.73-105
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蔡榮貴、黃月純 2004 〈台灣外籍配偶子女教育問題與因應策略〉 《台灣教育》
No.626, p.32-37
鍾鳳嬌、王國川、陳永朗 2006 〈屏東地區外籍與本國及配偶子女在語文、心智能力發展與學習行為之比較研究──探析家庭背景的影響〉 《國立台灣師範大學教育心理與輔導學系 教育心理學報》 Vol.37, No.4,
p.411-429

The Study on Writing Anxiety in Korean EFL classroom
You-sun Chung

Korea University
Ysjung7302@hanmail.net

Abstract
Reading and writing are two fundamental tools ofwritten communication in the first and the second
language. Writing has not been often regarded as
the anxiety-related skill in second language
education while speaking skill is frequently treatedas the anxiety-provoking part. The purpose of mystudy is to show the effect of writing anxiety on thecollege students in Korean EFL classroom and tosuggest possible ways to get over the anxiety
produced in writing class.
The participants in the study are 30 college level
students taking English writing class.
Questionnaire and written task results are bothmeasured.

Keywords
writing, anxiety

Introduction
1. The Purpose
The purpose of my study is to show the effect ofwriting anxiety on the college students in EFL
classroom and to suggest possible ways to get over
the anxiety produced in writing class.
Anxiety has been regarded as one of emotional
factors which can hinder or facilitate learners'
language acquisition process. And, of course, thebad side of that feeling has been always emphasized.
For some students the feeling of anxiety may beraised from the fear if they are ridiculed for a wrong
answer or production in class. So, Researchers haveconsidered production, or, speaking as a primarypart which can make students worried.
Reading and writing are two fundamental tools ofwritten communication in the first and the second
language. Reading takes a receptive part andwriting takes an expressive role in communicationof letter. Writing has not been often regarded as theanxiety-related skill in second language education
while speaking skill is frequently treated as theanxiety-provoking part.
My concern in this research is turning to the fieldof writing. Is writing anxiety real in EFL

classroom? In some ways it would seem thatwriting should be the least anxiety-producing of
language functions. Unlike when listening andreading, when writing one controls the language
and the content of the message. In this study, I tries
to show the effect of an emotional variable, anxiety
in the EFL classroom when students are doing thewriting tasks.
2. Backgrounds
Arnold, & Brown (1999) state anxiety is quitepossibly the affective factor that most pervasively
obstructs the learning process. It is associated withnegative feelings such as uneasiness, frustration,
self-doubt, apprehension and tension. They add it is
not always clear how foreign language anxiety
comes into being. But when anxiety is present in
the classroom, there is a down-spiraling effect.
Anxiety makes students nervous and afraid and thus
contributes to poor performance. If that nervousness
is connected to the cognitive side of anxiety, it candamage the working space of memory, so
processing on a type of thinking may be harmed.
We can also see, however, the bright side ofanxiety in the previous research as well as harmful
effect of anxiety and worry. Bailey (1983)
mentioned both learners’ debilitating anxiety andfacilitating anxiety. Facilitating anxiety is
considered as a type of emotional feeling which canbe helpful for learning related to competitiveness.
Early research on writing anxiety developed out
the studies of communication apprehension(McCroskey 1970) and referred to the problem as
writing apprehension (Daly & Miller 1975a).
Raisman(1982) stated the effects of writing
anxiety, or writing apprehension can be significant
because students often use writing avoidance
strategy to choose their career in their L1 as well as
L2. But unlike speaking, writing allows time tothink about the message (Leki 1999). It means
writers can control the language reducing anxiety
when they’re doing writing tasks.

Method

1. Participants
In this study, the participants are 30 college
students (15 male students, 15 female students) who
have enrolled the English writing class. Their major
is Tourism English but they haven’t had enoughchance to expose and learn English. So, theirEnglish comprehension / production level is not sohigh. They are taught English writing & grammar
during the class in this semester.
2. Measurements
The first measurement tool for my study is theanalysis of the result of the written test. The writing
test was held on October 2007. Participants wererequired to make sentences in English according to
the given meanings. The other way of measurement
is a questionnaire research about anxiety. The
questionnaire research was done at the same time.
The questionnaire is made for evaluating the degree
at which the participants feel anxiety while they
have English classes, especially they do writing
tasks. The Anxiety Questionnaire consists of 30
anxiety-related questions including 5 open-ended
questions. It has the characteristics of self-reportshowing their emotional state. The questionnaire
about anxiety is based on Second Language Writing
Anxiety Inventory, developed by Cheng (2004) andWriting Apprehension Scale used by Daly & Miller(1975a). The questionnaire is translated into Korean
for participants' understanding.
The questions in the questionnaire are about (1)How do the adult learners in the beginning level
feel when they think they can't write down what
they want to express in English? (2) How does theemotional feeling anxiety act on the adult learners
in the beginning level? Can it act positively or
negatively?

Results & Discussion
Figure1 shows the differences measured bywriting anxiety level between male and female
participants.
gender difference
4
3.8
3.6

3.5

3.6

3.47
3.13

writing anxiety level

3

3

2.87

2.93

2.5
Male
Female2.07

2Results show that the anxiety level female students
experience on the writing tasks are higher than the
results of male students.
According to results of the questionnaire, therelationship between students’ anxiety levels andtheir writing test scores is not very clear. The
research questions I‘ve raised for this study fromthe beginning are (1) Does anxiety have a negative
effect on writing? If so, what is the characteristic ofwriting anxiety produced in EFL classroom? (2)What suggestions can we, English teachers, give tostudents when writing if they are experiencing
emotional difficulty while writing? But the results
are not easy to analyze. Some teaching suggestions
for effective writing can be considered for EFL
classroom reducing the negative emotional
influences.

References
Arnold, J. & Brown, H.D. (1999). A map of theterrain. In J. Arnold (Ed.), Affect in language
learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Bailey, K. M. (1983). Competitiveness and anxiety
in adult second language learning: Looking at
and through the diary studies. In H.W. Seliger& M.H. Long (Eds.), Classroom-oriented
research in second language acquisition.
Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Cheng, Y.S. (2004). A measure of second language
writing anxiety: Scale development andpreliminary validation. Journal of Second
Language Writing, 13 (4), 313-335.
Daly,J.A.,& Miller, M.C.(1975a). The Empiricaldevelopment of an instrument to measurewriting apprehension. Research in the
Teaching of English, 9, 242-249
Leki, I. (1999). Techniques for Reducing Second
Language Writing Anxiety. In Young(ed.),Affect in Foreign Language & Second
Language Learning.: New York:
Mcgraw-Hill.
McCroskey,
J.C.
(1970).
Measuresofcommunication-boundanxiety.
Speechmonographs, 37, 269-277.
Raisman, N.(1982). I just can’t do English: Writing
anxiety in the classroom. Teaching English in
the Two-Year College, 9, 19-23.

1.5

1

.

0.5

0
1

2

3

4

5

anxiety related questions

Figure 1. Gender difference on writing anxiety

Teaching Practice Focusing on Improving Students’Communicative Competence
Akihiko Kawashima

Graduate School of Education, Waseda University
kawasima@fuji.waseda.jp

Abstract
In this paper, I discuss teaching practice focusing on
improving students’ communicative competencewith reference to some theories and textbook
analysis.

Keywords
Communicative competence, Recitations, Speech,
Skits, Teaching PracticeIntroduction
In this paper, I will discuss my teaching practice
aimed at improving communicative competence ina junior high school. Before discussing my teachingpractice, I will introduce some theoreticalbackground and analyze some textbooks.

1

Communicative competence

H.G. Widdowson thought of communicativecompetence as interpretation.
Canale and Swain thought of communicativecompetenceasgrammaticalcompetence,sociocultural competence, discourse competence
and strategic competence.

2

Recitations

Some textbooks have oral reading exercises thatallow students to show various emotions. Emotional
expressions are one of the effective ways ofcommunication. To improve these kinds ofexpressions, we can utilize some English poems
and songs as materials for reading aloud. According
to one textbook, there are some points to note whenparticipating in speech activities. That is, theimportance of reading materials aloud again andagain. And the importance of not just reading tooneself but reading materials to the supposedaudience. By practicing oral reading, we can
improve the importance mentioned above. The ideathat we express English sentences showing ouremotions abundantly is also one of the goals in
another textbook. For example, there is a goal. One
can read aloud showing one’s emotion which is thesame as that of the author’s. To achieve this goal,
textbooks also have skit activities. In these
activities, we are supposed to practice skit activities
by changing underlined words. When practicing,
this exercise can be more significant by showing
various emotions. We can see here the relation
between exercises of skit activities and the effectsof oral reading. There is also a goal about reading
aloud in some textbooks. That is, one can read
aloud with appropriate speed paying attention to
intonation, sound variation and accents. This goal
also can be achieved by the activity of recitation.
We can get the sense of intonation and accent as a
form.

3

SpeechI think speech activities have some relationship tosociocultural competence and discourse competence
discussed by Canale and Swain. That is because inmany textbooks the speech activities are dealt withas one project. That is, students are supposed tocollect some information, summarize them andexpress them in public. For example, if you make aspeech on Japanese culture, you can improvesociocultural competence in the process of looking
into Japanese culture. You can also improvediscourse competence in the process ofsummarizing the information to the audience.
Next, I will look at the way the speech activity iscomposed in textbooks. There is a tendency. Some
textbooks have the speech activities right after
studying certain linguistic forms and functions,while other textbooks do not. Though this tendency
is much more evident in the skit activity, it also canapply to the speech activity.

4

Skits

We will look at skit activities in this section. There
are two ways of exercising skit activities. One wayof exercising them is to use the skit without any
change. Another way is to use the skit by changing
the underlined word. The former is effective in the
aspect of improving grammatical competence andstrategic competence discussed by Canale andSwain. The latter is effective in the aspect ofimproving sociocultural competence and discourse
competence by Canale and Swain. The reason isthat the former way of exercising them is the sameas that of exercising recitation, in that both ways
exercising enables students to gain the structure ofEnglish.
Furthermore, both ways are effective mediums ofexpressing various emotions.
On the other hand, the latter way of exercising is aneffective way of improving discourse competencein that students have to think of the skit as a wholein changing the underlined word. They also have tothink of whether the whole sentence issocioculturally appropriate when changing theunderlined word. As a result, these activities
improve both sociocultural competence anddiscourse competence.

5

Teaching PracticeIn this section, I will discuss my teaching practiceat Tokyo Gakugeidaigaku Fuzoku Takehaya JuniorHigh School. My teaching practice has three parts.
That is, oral readings, speech activities and skit
practices.
I will discuss what I did. During the first term, I
did not make students recite long sentences such as
English poems and songs. I made students learn
their favorite proverbs by heart as a bridge torecitation of longer sentences. There were five skitlessons. In choice of topic, there are two standards
for judging. One standard is that I take the topic
which has close relationship with students’ daily
lives. Another standard is that I take the topic which
improves students’ grammatical knowledge byusing them in the skit.
Then, there were two speech activities. Somestudents made a speech about the person who
influenced them, Japanese traditions and schools
when the ALT first came to the class. I gave thestudents who listened to the speeches an evaluation
sheet. By making students evaluate, I also intended
to make students be aware of some important points
when making a speech. Other than the activities
mentioned above, I taught students to write a diary
in English.
During the second term, I did not make students
do recitation of long sentences either. Here, I also
made students learn their favorite proverbs by heart
as a bridge to recitation of longer sentences.
There were three skit lessons. All three skit lessons
dealt with topics which were familiar with students’
daily lives. There were two speech activities. As
students made ALT newspapers, I made students
make a speech on their newspaper. Another speech
activity is about students’ dream. As is the samewith the first term, I gave students who listened tothe speeches evaluation sheets. As I have said, I
intended to make students realize some important
points when making a speech.
Now is not the third term. So, I will just briefly
mention my teaching plan in the third term. I regard
the recitation of English poems and songs as themain activity in the third term. Other activities will
be skit activities. Students will practice skit
activities which are dealt with frequently in many
textbooks.

6

Conclusion

I have discussed my teaching practice both from the
aspect of communicative competence and from the
aspect of textbook analysis. I will discuss myteaching practice considering another aspect, theaspect of debate in my next paper. I am also
thinking about discussing my teaching practice
aimed at improving students’ communicativecompetence in high school.

7

References

References
Canale, M. and Swain, M. (1980). “Theoreticalbases of communicative approaches tosecond language teaching and testing.”
Applied Linguistics. 1, 1, pp.1-47
Widdowson, H. G. (1978). Teaching Language as
Communication. Oxford: OUP
Aoki, S., Tanaka, M. (1985). Dentatsujuusi noeigokyouiku. Tokyo: Taishuukan.
Kasajima, J. et al. (2006). New Horizon English
Course1.2.3. Tokyo: Tokyo Shoseki
Aoki, S. et al. (2005). Sunshine English
Course1.2.3.Tokyo: Kairyudo
Higuchi, T. et al. (2005). One World English
Course1.2.3.Tokyo: Kyoiku Shuppan
Tougo, K. et al. (2005). Columbus21 English
Course1.2.3. Tokyo Mitsumura Tosho
Saitou, E. et al. (2005). New Crown English Series
New Edition1.2.3. Tokyo Sanseido
Horiguchi, S. et al. (2005). Total English 1.2.3.
Tokyo Gakko Tosho

Investigating English Teachers’ Attitudes towards E-learning
Platforms
Hung-Hsuan Kao

Department of Applied English, Jinwen University of Science and Technology,
alex@alexkao.net

Abstract
This study investigated English tertiary teachers’
attitudes toward using E-learning platforms in
instruction. It used the Technology Acceptance
Model (TAM) as a theoretical framework toanalyze the participants’ attitudes towards using
a new technology system. English teachers
teaching in higher education in Taiwan formed
the sample of this study. A survey method wasused to gather the data for analysis. The researchaims at answering the following two questions:
What is English teachers’ attitude toward using
E-learning platform? What are the variables
influence English teachers’ use of E-learning
platform? Investigating external variables that
influence teachers’ attitudes towards applying
E-learning platforms in instruction can help
researchers and system manufactures to provide
a better courseware and technology support for
languageteachers.
In
the
field
of
computer-assisted-language-learning, English
teachers can then better apply the technology
systems to help more language learners.
Keywords
CALL, E-learning platforms, TAM (Technology
Accepted Model)

1. Introduction
In the Information Age, universities allaround the world strongly encourage theirfaculty to use technology in the classroom.
E-learning platforms facilitate teachers tomanage their course materials and deliver
their instruction. With this trend of applying
technology in instruction, computer-assisted
instruction is also valued in English courses.
This study investigated English tertiary
teachers’ attitudes toward using E-learning
platforms in instruction. It used theTechnology Acceptance Model (TAM) as atheoretical framework to analyze theparticipants’ attitudes towards using a newtechnology system. TAM was proposed by
Davis in 1986 in his doctoral thesis. Since then,it has been used widely by many researchers. In
the information technology area, TAM is still
one of the best-known models for explaining
intention to use a new technology. It assumes
that the perceived usefulness (PU) and theperceived ease of use (PEOU) are central ininfluencing a person’s attitudes and behavioral
intentions towards using it (Schepers & Wetzels,
2007). More other variables might also
influence a person’s attitudes and behavioral
intentions towards using it such as social factors,
university
support,E-learning
systemfunctionality, personal innovativeness withtechnology, computer self efficacy, measuring
perceived usefulness, measuring perceived easeof use, and teachers’ personal attitudes. Thus,
this study attempts to find the significant
variables that influence teachers’ application of
E-learning platforms.

2. The study
The study selected part of the data from amajor study investigating tertiary teachers’
attitudes towards using E-learning platforms
in higher education in Taiwan. Data reported
in this paper included English teachers ofhigher education in Taiwan who hadparticipated in a digital training program
offered by Ministry of Education, Taiwan
during the two past summers. All of theseteachers have English background andtechnology background, and had experienceof applying technology in their classes. A
survey method was used to gather the data
for analysis. The questionnaire includes
questions about the participants’ basic
background information including theiryears of teaching, school types, and theirability of using multimedia programs.
Likert-scale items of attitude questions with fivepoints were designed to investigate teachers’
attitudes towards technology acceptance.

The research aims at answering thefollowing two questions: What is English
teachers’ attitude toward using E-learning
platform? What are the variables influence
English teachers’ use of E-learning
platform?
This study first describes the subjects’characteristics according to the valid
questionnaires. Next, it used SPSS 15.0 for
Windows to test the construct reliability andto repot the data.
2.1 Subjects’ characteristics
There are twenty-two English Teachers joining
the Digital Learning Program offered by
Ministryof
Education,
Taiwan.
Thequestionnaire surveying teachers’ attitudes
towards using E-learning platforms was
distributed to these teachers and twelve
respondents were received. Selected data arepresented in this paper. The data of the sample
are described in Table 1.
Table 1: Teachers’ Background Information
Frequency
GenderMale
FemalePosition:
Professor
Associate
Professor
Assistant
Professor
Lecturer
Part-time
LecturerAge25-30 years
old31-35 years
old36-40 years
old41-45 years
old51-55 years
oldOver 56
Educated
Doctor

Percent

Cumulative
Percent

Master8
Years of Teaching
0-5 years3
6-10 years
2

66.7

100.0

25.0
16.7

25.0
41.7

11-15 years
4
More than 25
3
years
School Type
National
3
Private9
School System
General7
universities
Universities
of Science
4andTechnology
Technologic1
al institutes
School Area

33.3

75.0

25.0

100.0

25.0
75.0

25.0
100.0

58.3

58.3

33.3

91.7

8.3

100.0

5

41.7

41.7

3

25.0

66.7

1

8.3

75.0

1

8.3

83.3

1

8.3

91.7

1

8.3

100.0

TaipeiCity
TaipeiCountyTaoyunCountyHsinchuCountyYunlinCountyTainanCounty

2
10

16.7
83.3

16.7
100.0

1

8.3

8.3

1

8.3

16.7

2

16.7

33.3

6

50.0

83.3

2

16.7

100.0

2.2 Item analysis
Select items are described for analysis. See
Appendix A for the items. The means of the 18
items in the questionnaire are presented in Table
2. All of the items have a mean higher than 3.75.
Item 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 16, 17, and 18
have a mean higher than 4.0.

2

16.7

16.7

Table 2: Result of English Teachers’ Attitudes
towards E-learning Platforms

2

16.7

33.3

2

16.7

50.0

3

25.0

75.0

1

8.3

83.3

2

16.7

100.0

4

33.3

33.3

Item
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

N
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12

Mean
4.1667
4.16674.08334.00003.9167
3.8333
4.16674.08334.0000Std. Deviation.71774.83485.99620.85280.90034.83485.83485.51493.60302

10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12

3.91674.00003.91673.75003.75003.83334.08334.00004.0000.66856.73855.79296.75378.86603.57735.90034.73855.85280Items 12 to 15 did not have a mean higher
than 4. The reasons why these items did notachieve a higher mean might be due to thefollowing reasons:First, not all teachers were interested in all
types of technology devices. Some might
had good experiences with E-learning
platforms while they might not have goodexperience with other types of technology
devices.
Second, for English teachers, E-learning
platforms are not common used in class andthe efficacy of English teachers did not
really fall on technology application. Item
13 and item 14 are in this case.
Third, item 15 might not be applied well for
English teachers as they responded to thisitem while it might be true for other subject
teachers such as technology related teachers.
Thus, it did not achieve a higher mean.
3. Conclusion
This study finds that teachers show positive
attitudes toward E-learning Platforms. In thispaper, the following results are reported: As the government encourages teachers to
use new technology in their teaching inhigher education, teachers would like to try
new technology as an indication ofadvancement in course management.
 The teachers’ schools are committed tosupporting teachers’ efforts in using
E-learning platforms for teaching. Thus,
teachers are willing to try new course
delivery formats.
 Some teachers’ schools recognize theirfaculty’s efforts in using E-learning
platforms for teaching. This factor also
indicates that university support is a strong
external variable that influences teachers’
course instruction and reform.

For language learners and teachers,
E-learning platforms might offer flexibility
in learning as to time and place. Thus,
teachers would like to try and ask theirstudents to try using it anywhere for
language learning.
 Most of the teachers in this study indicatethat they will use E-learning platforms in a
future course, which shows teachers havepositive attitudes toward this type ofcourse management format.
 Only one teacher said, “I’m moreinterested in teaching students via face toface.” This might indicates that still somelanguage teachers favor face-to-faceEnglish instruction format as real language
communication.
This study finds that investigating externalvariables that influence teachers’ attitudes
towards applying E-learning platforms in
instruction can help researchers and systemmanufactures to provide a better courseware andtechnology support for language teachers. In thefield of computer-assisted language learning,
English teachers can then better apply thetechnology systems to help more language
learners.

4. References
Schepers, J., & Wetzels, M. (2007). A
meta-analysis of the technology
acceptance model: Investigating
subjective norm and moderation effects.
Information & Management, 44,
90-103.
Davis, F.D. (1986). A Technology Acceptance
Model for Empirically Testing New
End-User Information Systems: Theory
and Results. Doctoral dissertation, MIT
Sloan School of Management,
Cambridge, MA. Retrieved August 10,
2007 form
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/151
92

5. Appendices
Appendix A: The Attitude Questionnaire
Item
1

2

Questions
The Government encourages
teachers to use new technology intheir teaching.
The University is committed tosupporting my efforts in using course
E-learning platforms for teaching.

3

4

5
6
7

8

9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

The University strongly encourages
the use of course E-learning platforms
for teaching.
The University will recognize myefforts in using course E-learning
platforms for teaching.
The University is committed to avision of using course E-learning
platforms in teaching.
E-learning platforms offer flexibility inlearning as to time and place.
E-learning platforms offer multimedia(audio, video, images and text) typesof course content.
E-learning platforms provide a means
for taking tests and turning in
assignments.
E-learning platforms can present
course materials in a well-organized
and readable format.
E-learning platforms can clearlypresent course content.
If I heard about a new information
technology, I would look for ways toexperiment with it.
I like to experiment with new
information technologies.
Using E-earning platforms improves
the quality of my teaching.
Overall, I find the E-learning platforms
useful in my job.
It is easy for me to remember how to
perform tasks using the E-learning
platform.
Overall, I find the E-learning platforms
easy to use.
I intend to use the E-learning
platforms in a future course.
I predict I might use the E-learning
platforms in future courses.

Does vowel quality matter?
Aya Kitagawa, Yusuke Kondo, and Michiko Nakano

Graduate School of Education, Waseda University
aya@fuji.waseda.jp, yusukekondo@asagi.waseda.jp, nakanom@waseda.jp

Abstract
This study aims to address two issues: one is todescribe acoustically English vowels produced bynative speakers of Japanese; the other is toinvestigate whether vowel quality affects overallproficiency in pronunciation. The results showedeach group, according to the proficiency level, helda slightly different L2 vowel system; however,vowel quality was not defined as the crucial factor
to dictate the overall proficiency in pronunciation.

Keywords
vowel, second language, acoustic analysis

1

Introduction

1.1
Current need in SLA
Adult speakers of second language (L2) are
believed to need to exert more assiduous effort thanchildren to acquire the target language in both thephonetic and phonological aspects. According toFlege (1987), their difficulty in the successfulacquisition of L2 sounds is attributed to various
factors such as developmental factors, motivation
and affective factors, and social factors. L2 learners
themselves, experiencing the effect of interlanguagetransfer, do also realize how demanding it is to
overcome these difficulties and to learn to speak theL2 with accurate phonetics and phonology just likenative speakers do. Drifting with this current,“intelligibility” has started to gain attention
disputing the native-like pronunciation argument.
As long as it is true that L2 learners are required
to obtain only a marginal pronunciation to keep
their speech comprehensible as Jenkins insists(2000), all L2 learners have to do is to acquire L2
pronunciation exclusively. In other words, somephonemes or phones need to be mastered accurately,
whereas others do not have to be. It will, therefore,
reduce the burden on L2 learners to reveal whether
this claim is factual or not.
1.2
The aim of the study
The pronunciation of language primarily consists of
two main features: segment and suprasegment.

These two are also composed of a variety offeatures including vowel, consonant, stress,
intonation, pause and many more. Then what is
identified as the so-called good pronunciation toachieve intelligible communication?
Probably,theoverall
proficiency
inpronunciation, as the compound of these phonetic
and phonological features, has to be high, whether
or not each feature is acquired properly. Out of thepossible features to make the pronunciation good,
this study characterizes the contribution of vowel
quality on the so-called good pronunciation by L2
speakers, and addresses two issues: how vowel
quality produced by native speakers of Japanese canbe described, and whether vowel quality is crucial
to the overall proficiency in pronunciation.
1.3
Previous studies
As Piske, Mackay and Flege (2001) suggest, on theother hand, segmental and suprasegmental aspects
are so closely related that the empirical evidence
had not been adduced to determine how
contributory to foreign accent each aspect is, suchas segment, prosody and fluency. Therefore, notmany studies have focused on how the vowel
quality in L2, just one phonetic parameter,
contributes to the overall proficiency inpronunciation. The following two studies areresearch related to vowels spoken by L2 learners.
Munro (1993) examined foreign accentednessof English vowels spoken by native speakers of
Arabian. He measured vowel duration, first andsecond formant frequencies (F1, F2 respectively)
and formant movement of them, and observed thatF1 and formant movement in F2 led to foreign
accentedness. He, however, did not go so far as tosuggest how this finding was relevant to the overallproficiency in pronunciation or intelligibility.
Suenobu, Kanzaki and Yamane (1992)
conducted research on error analysis of speech
produced by Japanese learners of English. They
categorized errors into six types: consonant addition,
vowel
substitution,
consonantsubstitution,
consonant deletion, wrong pause insertion andwrong accentuation, and pointed out that comparingerrors in consonants with those in vowels, theformer was much more serious in misunderstanding.
That is to say, vowels are of little importance, inthat the accuracy of them is not required forintelligible communication.
1.4
Comparison of the vowel systems
In order to design the experiment examining thetwo issues discussed in section 1.2, it is necessary
to look over the difference of vowel inventory
between Japanese and English.
Japanese has five vowels in quality, namely,
close front, close back, mid front, mid back andopen central, as shown in Figure 1, and each vowel
can be both long and short. On the other hand,
Figure 2 illustrates English holds the much larger
vowel system with about eleven or twelve vowels,
whose number slightly varies from accent to accent.

Figure 1. Japanese vowel system

Figure 2. English vowel system (RP)
Comparing two vowel inventories enables us to
speculate on the possible interlanguage transfer onvowels. Obviously, Japanese has a much smaller
vowel inventory than English, so that native
speakers of Japanese will be very likely to produce
two or more distinct vowels of English in the samephonological vowel space.
For instance, .h9. and .H. in English are so close
to each other that native speakers of Japanese
should integrate them into the same vowel space. If
this substitution rule is valid, English vowels
around the .`. area of Japanese vowel inventory
must be the most problematic because the largest
number of English vowels lie there. Based on theauditory judgment as well as the visual one, .`. inJapanese can be a counterpart of .z+ @9+ ?+ 29+ U..
Likewise, English .t9. and .T. should be lessdistinguishable.

2

Methodology

An experiment to address the two issues mentioned
in section 1.2 followed two steps: first, recorded thepassage produced, rated them, defined the overallproficiency in pronunciation and grouped them into
three according to the level; then, measured the F1and the F2 of the collected data and carried out theappropriate statistical test.
2.1
ParticipantsParticipants were thirty-eight Japanese university
students. The average of their ages was 20.4 years
with a standard deviation of 2.1. The average lengthof their study of English was 9.3 years with 2.8 as astandard deviation.
2.2
Recording
The participants read a phonetically balanced
passage, “The north wind and the sun.” The speech
was digitally tape-recorded using Roland R-09 anda condenser microphone, SONY ECM-MS957. It
took around 15 minutes to complete the task,
including providing self-introductions, receiving
instructions about the content of the passage andrecording their speech.
2.3
RatingRaters comprised of seven English teachers who
had achieved Master’s degrees in English language
education or related areas. They all attended theworkshop to discuss the evaluation criteria set by
the Common European Framework of References(Council of Europe, 2001) before participating in
the rating. The raters evaluated the recorded speech
adopting fourteen items.
The evaluation scores were analyzed based on amulti-faceted Rasch model, using statisticalsoftware FACETS (Linacre, 2006). In this analysis,
the examinees’ ability is reported as a logit score.
According to the score reported, the participants
were divided into three groups: high, mid, and low.
2.4
Measurements
Acoustic measurements of the six target vowels,.h9+ H+ t9+ T+ z+ U., were done with acoustic
analysis software, Praat. Firstly, segmentation wasprovided to each speech. Then, the F1 and the F2 ofthe target vowel were measured at the point which
was considered under the least influence fromsounds adjacent to it. The point was visuallydefined by hand with the help of formant tracks
from F1 to F5.
The words including the target vowel were as
follows; agreed [1], succeed [1], immediately [1]for .h9.; wind [4], which [1], considered [1] for .H.;
disputing [1], blew [2], two [1] for .t9.; should [1],could [1], took [1] for .T.; traveler [4], wrapped [1],last [1] for .z.; sun [3], one [1], other [1], up [1]for .U.. The number in the blanket indicates how
many times the word was spoken. If a word was
repeated more than once, the values of F1 and F2
were averaged; as a result, the data of each target
vowel was obtained from three or four different
words respectively.
2.5
Statistical test
As a physical reference of the achievement in vowel
quality, whether each speaker differentiated eachvowel from another was examined. The value offormant frequencies is subject to inter-speakervariability, and therefore the simple comparison offormant frequency values is not sufficient. Rather
the ability to categorize each vowel counts.
Thus, a statistical test, a discriminant analysis
was conducted with SPSS to investigate thespeakers’ achievements in classifying the six
vowels.

3

4000

3000

2000

1000

0
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200

.h9.

.H.

.t9.

.T.

.z.

.U.

Figure 3. F1 and F2 for a fem. speaker (high-level)
4000

3000

2000

1000

0
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200

.h9.

.H.

.t9.

.T.

.z.

.U.

Figure 4. F1 and F2 for a fem. speaker (mid-level)
4000

3000

2000

1000

0
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200

Results and discussion

The five-participant data in each group was, after
all, acoustically measured. This is because the raters
defined only five as high in the overall proficiency
in pronunciation. Consequently, five sets of data
were randomly selected from the whole data of the
mid-level and low-level group, and each group was
made up of two males and three females.
The following three figures, Figure 3 through 5,
are examples of the scatter graphs for each group to
represent the F1 and F2 values. F1 values areplotted on the y axis, and F2 values on the x axis.
As far as the visual observation on the scattergraphs of all the data go, three vowel spaces seem
roughly created among the six vowels at issue,
according to the phonetic and phonologicalsimilarity: .h9+ H. space, .t9+ T. space and.z+ U. space. The English vowels whosecounterparts in Japanese are in the same vowel
space, therefore, appear to overlap one another,creating one vowel space. This tendency isremarkablewithin.z+ U.
quasi-space.
Furthermore, .h9+ H. and .t9+ T. quasi-spaces are
relatively close though neither of the others is. As aresult, the boundary between these spaces is notalways clearly defined.

.h9.

.H.

.t9.

.T.

.z.

.U.

Figure 5. F1 and F2 for a fem. speaker (low-level)
The next tables, Table 1 to 3, show the results of
the linear discriminant analysis with crossvalidation between every possible pair for eachgroup different in overall proficiency inpronunciation. Bold percentages in the tables
indicate correct classification rates within eachquasi-space argued in the previous paragraph.
There are two main points to be noticed. Firstly,
the correct classification rates within the threespaces (bold percentages), i.e. .h9+ H., .t9+ T. and.z+ U. whose counterparts in Japanese are .h., .t.
and .`. respectively, were strikingly low for all thegroups, except that the speakers in the high-levelgroup tended to succeed in classifying .h9. and.H. (86.7%). Secondly, .z+ U. space wasindependent of the other spaces to a large degree forall the groups; however, this was not necessarily
true of the boundary between .h9+ H. and .t9+ T..
To put it simply, .h9+ H+ t9+ T. were somehow likely
to be confused even beyond Japanese vowel space.
This tendency was evident concerning every groupthough the way it overlapped was not the same.
Table 1: Correct classification rates (high-level)
.h9.
.H.
.t9.
.T.
.z.

.H.
86.7
-

.t9.
90.0
70.0
-

.T.
90.0
80.0
63.3
-

.z.
100
100
100
96.7
-

.U.
100
100
100
100
62.9

Table 2: Correct classification rates (mid-level)
.h9.
.H.
.t9.
.T.
.z.

.H.
51.4
-

.t9.
80.0
75.9
-

.T.
83.6
75.9
63.3
-

.z.
100
96.4
96.6
96.6
-

.U.
100
97.1
94.3
91.4
53.7

Table 3: Correct classification rates (low-level)
.h9.
.H.
.t9.
.T.
.z.

.H.
43.3
-

.t9.
90.0
90.0
-

.T.
76.7
83.3
56.7
-

.z.
100
100
93.1
93.1
-

.U.
97.1
100
88.6
91.4
55.9

Describing the details of the second point leads
to a further discussion for each group as follows. To
begin with, as for the high-level group, that .h9. and.H. were distinguished and conversely .H. and.t9+ T. overlapped (70.0%, 80.0%) implies that.h9. vowel space was quite fixed in the speaker’s
phonology; instead, .H. space approached .t9+ T.
space. Next, apropos of the mid-level group, boththat .h9. and .t9. were not differentiated from.H. (51.4%) and .T. (63.3%) respectively and that
.H. and .t9+ T. were confused (75.9%, 75.9%)
suggests that .H. space moved toward .t9+ T. spacein the same way as the high-level group although avague boundary seemed to exist between .h9+ H. and.t9+ T. vowel spaces. Finally, with regard to the
low-levelgroup, .h9. and.t9. werenot
well-distinguishable
from.H. (43.3%)
and.T. (56.7%) respectively, but the correctclassification rates between .H. and .t9+ T. weremuch higher (90.0%, 83.3%) than those for theother groups while .T. was more confused with.h9+ H. (76.7%, 83.3%) than the other vowels
except for .t9.. This indicates these fourvowels had yet to hold their own vowel space, and.T. space advanced towards .h9+ H. vowel space,taking .t9. forward along with it.
The reason why some vowels were confusedwith others is mostly because, as mentioned above,

the vowel space was yet to be established in the
speakers’ phonology. Besides, there are several
reasons that .H. approached .t9+ T. for thehigh-level and mid-level group. One is that .H. in
two target words out of three was preceded byvoiced labial-velar approximant which has somephonetic features in common with .t9+ T. and .H.
in this context was subject to the effect of .v. dueto the phenomena called “coarticulation” or“undershoot.” The more fluent the speech is, themore frequently these changes occur. This is why.h9. might have happened to be well-distinguishedfrom .H. for the high-level group.

4

Conclusion

To conclude, all the groups showed the similartendency in the classification in that not all the
speakers perfectly succeeded in holding six vowels
distinct. Accordingly, what can be maintained isthat the overall proficiency in pronunciation is lessrelated to vowel quality. Whether undershoot occurs
or .z+ U. are not classified correctly, the learners
were, in effect, categorized into the different levelof pronunciation proficiency. This highlights, as
Suenobu et al. (1992) and Jenkins (2000) infer, theoverall proficiency in pronunciation or the so-called
good pronunciation is defined with other factors,
rather than vowel quality itself.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by KAKENHI(Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) 19720145).
References
Council of Europe. (2001). Common European
Framework of Reference for languages:
Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge:
CUP.
Flege, J. (1987). A critical period for learning topronounce foreign languages? Applied
Linguistics, 8, 162-177.
Jenkins, J. (2000). The phonology of English as aninternational language. Oxford: OUP.
Linacre, J. M. (2006). Facets Rasch measurement
computer program. Chicago: Winsteps.com.
Munro, M. J. (1993). Productions of English vowels
by native speakers of Arabic: Acoustic
measurements and accentedness ratings.
Language and Speech, 36, 39-66.
Piske, T., Mackay, I. R. A., & Flege, J. E. (2001).
Factors affecting degree of foreign accent
in an L2: review. Journal of Phonetics, 29,
191-215.
Suenobu, M., Kanzaki, K., & Yamane, S. (1992).
An experimental study of intelligibility ofJapanese English. IRAL, 30, 146-156.

Analysis on Text Chats of Novice Japanese Learners of English
in Computer Mediated Communication
Takane YAMAGUCHI

Waseda University
takaney@fuji.waseda.jp

Abstract
With the advancement of the Information Technology, it has been made easier for students different innationality to exchange messages with each other. Distance Learning Center at Waseda University in Japan
provides their students and the students at partner universities with various types of programs for such needs.
One is Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL) program. One component in the program is PC-Based Text
Chat.
This study reports sample analysis in the computer mediated communication (CMC) in terms of
Vocabulary level, Type/Token Ratio, and Mean Length of Utterance in words. Most of the subjects arenovice learners of English at Waseda University, who chatted with students relatively good at speaking
English at Kangwon National University. There are several studies on chat text data (see, eg., Park andNakano, 2002). The present study focuses on novice learners of English at Waseda University.

Keywords
Vocabulary, Computer Mediated Communication (CMC)Strategic Language Teaching: Using Moodle in EFL contexts
Eiichiro Tsutsui

International Centre, Hiroshima International University
tsutsui@ic.hirokoku-u.ac.jp

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to show how
effectively Moodle can be used in practicallanguage teaching and language learning
environments. Moodle is an open-source learning
management system (LMS). This LMS has
attracted worldwide attention from lots of teachersand educational practitioners because of its
cost-effective and multi-functional features. Against
the backdrop of increasing demands of informationand communication technology in EFL contexts,
Moodle is worthy of our attention. Therefore, thisstudy describes various kinds of strategies for using
Moodle so that language teachers can facilitate
language teaching activities in e-learning
environments. The results of a questionnaire
conducted on 17 Japanese teachers of English who
are familiar with the Moodle system will bereported. The endorsability of Moodle-based
strategies will also be discussed so that we canextract the strategies worth adopting in an
e-learning environment.

Keywords
e-Learning, Moodle, strategies

1. Introduction: What is Moodle?
Moodle is regarded as an open-source learning
management system (LMS). It is also known as
CMS (course management system) because it
enables language teachers and course developers tocreate and implement a learning course virtually.
This Moodle system has cost-effective andfeature-rich characteristics; therefore, language
teachers and educational practitioners can takeadvantage of this system to facilitate language
teaching activities and build an environment for awide variety of language learning activities without
introducing enormous financial costs.
Item and activity formats available in a
Moodle course include cloze (embedded answers,
dictations, short answer, and other fill-in-the-blanktasks), multiple choice and random short-answer
matching (for simple vocabulary tests). Using theseclose-ended questions, automatic assessment aswell as instant feedback can be possible. Giving
immediate feedback has great impact on new
millennial types of learners. Ubiquitous learning
makes it possible for students to study and learn attheir own paces, either at home or at school. The
close-ended question type of tasks may well beassigned as homework, if the answers areclose-ended or fixed, and general and common
feedback is possibly given. Meanwhile, language
teachers can spend more time focusing on morecreative, authentic, and language-use oriented
activities and providing more specific andindividualized feedback in class. Needless to say,
Moodle leads to the efficiency of our teachingactivities.
Open-ended questions and more creative
activities can be also carried out through the
Moodle formats, (i.e., chat, forum, journals,
workshop and online and offline text assignments).
Even in class, by using Moodle, we can provide
such productive activities as communicative tasks,
writing tasks, and note-taking. Teachers’
individualized comments and score-rating can begiven, and the assessment reports will be sent to
individual students. Learners’ learning histories andother educational resources are automaticallyaccumulated; therefore, teachers’ duties such asattendance, monitoring, portfolio assessment andevaluations may be facilitated by making effective
use of Moodle.

2. Moodle-based teaching strategies1
Let us turn to various kinds of potential strategies
for using Moodle. Since Moodle will facilitate ourteaching activities in e-learning environments. The
following strategies are discussed in turn: (1) To
minimize introduction and running costs, (2) topool items and share materials with colleagues, (3)to take advantage of authentic materials andactivities, (4) to provide immediate feedback andassessments, (5) to utilize various test forms anddifferent types of activities, (6) to keep track ofstudents’ activities and adjust your teachingaccordingly, (7) to make effective use of students’1

The word ‘strategy’ is used here in a general sense.

naturally occurring data.
Minimize introduction and running costs
Moodle is freely downloadable software, althoughcommercial software (especially if packaged withtechnical supports) may cost you enormous
amounts of money ranging from 1,000,000 yen to
10,000,000 yen (Hamaoka, 2006). Besides, Moodle
functions well on a Linux operation system, whichis also freely available on the Internet. Moreover, if
you effectively use materials on the Internet andmake electronic handouts, you can also cut down
paper costs. Students should be encouraged to save
what was learned in their own USB memories orother electronic media so that they can review itafterwards.
Pool items and share materials with colleagues
Each teacher surely has his/her own teaching points
or educational goals; therefore, some may like toproduce contents individually. However, Moodle
also allows teachers to work together as a team tocreate and share the contents. A noteworthy featureof Moodle is that each course developer or eachteacher can customize the items, contents, andactivities according to learners’ proficiency levels
or needs, and teachers’ goals or beliefs.
Educationally good items and materials should bereused, cloned and shared. Otherwise, one-shot
items and activities are quite wasteful. Moreover,item responses answered by many students can be
educationally and psychometrically valuable
resources.
Take advantage of authentic materials andactivities
Both controlled and authentic materials may beequally important in the context of language
learning and language use. Because Moodle
requires computers with internet access, we canmake full use of natural resources on the Internet.
Using naturally occurring texts, we can provide
scanning and skimming activities. Huge amounts ofsound and movie files give us a repertoire of morecreative and rather authentic learning activities.
Dudeney (2000) presents a wide variety of online
activities which can be usefully applied in practicallanguage teaching.
Bachman (1990) and Ellis (2003) put
forward the idea that both ‘interactional
authenticity’ and ‘situational authenticity’ areimportant in testing situations. Moodle ensuresinteractive activities by using chat formats.
My colleague in Korea and I administereda cross-cultural computer-mediated communication
project for a short period of time. (Korean students
are intermediate and Japanese students are false-intermediate.) According to their Moodle journals,
almost all students liked or appreciated theseopportunities for the genuine interactions. However,technically, at least 2GB random access memory isnecessary to ensure 50 persons’ concurrent chatting
activities.
Provide immediate feedback and adaptive
learning.
Prensky (2001a), who advocates digital game-basedlearning, reiterates the importance of immediate
feedback and constant stimulation in learning. By
the adaptive mode available in Moodle, students are
immediately informed whether the items areanswered correctly or incorrectly. Thus, accordingly,
students can make another attempt. Overall, thissort of dynamic learning or interactive assessment
seems to attract current students. Educational
feedback should be given as early as possible, sinceon-the-spot feedback may have the utmost impact
on students. Pronsky (2001b) states that ‘ourstudents have changed radically, and today’s
students are no longer the people our educational
system was designed to teach.’ Accordingly,
new-millennial language teachers may need to planteaching activities for students with millennial or
neo-millennial learning styles (Dede, 2005).
Utilize various test forms and different types ofactivities
As mentioned earlier, along with language
learning-oriented activities, (i.e., close-ended andopen-ended type of questions and tasks), morelanguage-use oriented, performance-based tasks are
possible through the formats of discussion forum,
text-chat and blogging systems. Balanced learningand teaching (i.e., accuracy vs. fluency, fluency vs.
intelligibility, language learning vs. language use,
production skills vs. reception skills) will benecessary when using Moodle in the classroom. We
can and should carefully monitor learners’ needs
and weaknesses and adjust our teaching contents,
dynamically.
Monitor students’ activities and adjust yourteaching accordingly
Moodle also provides statistical information of
items (i.e., item difficulty & item discrimination)
based on classical test theory. One of the teachers’
important jobs is to carefully adjust the levels oftasks as well as activities. If the tasks are too
difficult or not at all challenging, learners are liable
to be demotivated. In addition, if you encourage
students to study independently either at school or
at home, teachers need to assign attainable tasks.
Not only teachers but also students like tomonitor ‘history logs’. It is important for students tobecome responsible for their own learning. We hopeto gradually pass on the learning responsibility tolearners. Showing teachers’ active involvement andengagement is crucial in e-learning environments.
Make effective use of students’ naturally
occurring data
Students’ naturally occurring production data, suchas essay-writing, can be easily collected in Moodle.
If students regularly work on any writing tasks, (i.e.
if they constantly have a text communication via
Moodle,) learners’ developmental process can beobserved. Tsutsui (2001) describes the incremental
development in synchronous CMC data as shown intable 1 as well as in figure 1.
Table 1: Averaged MLU by sessions(adapted from Tsutsui 2001)

Japanese
students

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

4.88

5.66

5.66

5.97

5.9

6.42

6.94

5.35

6.18

6.06

7.04

6.99

7.19

7.62

5.12

5.92

5.86

6.5

6.45

6.81

7.28

(M=5.92)
Koreanstudents(M=6.63)ALL(M=6.28)

JP: y=0.2835x+4.787
KR: y=0.3481x+5.2408(R2=0.90)(R2=0.91)

Figure 1:MLU movements of Japanese and Korean university
students by sessions, (adapted from Tsutsui 2001)

Figure 1 represents Japanese and Korean
university students’ MLU (Mean length ofutterance) development by each session. Both
Korean and Japanese students are pre-advanced andadvanced students. This weekly chatting session
lasts about 45 minutes.
The two lines show in figure 1 are theapproximated regression lines, (x=the number ofsessions, y=MLU). Table 1 indicates that the meanvalues of students’ MLU increase as they engage incommunication. Since R2 of the two approximatedregression lines for Japanese and Korean students
show 0.90 and 0.91, respectively, it can be notedthat their MLUs are positively increasing andlinearly definable with high reliability.
We, language teachers, can take advantage ofa wide variety of Moodle testing facilities; however,in the language classroom, we have to try not to fill
the class with dull testing activities.

3. Moodle Workshop and Questionnaire
After Moodle is installed, language teachers need toknow how to use it. Thus, Moodle workshops need
to be held. During the workshops, teachers (1)register for the moodle site in creating a new
account, (2) experience Moodle formats in a model
course to see how it works, (3) create a new courseon their own, (4) create contents, and (5) learn somemanagement functions (e.g., how to share contents
with other teachers or how to upload users).
A questionnaire was conducted on 17
Japanese teachers of English in two different
universities in Japan. The 5 people out of 17
reported that they had ever used the system in theirteaching. The remaining 12 teachers participated ina 3-hour Moodle workshop and knew how the
Moodle system works.
The questionnaire consists of 12 items,
which query respondents as to what they (like to)use Moodle for. They were asked to mark one of thefour scaling options: (1) strongly disagree (2)disagree, (3) agree, and (4) strongly agree. The data
is analyzed by WINSTEPS 3.59 (Linacre, 2006).
Rasch person reliability is .70 and Rasch item
reliability is .72.
Table 2 shows the measure logits (as wellas mean values of raw scores), infit values andstandard errors of each item. The lower measurelogits are, the more endorsable items are. Therefore,
our participants like to use Moodle for in-classactivities (-1.40 logit, M=3.65) and for a quiz (-1.33,
M=3.67). On the other hand, some teachers think it
problematic to conduct exams by Moodle (1.62
logit, M=2.64), and Moodle may not cause students’motivation (1.0logit, M=2.88). The infit values are
an index of idiosyncrasy that the items yield. The
higher the values are, the more disagreement in
opinion there is among teachers. Since the t values
that exceed ±2 are regarded as misfit (McNamara,
1996), none of the 12 items are excluded in theanalysis. Standard errors (S.E.) indicate howerroneously the measure logits and infit values canbe estimated.
Figure 2 visually represents table 2. The
measure logits are plotted on y-axis, and infit values
on x-axis. S.E. is expressed in diameter.

Table 2: Questionnaire results (1):What do you (want to) use Moodle for?

Item #

LabelsItem 2For in-classactivities

Item 12To give a quiz

Item 4For review tasks

Measures(Mean ofRaw Scores)-1.40 logit(3.65)t Infit
Zstd

S.E.

1.52

0.50

-1.33
(3.67)

0.02

0.61

-0.73
(3.47)

-0.58

0.45

For a
communicationtool
For test
preparations(TOEIC or
TOEFL)
To provide
textbook-based
activities-0.37(3.36)

0.60

0.53

-0.34
(3.35)

-0.55

0.43

-0.34
(3.35)

-0.56

0.43

Item 10To increase thecompetence

0.01(3.24)

-1.65

0.42

Item 7

For a research tool

0.42
(3.09)

-0.24

0.50

0.62
(3.08)

1.35

0.49

0.84
(3.00)

0.54

0.40

Item 8Item 5Item 9Item 13

Item 3

To take attendance
and to monitor
students' records
For students tomake classpreparation
beforehand

Item 11

To motivate
students

1.00(2.88)

-1.21

0.40

Item 6

To conduct exams

1.62(2.64)

1.30

0.49

Mean

0.00
(3.23)

0.00

0.48

Figure 2: Questionnaire results (2)Language teachers working in Japanese
universities tend to endorse the Moodle-based
language learning and teaching. In particular, theywish to integrate Moodle activities in theirclassroom, although our findings cannot be
generalized since this study is based on asmall-scale research.

3. Conclusion
The introduction of the Moodle system in practicallanguage teaching contexts results in cost
reductions. In addition, because of its feature-richcharacteristics, our efficiency can be increased. Our
questionnaire results show an overall positive
outlook for the use of Moodle in EFL environments.
We believe this Moodle system can meet some of
the mounting needs from a wide variety of language
teachers as well as language learners.
Some concerns over Moodle are elicitedfrom language teachers in Japan. They are worth
addressing here: (1) If Moodle is used in class,in-class activities may be limited to computer-basedtasks. (2) Face-to-face communications will benecessary. (3) Students need tactile activities (e.g.,using paper and pencil). (4) I feel uncomfortable indrill learning. I agree with all the insightfulcomments. I do not simply call for a wider use of
the Moodle system. However, if this CMS is usedwisely and collaboratively, successful learning
environments can be built.
References
Bachman, L. (1990). Fundamental Considerationsin Language Testing. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Dede, C. (2005). Planning for Neomillennial
Learning Styles.
Educause Quarterly,No1. 7-12.
Dudeney, G. (2000). The Internet and the Language
Classroom.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press.
Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based Language Learning
and Teaching Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Hamaoka, Y. (2006). Let's Make Our Own Learning
Site in a Computer Laboratory. The English
Teachers’ Magazine, Vol.56 No4. 34-36.
Inoue, H., Okumura, H. & Nakata, T. (2006).
Moodle Nyumon, Moodle Handbook.
Tokyo: Kaibundo
Linacre, J. M. (2006). WINSTEPS Rasch
Measurement Computer Program. Chicago:
Winsteps.com.
McNamara, T. F. (1996). Measuring Second
Language Performance. London: Longman
Prensky, M. (2001a) Digital Game-based Learning.
New York:McGraw-Hill.
Prensky, M. (2001b). Digital Natives, Digital
Immigrants. On the Holizon. NCB
University Press, Vol.9, No.5
Tsutsui, E. (2001), The Measurement of L2
Learners’ Mean Length of Utterance inSynchronous
Computer-mediatedCommunication Data. Proceedings of the
6th Conference of Pan-Pacific Associationof Applied Linguistics, 61-64.

Sex difference in Kanji processing: a MEG study
Yoko Okita

International Student Center, Tokyo Medical and Dental University
yokita.isc@tmd.ac.jp

Abstract
This paper we report sex difference in Kanji(Chinese characters in Japanese) recognition using
mangetencepharography (MEG), a non-invasive
brain imaging technique. We found that somefemale participants’ brain activities showed adifferent pattern from a previously reported patternregardless of the female participants’ motherlanguage and learning Japanese history. MEG
Studies on English word recognition by English
native speakers showed that three magnetic fields,
M100, M170, and M250 are observed. However,four major magnetic responses were observed in
our four female participants. Precious studies onsex difference in Chinese character recognition by
Chinese native speakers claim that sex difference inChinese character recognition is due to more left
dominant phonological processing in the male brain.
However, our finding suggests that sex difference
might exist from graphic processing in Chinesecharacter recognition. Further, the four -response
pattern is found in 4 out of 32 female participants.
The four female participants were Japanese,
Chinese and Mongolian. This suggests that Kanji
recognition process vary considerably from aperson to person even in female regardless of theirmother languages.

Keywords
Sex difference, 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 to phonological analysis.
Figure 1 shows a representative MEG when Kanji
stimuli were passively presented to a male Chinese

native speaker. The three major responses, M100,
M170, and M250 were observed around the time
window 100-300ms post-stimulus. This example
replicated what Pylkkaen and Marant (2003) foundin English word recognition.
M100 M170 M250

Figure 1: A representative MEG from a male
Chinese native speaker who saw Kanji stimuli.
Studies on sex difference on Chinese character
recognition by Chinese native speakers ( Hsiao andShillcock, 2005; Hsiao, Shillcock and Lee, 2007)
claim that sex difference in Chinese character
recognition is due to more left dominantphonological processing in the male brain.
mangetencepharography (MEG). Hsiao, Shillcock
and Lee (2007) were based on the assumption thatthe left half of a Chinese character represents sound.
For example, four characters,青清請晴, share thesame pronunciation /chin/ in Chinese and 青 in 清
請晴 is a sound radical. However, most of Kanji
have two pronunciations, one is originated from
Chinese sounds and the other is from Japanesesound, unlike Chinese characters in Chinese.
Therefore, Hsiao, Shillcock and Lee (2007)’s claim
is not applicable for Kanji. In this paper, we willreport that sex difference appears to exit from theearly stage of visual recognition of Kanji.

1. Method
1.1 Participant
Our participants consist of college 56 (24 male,
32 female) students from a wide variety ofcountries, not only East Asian countries (Japan,

China, Korea) but also South east Asia, Arabic
countries, and South America. The mean ages ofthe male and female participants were25.7(SD=5.20) and 24.1 (SD=4.13), respectively.
1.2 Procedure
Visual stimuli consist of five groups, picture font, wrongd, Hangeul characters 마, pseudo Kanji
Kanji, and Real Kanji 神. Pseudo Kanji does
not exit but follows kanji graphic rules. In wrong
Kanji the positions of semantic and sound radicals
were inverted. Each stimulus (black letter withwhite background) was presented for 100ms
followed by blank (white background) for around 1
second. Each stimuli group had 80 items (total 400
items). Four hundred items were divided into 20
blocks. Each block consists of randomly arranged
20 stimuli. There was a 2 second resting time
between blocks. The participants were instructedto blink during the resting time. Neuromagnetic
data were recorded with Bti Magnes 2500, a
whole-head MEG system with 148 channels at asampling rate 254.31 H with high pass filter 1.0Hz、
and bandwidth 50Hz. After removing trials inwhich amplitudes exceeded 4000ft and filtered at
50Hz, the data were averaged by stimulus groups.
In this study we only report the result of real Kanji.

2

ResultIn our study, there are four cases in which four
magnetic responses, around M100, M130, M190,
and M250 were found. All four participants arefemale, one Japanese, two Chinese and one
Mongolian. The two Chinese participants wereadvanced learner and the Mongolian was a
beginning learner. Figure 2 shows a representative
MEG from a Chinese participant.
M100 M130 M190 M250

M100

M130

M190

M250

Male
FemaleFigure 3: The time course of current distributionchanges in the back brain. The darker area isblowing and the gray are is absorption of thecurrent flow.
In the female case the current flow changed
between both hemispheres rapidly (M130 – M190).
This might be related to the claim that twohemispheres are equally involved in woman inlanguage processing. Previous studies (e.g., Hsiao
and Shillcock, 2005) reported sex difference after
200ms stimulus onset. However, our data suggestthat sex difference does exist from the early visual
processing stage of words. Further, the four
response pattern was not found in all female
participants. Even among female, there are great
differences between individuals. Further studies
are necessary to confirm if this pattern is due to justindividual difference or sex difference.

3

Conclusion

There was a MEG response pattern, four not three
responses between 100-300ms after stimulus onsetthat was only found in woman. Precious studies
reported only sex differences in later phonologicaland semantic processing. This suggests that sex
difference might exist from the early visual
processing. There seems to be large individual
differences in word recognition processes.

500

fT 400

-0.10
-0.05
-0.01
0.04
0.09
0.14
0.18
0.23
0.28
0.32
0.37
0.42
0.47
0.51
0.56
0.61
0.65
0.70
0.75
0.80
0.84
0.89

300
200
100
0
-100
-200
-300
-400
-500

Latency (ms)Figure2: A representative MEG from a female
Chinese native speaker who saw Kanji stimuli.
Figure 3 shows the time course of current
distribution changes in the back brain of therepresentative participants. It seems that M190 in
the female participant is an additional response.

References
Hsiao, J.H., and Shillcock, R. (2005).
Fovealsplitting causes differential processingof Chinese orthography in the male andfemale brain. Brain Research: Cognition
Brain Research, 25(2), 531-536.
Hsiao, J.H., Shillcock, R., and Lee, C.Y. (2007).
Neural correlates of foveal splitting inreading: evidence from an ERP study ofChinese character recognition.
Neuropsychologia, 45(6), 1280-1292.
Pylkkänen, L., & Marantz, A. (2003). Tracking
the time course of word recognition with
MEG, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(5),187-189

Acquisition of English Vowel Contrasts by Native Korean
Speakers: The Effect of Perceptual Identification Training on
Production
Kyounghee Lee

Division of English Language and Literature, Hanyang University
mycaritas@hanyang.ac.kr

Abstract
This study examined the effect of identification
training on the perception and production ofEnglish vowel contrasts (/,/-/L/, /(/-/4/) by native
Korean speakers. Performance in perception andproduction was assessed before and after 2-weektraining. The results revealed that the trained group
showed significant improvement in perception,
which generalized to new words and new speakers.
Productions made at post-test by the trained groupwere more accurately identified by native English
listeners than those of the control group.
Subsequent acoustical analysis confirmed that F1
values of /,/ and /4/ and vowel duration of /,/became more native-like after training. These
results suggest that identification training was
effective in improving Korean subjects’ perception
and production of English vowels, and support theclaim that perception and production are directly
linked.

Keywords
Speech perception, L2 speech learning, English
vowel contrasts, identification training

1

Introduction

Earlier training studies have suggested thatperceptual mechanisms adopted to perceive
non-native contrasts could be modified throughshort-term laboratory training and retained longafter training. In addition, appropriate choice oftalker, stimulus variability, and training tasks were
found to affect the effectiveness of the training.
More recently, the transfer of perceptual
learning to production of non-native consonant
contrasts has been reported in several studies(Rochet, 1995; Bradlow et al., 1997) For the
training of non-native vowels, however, evidence oftransfer is not only limited but inconsistent; somehave observed an improvement in production (e.g.

Lambacher et al., 2005) while others have not (e.g.
Wang, 2002). This asymmetry may limit the claims
that can be made about the effect of perceptual
training on the production of non-native vowels.
To provide additional empirical evidence, thisstudy examined the effect of perceptual training on
the perception and production of English vowel
contrasts (/,/-/L/, /(/-/4/) by native speakers of
Korean. Based on previous studies, two things werehypothesized; first, perceptual identification
training may be effective in modifying non-native
speakers’ perceptual pattern; second, if perception
and production are linked in some ways,
improvement in perception would automatically betransferred to production.

2

Experiment 1

Experiment 1 examined the perception of English
vowel contrasts by Korean participants.
2.1
Methods
2.1.1
Subjects
The subjects were 15 native Korean speakers. Nine
subjects were assigned to the trained group and theremaining five to the control group. As first-year
undergraduate students at Hanyang University in
Korea, all of the subjects had studied English forabout 12 years, and their mean percentage of daily
use of English was less than 4% at the time oftesting. All subjects reported no history of speech or
hearing impairments.
2.1.2

StimuliEnglish minimal pairs that contrasted /,/-/L/ and/(/-/4/ were used in tests and training sessions. In
the pre/post-test 13 vowel pairs including six filler
stimuli were used. These were recorded by three
native English speakers. A total of 48 pairs of words
produced by additional five speakers were used in
the training sessions. The stimuli saved for thegeneralization tests consisted of 16 words used in2.1.3
Procedure
A two-alternative forced choice identification
procedure was adopted in the pre/post-test and two
tests of generalization. After the pretest, the trainedgroup participated in the 17 session identification
training during 2 weeks. The procedure was thesame as the one used in the test sessions except thatthe immediate feedback was given for each trial.
Each stimulus was played only once
immediately after orthographic representation (e.g.
set–sat) was given on the computer screen. The
order of stimulus presentation was counterbalanced
for half of the trials. The subject identified the token
by clicking the button labeled “1” for the left-sideword and “2” for the right-side word.
After a day’s training sessions were completed,a mini test was taken to check the daily
improvement. According to the result of the test,
subjects whose point was below 80% had to repeat
the previous sessions. Therefore, the number ofsession each subject completed a day was different
across the subjects, ranging from 2 to 4 sessions aday. A day’s training lasted about 50 minutes.
2.2
Results
The results of each perception tests are shown in
Figure 1 and Figure 2.

% Correct Identification

87 85
78

80

65

70
60

56

59 58

91 88

90

83 82

80

76

80
70

64

60

48

50
40

Pre
Post
GT1
GT2

30
20
10
0

/I/ - /i//İ/ - /æ/Figure 2: Mean % correct identification scores on
English vowel contrasts for the trained group

The identification accuracy of the two vowel
pairs was significantly improved only for the
trained groups [t=-4.450, p = 0.002 for /,/-/L/; t =-6.923, p < 0.0001 for /(/-/4/] with overall
improvement greater for /(/-/4/ contrast. In the two
tests of generalization, /,/-/L/ contrast was moreaccurately identified than /(/-/4/ contrast [t = 3.546,
p = 0.008 in GT 1; t = 2.636, p = 0.030 in GT 2].

3

Experiment 2

61

Pre
Post
GT1
GT2

50
40
30
20
10
0

Trained100

In Experiment 2, native English speakers assessed
the intelligibility of productions made by Koreanparticipants.

100
90

0.0001]. Paired t-tests showed that the trainedgroup’s improvement from the pretest (56%) to thepost-test (78%) was significant [t = -10.968, p <0.0001] whereas the control group’s improvement
was not [t = 0.277, p = 0.793]. In two generalization
tests, the trained group also performed better thanthe control group [F(1,13) = 17.080, p = 0.001].

% Correct Identification

the training session and 16 new words. The stimuli
for the generalization test 1 were recorded by two
familiar speakers, and the stimuli for thegeneralization test 2 by two novel speakers.

Control

Figure 1: Mean % correct identification scores for twogroups of Korean subjects in the perception tests.

A two-way repeated measures ANOVA was
performed with group (trained, control) as a
between factor, and test (pre, post) and vowel (high,low) as within-group factors. The analysis revealed
that there was a significant main effect of group[F(1,13) = 6.465, p = 0.025], an effect of test
[F(1,13) = 37.143, p < 0.0001], an effect of vowel[F(1,13) = 20.953, p = 0.001], and a significant
groupμtest interaction [F(1,13) = 43.267, p <3.1
Methods
3.1.1
Subjects
Eight native speakers of English served as listeners.
They were either ESL instructors at Hanyang
University or undergraduate students at Yonsei
University. The length of residence in Korea ranged
from 0.5 to 12 years with a mean of 6.1 years at thetime of recording. None of the subjects reported any
history of speech or hearing impairments.
3.1.2
Stimuli
The stimuli were 10 minimal pairs containing target
vowel contrasts as produced by Korean subjects at
pretest and post-test. The recordings were digitizedat a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz with a 16-bit
resolution on a desktop computer using Adobe
Audition 1.5 software. The digitized waveform files
were edited by separating the target word from thecarrier sentence.

3.1.3
Procedure
The procedure was the same as the one used in theperception tests. In eight test sessions, native
English listeners identified a total of 600 stimuli.
Each session contained productions made by thetwo subjects.
3.2
Results
The results are summarized in Figure 3 and Figure
4. A two-way repeated measures ANOVA withgroup as a between factor, and test and vowel as
within-group factors yielded a significant main
effect of group [F(1,13) = 13.610, p = 0.003], an
effect of test [F(1,13) = 11.917, p = 0.004], an effectof vowel [F(1,13) = 7.473, p = 0.017], and agroupμtest interaction[F(1,13) = 7.095, p = 0.019].

% Correct Identification

80
69
70
60

57

60

59

50

Pre
40

Post

30
20
10
0

TrainedControl

Figure 3: Mean % correct identification scores for NK
subjects' productions by NE listeners% Correct Identification

80
70
70

69

62

59

60
50

Pre
40

Post

30
20
10
0

/I/ - /i//İ/ - /æ/Figure 4: Mean % correct identification scores for the
trained subjects' productions of English vowel contrasts
made at post-test by NE listeners

The intelligibility scores of the trained group’s
productions significantly increased [t = -4.512, p =0.002]. For two vowel contrasts, significant
improvement was observed for the trained group [t= -4.116, p = 0.003; t = -2.905, p = 0.02]. Contrary
to the result of Experiment 1, improvement in the
production of two vowel contrasts showed nosignificant difference [t = 0.378, p = 0.715].

4

Acoustical Analysis

To further examine the effect of perceptual training
on the acoustic properties of vowel productions,vowel formants and duration were measured.
4.1
MethodStimuli used for measurement were bid/bead,sit/seat, head/had, set/sat, as produced by twogroups of Korean subjects at pretest and post-test
and by nine native English speakers. The
frequencies of F1, F2, and F3 were measured at the
midpoint of each vowel. Vowel duration wasmeasured by hand from dual spectrogram andwaveform displays. Formant values (in Hertz) wereconverted to Bark scale to normalize the speakers’
gender and age in vowel production.
4.2
Results
4.2.1
Formant Frequencies
The trained group outperformed the control groupin some vowel productions at post-test. Particularly,
F1 values of /,/ and /4/ became nearly native-like (t= -2.315, p = 0.027; t = -6.656, p = 0.000).
Although still far away from the native group’s, theF1 value of /L/ was also significantly improved (t =2.686, p = 0.011). These improvements suggest thattrained subjects became sensitive to spectral
differences through training so they may form new
categories for /,/ and /4/.
4.2.2

Vowel Duration and Duration Ratio

The mean durations of /,/, /L/ and /4/ produced by
two groups at pretest did not statistically differ fromthose of the native group; only the duration of /(/was significantly different (t = -3.913, p = 0.000 for
trained group; t = -3.760, p = 0.000 for control
group). The vowel duration ratio of the Korean
subjects was the same as that of the native group for/,/-/L/ pair but noticeably lower for /(/-/4/ pair.
After training, the trained group showed asignificant decrease in vowel duration of /,/ (t =4.595, p = 0.000), becoming nearly native-like.
However, the vowel duration either changed little asin /(/ or became longer than the native group’s as in/L/ and /4/. As a result of these changes, the trainedgroup’s duration ratio for the /,/-/L/ pair becamemuch longer than that of the native group. For the/(/-/4/ pair, however, the duration ratio became thesame as the native group’s value.

5

General Discussion

The results of this study replicate and confirm
previous findings (e.g. Yamada et al., 1998; Wang,
2002) that high variability identification training
was effective in modifying the perception of
non-native vowel contrasts, and that the
improvement generalized to new words and newspeakers.
The trained subjects’ improvement inproduction in terms of both intelligibility andacoustic properties provides additional empiricalevidence that perceptual learning can be transferred
to production without any explicit production
training. This result implies that perception andproduction are linked in some ways, as suggested ina previous study (Bradlow et al., 1997).
Several interesting findings were observed inthis study. First, trained subjects exhibited
performance and learning differences in theperception and production of two vowel contrasts.
At pretest, they showed higher identification
accuracy for /,/-/L/ contrast than for /(/-/4/ contrast.
It is possible that the Korean subjects’ perception
may have been influenced by the L2 teaching
method. As English /,/ and /L/ have been taught asshort and long vowel respectively, subjects may
have relied more on temporal difference thanspectral difference in identifying this contrast.
The performance inconsistency was not foundat perception post-test due to higher improvementin /(/-/4/ contrast. Considering this result, trained
subjects seem to have learned how to discriminate
vowel contrasts using spectral as well as the
temporal quality of vowels through training, which
was also observed in the acoustical analysis of
post-test productions; F1 values of /,/ and /4/ andvowel duration ratio were significantly improved.
Another finding is that despite performance andlearning differences, a significant correlation was
found between perception and production(Pearson’s rho = 0.754, p = 0.019). Different fromprevious findings (Bradlow et al., 1997; Wang,
2002), in this study, the improvement between twomodes was rather parallel, suggesting a close anddirect link between perception and production. This
result may be explained in terms of two speech
perception models, the Second Language Model(Flege, 1995a) and the Perceptual Assimilation
Model (Best, 1995). The basic premise of SLM saysthat production errors are related to perceptual
problems caused by mapping L2 sounds onto
instances of L1. If perception is improved throughlearning to perceive L2 phonetic properties,
therefore, a new phonetic category will beestablished, resulting in more accurate production.
From the perspective of PAM, the actual gestures
produced by vocal tract are directly detected inspeech. If attunement to the invariant gesturalfeatures of L2 is achieved through perceptual
learning, it would be directly reflected in
production.
It seems that the improvement of production
through short-term training is limited to the point

where native speakers can identify only a small
difference between native speakers’ and non-native
speakers’ productions. Nevertheless, considering
the limited number of hours spent in training, theeffect of perceptual training on production seems
quite encouraging. This has an importantpedagogicalimplication
where
short-tem,computer-based perceptual training can be used inan L2 teaching environment to correct and improve
L2 learners’ perception and production.
Further research is necessary to examine theeffect of production training as well as the effect ofperception and production training. This line ofresearch will suggest a more effective training
method and present a detailed picture of therelationship between perception and production.
References
Best, C. T. (1995). A direct realist view ofcross-language speech perception. In W.
Strange (Ed.), Speech perception andlinguistic
experience.
Issuesincross-language research (pp. 171-204).
Timonium, MD: York Press.
Bradlow, A. R., Pisoni, D. B., Akahane-Yamada, R.,& Tohkura, Y. (1997). Training Japaneselisteners to identify English /r/ and /l/: IV.
Some effects of perceptual learning on
speech production. Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America. 101,
2299-2310.
Flege, J. E. (1995a). Second language speechlearning: Theory, findings and problems. In
W. Strange (ed.), Speech perception andlinguistic
experience.
Issuesincross-language research (pp. 229-273).
Timonium, MD: York Press.
Lambacher, S., Martens, W., Kakehi, K.,
Marasinghe, C., & Molholt, G. (2005). The
effects of identification training on theidentification and production of American
English vowels by native speakers ofJapanese. Applied Psycholinguistics. 26 (2),227-247.
Rochet, B. L. (1995). Perception and production of
second-language speech sounds by adults.
In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech Perception and
Linguistic
Experience:Issuesin
Cross-Language Research (pp. 379-410).
Timonium, MD: York Press.
Wang, X. (2002). Training Mandarin andCantonese speakers to identify English
vowel contrasts: Long-term retention andeffects on production. PhD Dissertation.
Simon Fraser University. British Columbia,
Canada.

Methodological Considerations of Mental Lexicon Research:
Focusing on Representational Links among Lexical Entries
Naoki Sugino1, Simon Fraser2, Yuya Koga3, Naoki Sugimori1, Hirokatsu Kawashima4, and Chika Ikeda51
2
3

College of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University,

Center for Foreign Language Education and Research, Hiroshima University,

Department of Human Communication, Shukugawa Gakuin College, 4Department of English,
Nagasaki College of Foreign Languages, 5Faculty of Letters, Aichi Prefectural University
gwisno@is.ritsumei.ac.jp

Abstract
As a preliminary survey for a research project thataims at developing a learning/teaching tool which
visualizes the network relations among vocabulary
items, the present study reviews some models of themental lexicon, a learner’s structured knowledge ofthe vocabulary in a target language. In these models,the mental lexicon is conceived of as forming“networks” at each of the linguistic levels. In thisreview, particular focus will be placed on how these
networks are envisaged in each of the models, aswell as how the interrelatedness and/or “distances”
among the items in the network are determined.

Keywords
mental lexicon, network conceptions, vocabulary
learning

Introduction
It has been widely acknowledged that vocabulary
items are interrelated to form networks at various
linguistic levels in the mental lexicon. Such a
conception of the mental lexicon as a network (ofnetworks) has significant implications for foreign
language teaching and testing.
However, the network conception of the mental
lexicon has remained largely theoretical. To ourknowledge, vocabulary tests that directly assess thequalitative state of vocabulary knowledge are scarce.
Already proposed teaching tips are much lesssystematic than desired; the selection of vocabulary
included in word mapping, for example, depends on
the teacher’s subjective judgment and/or textbook
materials. From the learners’ perspective, very few
learning tools have been developed that enable
them to visualize the state of their mental lexicon,that is, how a word is known in relation to otherwords, and thus help them to confirm their progressin vocabulary learning.

As the preliminary survey of a research projectthat aims at developing such a learning tool, someaccounts and models will be reviewed with specialreference to the interrelation among lexical entries
in the learner’s mental lexicon. Such considerations
form a necessary first step toward developing tasks
that support (and assess) the network building
process in vocabulary acquisition in the target
language.

1
1.1

Models of the mental lexicon

The network conceptions of the mental
lexicon
Since Oldfield (1966) first proposed the idea of a“mental dictionary”, the storage system in the mind
has been likened variously to a thesaurus, anencyclopedia, and a computer. Nowadays, though,the metaphor of choice is that of a network, or“giant multidimensional cobweb”, as Aitchison(2003) puts it. Evidence that the mental lexicon is a
web of words connected to each other comeslargely from word association experiments. The
findings of such studies point toward both L1 andL2 lexicons being phonologically arranged. Accessappears to be primarily via phonological networks
for low proficiency learners and via semantic
networks for high proficiency learners.
Network theories draw on connectionist modelsof cognition (see, e.g., Bechtel & Abrahamsen,1991). These are broadly based on the structure of
the brain, with the terms “nodes” and “networks”
being used to represent neurons and synapses. It
seems likely that both semantic and phonological/
orthographical networks are organized this way,with the representation of a word involving
multifarious interconnections. Evidence that words
in the network are related meaningfully comes frompriming experiments, which have found that it takes

less time to identify a target word when it isimmediately preceded by a semantically related
word. Priming effects can also be found using
stimuli that are phonologically, orthographically, ormorphologically related (Taft, 1991).
1.2
Phonological/orthographical perspective
Aitchison (2003) states that “in general, words
which have similar beginnings, similar endings andsimilar rhythm are likely to be tightly bonded” (p.
146). This kind of general view of the clustering ofwords is deemed quite plausible both intuitively andexperientially. In this respect, although few
empirical studies have been conducted withJapanese EFL learners, the notion of “neighborhood
density” provides us with some insights into how
phonologically and orthographically similar words
are grouped together in the mental lexicon and how
the distances among them might be measured.
Neighborhood density refers to the number ofwords with minimal differences. That is, DATE,
GATE, HATE, LATE, MATE and other words with
-ATE are neighbors, and this group of words isregarded as having higher density compared toanother group of words, say, GAIT and WAIT.1
In psycholinguistic studies, it has been shownthat neighborhood density affects the efficiency oflexical access (Goldinger, Luce & Pisoni, 1989;
Cluff & Luce, 1990). In the lexical decision task
frequently used to test the neighborhood density
effect, the degree of closeness among neighbors is
not directly measured; however, it could be argued
that the degree of closeness can be seen in terms ofdifferential response latencies.
1.3
Syntactic perspective
The correspondence between syntax and lexicosemantics has for some time been one of theliveliest arenas for discussion in both first andsecond language acquisition and in language
processing (e.g., Pinker, 1989; Jackendoff, 1990;
Goldberg, 1995; Juffs, 1996). Investigations into thesubcategorization properties of verbs, and into theirprojections onto the surface structures, have leadresearchers to classify the verbs into several
subclasses whose members share common semantic
features and co-occurring argument structures.
However, it is widely acknowledged that eventhough a pair of verbs may be semantically similar,
one of them cannot be used in a construction inwhich the other can be used (e.g. Joe
told/*whispered Mary a story). Also recognized isthat, even in one subclass of verbs that can be used
1 Note here that though these two groups of words are
orthographically two distinct neighborhood groups, allthese words are phonological neighbors.

within a construction, some lexical idiosyncrasies
and different degrees of acceptability are observed.
In order to account for such cases, Goldberg (1995,
Ch. 5) proposes two learning mechanisms; toexplain the first cases, she claims that “every
construction
contrasts
with
every
other
construction” (p. 139), and therefore, the non-use of
the verb in a construction preferred in the context
entails it never co-occurring with the construction.
In order to explain the lexical idiosyncrasies, shefurther circumscribes the verbs in a subclass into
implicitly represented verb clusters, and based on
the usage-based model of language acquisition,
claims that the more members a cluster embraces,
the more productive the cluster will be.
Of particular relevance to the mental lexicon isthat, in Goldberg’s constructionist account, theverbs are grouped into subclasses or clusters, andthat these subclasses are interrelated with each otherat the level of argument structure construction.
Furthermore, it should also be noted that type
frequencies of verbs and of constructions areconceived of as the determinants of the “closeness”
among the members of the relevant networks.
1.4
Semantic perspective
One prevalent model of lexical representation isbased on the semantic network. This approachassumes that words which are semanticallyassociated with each other are represented in theform of a network, with activation spreading
through this network from presented words to theirassociated words in memory (Anderson, 1995). In
the hierarchical network model (Collins & Quillian,1969), semantic concepts of lexical entries
represented as nodes are interconnected to eachother in a hierarchy network structure. Broad
categories of concepts are subdivided into narrower
categories which in turn are subdivided into still
narrower categories. The degree of semanticinterrelatedness between lexical items is determinedby the number of the nodes between them.
Therefore, lexical access takes longer if the gap
between node levels is wider than others (semantic
distance effect), or if the number of lexical items ina category is greater than others (category size
effect). However, this model has been criticizedbecause, by assuming that all the lexical items in
one category belong to the same node level, it fails
to explain the typicality effect, and because thenumber of node levels do not necessarily reflect thedifficulty of semantic verification of lexical items.
The spreading activation model (Collins &Loftus, 1975) was proposed in order to overcome
these theoretical flaws. In this model, each node
represents a word and the length of the pathways(i.e. the distance between nodes) reflects theamount of conceptual relevance (semantic
similarity) between each word. In the hierarchicalnetwork model, it is assumed that connections
between concepts are based on logic. However, inthe spreading activation model, the connections are
not necessarily logical, but are based on personal
experience.
In research about the organization of semantic
lexical models, priming has been one of the mostwidely used experimental tasks. However, theresults are controversial, because in such research,
semantic relationships between words are not asclearly defined as associative ones which reflect
word use rather than word meaning (McNamara,
1992; Thompson-Schill, et al., 1998). Furthermore,
although many semantic priming studies have used
a lexical decision task, the results obtained fromthis task are not conclusive. More recent studies
consider, in pursuing the validity of semantic
lexical models, possible influences of theexperimental procedures and the processing
strategies used by the participants, such as
retrospective processing (Neely, et al., 1989) andprospective expectancy generation (Becker, 1980).
Another issue of semantic priming is theselection of the related prime-target pairs, and it
mainly concerns the degree of semantic similarity.
Studies have disagreed on the strength of thesemantic relationships between primes and targets,and have used various procedures to assess it. Some
used similarity rating tasks (Moss, et al., 1995;
Perea & Rosa, 2002), while other selected the pairs
based on their intuitions, which resulted in the
failure to find purely semantic priming effects. Thus,
it is necessary to establish a well-accepted methodin the selection of semantically related pairs, andsome databases of semantic features of English
words have been reported in recent years (McRae,
et al., 1997; Vinson & Viglicco, 2002).

2

Applications

The theoretical background to the mental lexicon
has had applications in many aspects of teachingpractice and materials and task design. Due tolimitations of space, only two of these applications,viz., application to the word association tasks andonline and/or electronic learner dictionaries, arereviewed here.
2.1
Word association tasks
The word association task is another frequently
employed tool for investigating the organization of
the mental lexicon of L2 learners. Three types ofword associations have been postulated:paradigmatic, syntagmatic, and clang associations.
Paradigmatic associations are words from the sameword class as the stimulus, which fulfill the samegrammatical function (dog–cat). This type of
association includes coordinates, subordinates, andsynonyms. Syntagmatic associations bear sequential
relationships to the stimulus, which are generally
from a different word class (hunt–dog). Clangassociations are responses which are phonologicallysimilar to the stimulus, and bear no semantic
connection to the stimulus (dog–log).
Researchers on word association by L2 learners
have shown that the type of word association
changes with the development of learner’s
proficiency level of English. Meara (1980, 1983)
detected that L2 learners’ association responses are
far less regular than native speakers’ and often
different from the type that would be given bynative speakers. However, as the proficiency of thelearner increases, their responses become similar to
those of native speakers. Söderman (1993) foundthat the number of paradigmatic associations was
positively related to the ESL students’ proficiency
level. Her study also shows that the number ofclang and syntagmatic associations tended todecrease, while that of paradigmatic associations
increased as the students had increasingly more
exposure to the second language. These results
provide evidence that shows organization of L2
words in mind changes as the student’s proficiencyof L2 increases.
2.2
Online and electronic dictionaries
Functions of cross-reference or lexical linking are
major features of online and electronic dictionaries
used in order to demonstrate the vocabulary
network. In many cases, the network is represented
by synonyms, antonyms and other related words,
and the word(s) at the nearest node displayed in amanner familiar to users of paper-based dictionaries.
On the other hand, some “visual” electronic
dictionaries can display a multitude of nodes andentries at the same time like a spider web. This web
is expandable, and the core word can be alteredwith ease by (double) clicking the word/phrases.
This sort of visualization of a semantic network
may correspond to the underlying mental
vocabulary web.
In addition, paper-based dictionaries andelectronic dictionaries can be distinguished by theorder of entries and the method used for searching.
Usually, in paper-based dictionaries, direction
words are lemmatized in alphabetical order andsearched. In electronic dictionaries, however, there
is no advantage in alphabetical ordering since thesearch method differs. The mental lexicon is notdesigned to be listed and searched like telephone
directory, either.

3

Discussion

The above review has shown that the networks ateach of the linguistic levels are quite different innature; interconnections among words are at times
formal, and at other times, conceptual. Seemingly, alearner can connect any words on the basis ofsimilarities of some kind, but clustering of verbs
requires collating the use of a verb with the context
in which it is used. Few standardized measures havebeen proposed to empirically evaluate the distancesamong the words in a network.
However, it would be safe to conclude that theconstruction of the networks is exemplar- or
usage-based. Future directions of our project will be
discussed in the poster presentation.
References
Aitchison, J. (2003). Words in the mind: An
introduction to the mental lexicon. (3rd ed.).
Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Anderson, J. R. (1995). Cognitive psychology andits implications. (4th ed.) New York: W. H.
Freeman.
Bechtel, W. & Abrahamsen, A. (1991).
Connectionism and the mind: An
introduction to parallel processing in
networks. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Becker, C. A. (1980). Semantic context effects invisual word recognition: An analysis ofsemantic strategies. Memory and Cognition,
8, 493-512.
Cluff, M. & Luce, P. (1990). Similarity
neighborhoods of spoken two-syllable
words: Retroactive effects on multiple
activation. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Perception and
Performance, 16, 551-563.
Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A
spreading-activation theory of semantic
processing. Psychological Review, 82,
407-428.
Collins, A. & Quillian, M. (1969). Retrieval timefrom semantic memory. Journal of Verbal
Learning and Verbal Behavior, 22, 88-104.
Goldberg, A. (1995). Constructions: A construction
grammar approach to argument structure.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Goldinger, S., Luce, P., & Pisoni, D. (1989).
Priming lexical neighbors of spoken words:
Effects of competition and inhibition.
Journal of Memory and Language, 28,
501-518.
Jackendoff, R. (1990). Semantic structures.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Juffs, A. (1996). Learnability and the lexicon:
Theories and second language acquisition
research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

McNamara, T. P. (1992). Priming and constraints it
places on theories of memory and retrieval.
Psychological Review, 99, 650-662.
McRae, K., Seidenberg, M. S., & de Sa, V. R.
(1997). On the nature and scope of featuralrepresentations of word meaning. Journalof Experimental Psychology: General, 126(2), 99-130.
Meara, P. (1980). Vocabulary acquisition: A
neglected aspect of language learning.
Language Teaching and Linguistics:
Abstracts, 13(4), 221-246.
Meara, P. (1983). Word associations in a foreign
language. Nottingham Linguistic Circular,11(2), 29-38.
Moss, H. E., Ostrin, R. K., Tyler, L. K., &Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (1995). Accessing
different types of lexical semantic
information: Evidence from priming.
Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21,863-883.
Neely, J. H., Keefe, D. E., & Ross, K. (1989).
Semantic priming in the lexical decisiontask: Roles of prospective prime-generated
expectancies and retrospective semantic
matching. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory, andCognition, 15, 1003-1019.
Oldfield, R.C. (1966). Things, words and the brain.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 18, 340-253.
Perea, M. & Rosa, E. (2002). The effects ofassociative and semantic priming in thelexical decision task. PsychologicalResearch, 66, 180-194.
Pinker, S. (1989). Learnability and cognition: The
acquisitionofargument
structure.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Söderman, T. (1993). Word associations of foreign
language learners and native speakers – A
shift in response type and its relevance for atheory of lexical development. In H.
Ringbom (ed.), Near-native proficiency inEnglish. Åbo: Åbo Akademi.
Taft, M. (1991). Reading and the mental lexicon.
Hove, UK: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Thompson-Schill, S. L., Kurtz, K. J., & Gabrieli, J.
D. E. (1998). Effects of semantic andassociative relatedness on automatic
priming. Journal of Memory and Language,38, 440-458.
Vinson, D. P. & Viglicco, G. (2002). A semantic
analysis of grammatical class impairments:
Semantic representations of object nouns,
action nouns and action verbs. Journal of
Neuro-linguistics, 15, 317-351.

Developmental Processes in L2 Acquisition of Japanese Learners ofEnglishNorifumi Ueda

Faculty of Foreign Language Studies, Mejiro University
uedan@mejiro.ac.jp

Abstract1This study investigates L2 vocabulary acquisition,
specifically the acquisition of three English
prepositions, on, in and at, by Japanese learners ofEnglish cross-sectionally.
We apply prototype
theory, semantic network and image schema in
cognitive linguistics to L2 vocabulary acquisitionand conducts two experiments to examine the threehypotheses: (1) prototypical meanings of the
English prepositions to Japanese EFL learners are
the same to native speakers of English.; (2) mental
representations in L 2 of Japanese learners ofEnglish come to be similar to those of native
speakers of English as they have studied English
longer, but they are not identical with those ofnative speakers of English; and (3) processes
predicted by prototype theory, such as gradedcategory and prototype effect, in cognitive
linguistics can be observed in the process of L2
acquisition.
The results support Hypothesis (1) (2) and (3),and imply that the various usages of the spatial
prepositions make a new category in L2 mental
lexicon, and that the extension of the meanings canbe explained by prototype theory and image
schemas.

1.1
Mental lexicon
The question of how the second language (L2)
vocabulary is acquired is a complex problem, notonly because the structure of the first language (L1)
mental lexicon is different from the L2 mental
lexicon, but also because the process of L2
vocabulary acquisition is different from that of L1
vocabulary acquisition. Many bilingual studies
using the measurement of reaction time support ahypothesis that restructuring occurs between
concepts and lexical items in the L2 learner’s
mental lexicon. (Kroll & Stewart 1994, Chen &Leung 1989, Cheung & Chen 1998)
In the studies on the L1 mental lexicon,
Kellerman (1979) and Sandra and Rice (1995) used
the Multidimensional scaling (MDS) to show themental representations of the meanings in a word in
the mental lexicon visually.
In this study, we examine how restructuring
will occur between concepts and meanings throughdevelopment in the L2 mental lexicon by MDS

Keywords
Developmental processes, L2, prototype theory,
English prepositions, semantic networks

Introduction
The question of how the second language (L2)
vocabulary is acquired is a complex problem, notonly because the structure of the first language (L1)
mental lexicon is different from the L2 mental
lexicon, but also because the process of L2
vocabulary acquisition is different from that of L1
vocabulary acquisition. In this study, we examine
the L2 mental lexicon based on prototype theory,using multidimensional scaling as research method.

Theoretical background

1.2
Prototype theory
Prototype theory explains the characteristics ofconceptual categories. (Rosch, 1975; Rosch &Mervis, 1975; Rosch et at., 1976) In this theory, aprototype is defined as the best example in a
category; that is, a member in a category which has
the most attributes in common with other membersof the category is considered the best example.
On the other hand, a member which has a few
attributes in common with other members of thecategory is thought of as the bad, or peripheral
example (Rosch 1975, Rosch & Mervis 1975,
Rosch et al. 1976). The characteristics of prototypes
are summarized as follows (Hatch & Brown 1995):
1.

2.
3.

Items judged to be typical members of aconcept can be categorized more efficiently
than atypical ones.
Typical members are learned first by children.
Prototypes are named first when subjects are4.

2

asked to give examples of members of aconcept.
Prototypes serve as cognitive reference points.

Previous studies

Ijaz (1986) examined differences in mental
representationsofmeanings
ofEnglishprepositional phrases between the native speakers
of English and EFL learners, using the MDS. Ijaz
claimed that the difference in responses to thesentences between native speakers of English and
ESL learners lies in the differential weighting of
semantic dimensions (in other words, image
schemas) in the corresponding meaning in L1 andL2. In the study, Ijaz concluded that ESL learners
are more similar to native speakers of English in the
prototype meaning and also that the prototype
meaning is easy for ESL learners to acquire, andthat even advanced ESL learners cannot acquire theidentical knowledge about meanings in L2 words.
Hayashi (2006) examined differences inunderstanding English preposition between native
speakers of English and Japanese EFL learners, andamong the Japanese EFL learners with different
English proficiency levels, using image schemas.
Hayashi’s study provides two main findings in L2
vocabulary acquisition: (1) prototypical meaning in
English prepositions is understood by Japanese EFL
learners in the same way as by native speakers ofEnglish; (2) it becomes more difficult for EFL
learners to acquire the meanings of prepositions
father from the prototypical meaning.

3

Experiments

3.1
Research hypotheses
We propose three hypotheses:1.

3.2
Experiment 1
The purpose of Experiment 1 was to examine (1)what usages of the three English prepositions, on, in,and at, will be produced by English native speakers
and Japanese learners of English at the threedifferent English levels, (2) whether any difference
would be found in the results between the groups,and (3)to identify what usage is considered to be a
prototype by the native speakers of English andJapanese learners of English.
3.3
ParticipantsParticipants were Japanese second language
learners of English from the three different
development levels in English: junior high school,
high school, and university students. Native
speakers of English also participated. Forty-one
Japanese junior high school students (mean age =14; range = 14-15) participated in the experiment as
the L2 beginners. Their mean period of studying
English (MPSE) was 2 years and 3 months.
Seventeen senior high school students (mean age =17; range = 17-18) participated as the L2
intermediates. Their MPSE was 5 years and 3
months.
The junior and senior high school
students were all boys. Thirty-nine university
students also participated as the L2 advanced (meanage = 20; range = 20-22; 20 males and 19 females),
who registered on a general English course, or an
essay writing course that the author is in charge ofat a university in Japan. They had studied English
for more than 7 years.
Twenty-three native
speakers of English (8 female and 15 male) also
participated (mean age = 32 years old; range = 19
-57). The native speakers were from the UK,
Ireland, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, andCanada. All of the participants were volunteers.

The prototype meanings of the English
prepositions are the same to Japanese EFL
learners as to the native speakers of English.
The mental representations of Japaneselearners of English in L 2 come to be similar to
those of native speakers of English as they
study English for longer, but they are not
identical with those of native speakers ofEnglish.
Processes predicted by prototype theory, suchas graded category and the prototype effect, in
cognitive linguistics can be observed in theprocess of L2 acquisition.

3.4
MethodParticipants were asked to freely generate fivesentences including the prepositions, on, in and at,
as soon as possible. Then, the obtained sentenceswere classified according to the four categories inusage: a spatial (S), temporal (T), abstract (A) andIdiomatic (I) usage Next, the classified data wereanalyzed in the following two ways: (1) to identify
which meanings are more often produced by the
subjects (frequency effect), and (2) to examine
which meanings first occurred to subjects(prototype effect).

This experiment examined these three hypotheses
through two experiments, Experiment 1 (thesentence generation test) and 2 (the MDS test).

3.5
Results in Experiment 1
We found that the Spatial usage in on, in and at was
mot frequently produced by all different groups.

2.

3.

4

Experiment 2

The purpose of Experiment 2 was to examine thatthe sentences above should be the center of thecategory of spatial meanings, from which othermeaning will be radiated; and that the configurationfrom the Japanese learners of English will become
more similar to that of .the native speakers ofEnglish as they have more study experience. (Wecannot show all the results and configurations here
because of limited space. So, we would like to show
only the results of the preposition, on, here.)

students and university students show a great
similarity with those of the native speakers ofEnglish than the Japanese junior high school
students. Also, the results of the Japanese highschool students are very similar to those of theJapanese university students.

on9

1.5

on8
on3
1.0

Dimension 2

4.1
Participants
Thirty-four native speakers of English, 26 males
and 8 females, voluntarily participated in theexperiment. Twenty-one Japanese junior highschool students (all male), 30 Japanese high school
students (all male), and 34 university students (18male and16 female) also participated voluntarily inthe experiment.

0.5
on1
on7

0.0

-0.5

on6
on2
on4

-1.0

on5

-1.5
-2.0

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

Figure1: The configuration of on from the Japanese
Junior High School Students.

on6
2

Dimension 2

4.3
Results
Figure 1 to 4 show the configurations of thetwo-dimension solution of the INDSCAL for on
from the Japanese junior high school students(Stress = .26619, RSQ = .46518), the Japanese highschool students (Stress = .20306, RSQ = .77661),
the Japanese university students (Stress = .18825,
RSQ = .81918), and the native speakers of English(Stress = .16334, RSQ = .86873). ‘on 1’ to ‘on 9’
represent the number of the stimulus sentences in
the list. The sentences from ‘on 1’ to ‘on 5’
contain the Spatial usage (S). And ‘on 1’( “The cup
is on the table”) contains the prototypical usage, S.
‘on 6’ and ‘on 7’ contain the Abstract usage (A);and ‘on 8’ and ‘on 9’, the Temporal usage (T),respectively.
In Figure 2 to 4, ‘on1’ to ‘on 4’, containing S,
tend to be plotted at one end along the axis ofDimension 1, whereas ‘on 8’ and ‘on 9’ with T areat the other end.
Hence, we can interpret
Dimension 1 as spatial – temporal. In Dimension
2, on the other hand, ‘on 6’ and ‘on 7’ were plottedat the one end, and ‘on 1’ and ‘on 2’, at the otherend along the axis. Therefore, we can interpret
Dimension 2 as concrete – abstract.
The results of the Japanese high school-1.5

Dimension 1

1

on7

on2
on4
0
on8
on9

on1 on3
-1

on5

-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

Dimension 1

Figure 2: The configuration of on from the JapaneseHigh School Students.

on6
2

Dimension 2

4.2
MethodThe participants were asked to compare each pair ofsentences, including the English prepositions, in, at,and on, in the list (The list consisted of 9 sentenceseach for on and at, and 10 sentences for in), and torate the similarity between them on a 7-point
scaling. The data was analyzed by INDSCAL of
MDS using SPSS for Windows Version 13.0.

on7

1

on2
on3

0

on8

on1
on9

on4
-1
on5

-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

Dimension 1

Figure3. The configuration of on from the Japanese
University Students

language learners of English come to be similar to
those of the native speakers of English: on thecontrary, development in understanding on
Concrete – Abstract dimension cannot be observed.

2
on9

Dimension 2

5

on8

on2

Conclusion

on1

on3

0

on4
on5
on7

on6
-2
-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

Dimension 1

Figure4: The configuration of on from the native
speakers of English.
We observe a distinctive difference between
the results of the L2 beginners and those of theother groups: the plots of the results from the L2
beginners are more widely spreading.
As in
Figure 2, 3, and 4, the sentences containing S (on 1,
2, 3, and 4) make a cluster, but not in Figure 1. The
sentences, on 8 and 9, are closely plotted in Figure
3, 4, and 5, but not in Figure 2.
We calculated Spearman’s rankcorrelation coefficient among the results of fourgroups. For Dimension 1, we found a significant
correlation in the results between the Japanesegroups: between the L2 beginners and the L2
intermediates (ρ = .767, p <.05); between the L2
beginners and the L2 advanced (ρ = .767, p <.05);
and between the L2 intermediates, and the L2
advanced. (ρ = 1.00, p <.01). The way of
distribution along Dimension 1 between the L2
intermediates and the L2 advanced was identical.
The high correlations were found between thenative speakers of English, and the Japanese groups.
The results of the L2 intermediates and the L2
advanced show higher correlations with those of thenative speakers of English (ρ = -.883, p<.01, in bothcases) than the L2 beginners (ρ = -.750). (Here we
obtained negative correlations between the native
speakers of English and the Japanese groups, but it
does not matter whether the correlations are
positive or negative in this case. This is because
positive or negative directionality come form therotation of axis to fit the INDSCAL model.)As for the correlation coefficients on
Dimension 2, we found the significant correlation
only between the L2 intermediates and the L2
advanced (ρ = .750*, p <.05), and there were no
significant correlations between the other pairs.
From the findings of on, we can assume that as thelearners have a longer study experience of English,
the mental representations of spatial - temporal
meanings in on among the Japanese second

From the results, we found (1) there is no differencein the prototype meaning between the Japanese EFL
learners and the native speakers of English; (2) as
they gain more experiences of studying English,
Japanese EFL learners’ mental representations ofEnglish prepositions come to be similar to those ofnative speakers of English, but cannot come to be
identical; and (3) the various usages of the spatial
prepositions create a new category in L2 mental
lexicon, and the extension of the meanings can be
explained by prototype theory and image schemas.
References
Chen, H. & Leung, Y. (1989). Patterns of lexical
processing in a nonnative language.
Journal of experimental Psychology
Learning, Memory and Cognition. Vol. 15.
No.2, 316-325
Hatch, E. M. and Brown, C. (1995). Vocabulary,
Semantics, and Language Education.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hayashi, M. (2001). The Acquisition of the
Prepositions “In” and “On” by Japaneselearners of English. JACET Bulletin, 33: 29- 42.
Ijaz, H. (1986). Linguistic and cognitive
determinats of lexical acquisition in asecond language. Language Learning, 36,
401- 451.
Kellerman, E. (1979). Transfer and non-transfer:where we are now. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition, 2, 37-59
Kroll, J. F. & Stewart, E (1994). Category interface
in translation and picture naming: evidence
for asymmetric connections between
bilingualmemoryrepresentations.
Journal of Memory and Language 33, 149– 174
Rosch, E. & Mervis, C. B. (1975). Family
resemblances: Studies in the internal
structure of category. Cognitive
Psychology, 7, 573-605.
Rosch, E., Mervis, C. B., Gray, W. D., Johnson, D.
M., & Boyes-Braem, B. (1976). Basic
Objects in Natural Categories.
Cognitive Psychology, 8, 382-439.
Sandra, D. and Rice, S. (1995). Network analysis of
prepositional meaning: Mirroring
whose mind – the linguist’s or the
languageuser’s?
Cognitive
Linguistics, 6-1, 89 – 130.

Theme-Based Cross Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL): (1)Social & Global Issues
Michiko Nakano1, Remi Murao1, Seiko Ito2, Mariko Yokota2,
Annette Karseras Sumi2, and Darren McDermott1

1

Waseda University, 2Waseda University International
nakanom@waseda.jp

Abstract
Theme-based Cross Cultural Distance Learning(CCDL) in 2008 deals with three issues: Social &Global Issues, Media and International Career Path
This presentation deals with Social & Global Issues.
This is a part of the collaborative joint cyberseminar among Asian Universities initiated by
Waseda University.
Waseda students areencouraged to take this CCDL course after they
complete Intermediate Tutorial English ( above
WeTEC score 733, TOEIC score 703). The main
purpose of this CCDL course is that Asian youths
should be able to discuss current problems in theworld in English and that they should offer theirown tentative solutions to the problems which may
be acceptable compromise among Asian students
whose world views are diverse. The specifictopics include Climate Change, NEET, Happiness
Factors (Co-existence in Asia seen fromindividuals), and Glocalization (balance between
Globalization and Local prosperity) this year. The
course also contains lessons on cross-culturalconcepts and transferable skills, some of which areillustrated in our presentation.

Keywords
Course Development, transferable skills, LMS,
theme-based CCDL

Introduction
Cross Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL) Project
which has been carried out by Waseda University
and its partner universities for the past three years
has now come to the stage of expanding the scopeof the program and specifying the theme of thecourse. One of the three renewed CCDL courses
which will be offered in 2008 is specially adapted
for learners who are willing to study and discuss thesocial and global issues. Living and working in a
global society occurs at micro interpersonal andmacro international levels. This requires us todevelop communication skills as we develop

relationships with people on a human 1-to-1 level,
and also to develop understanding of issues thatarise when countries have to collaborate ininternational and global issues such as climatechange. The objectives of this CCDL-Social &Global Issues course are to (a) motivate students tobe concerned about social/global issues and to
become autonomous learners, (b) have students
understand the perspectives of other countries
toward the certain social/global issues, (c) help
students to develop language skills for addressing
social/global issues, and (d) enhance students’interculturalcompetenceandemotional
intelligence.
The course takes up 6 topics that relate tosocial/global issues, where each topic consists of 5phases, namely self study 1, preparation lesson, self
study 2, joint lesson and reflection. In the self study
phase, students are encouraged to study
autonomously about the topic by using “Course
N@vi”, which is a learning management systemdeveloped by Waseda University. On-Demand
lectures given by Waseda professors combine withreading materials to provide students with input oneach topic. In the preparation lesson, importantconversation principles such as Grice's Maxims andPoliteness are included in a set of transferable skills
we refer to as "CCDL Skills". CCDL skills
development has emerged as a result of using thismethod of learning and communication over the last
4 years, and is now being standardized into a
specific skill set for the new theme-based CCDL
courses. Joint lesson is carried out by using a
PC-based webcam system called “LiveOn”, wherestudents from each university form groups of upto
six and have face to face discussion through theinternet. After having each joint lesson, students
will report in the “reflection sheet” what they havelearned about the other country.

1

Syllabus

In 2008, the participants are students at Waseda

University, Nam-Seoul University, Tangkang
University, Southern Taiwan University, Dalian
University of Technology, Dalian University ofForeign Languages, Dalian University ofCommunication. Due to the time lag and different
academic calendars, we have five joint lessons inthe spring semester and six in the fall semester.
The remaining lessons are carried out individually,
but all the students follow the same course contents.
Each topic is covered by the two lessons. The
joint course starts on the second topic and ends inthe sixth topic.
1. Welcome to CCDL Translation Equivalence
2. Course Introduction Ethnocentrism
3. Happiness Factors
Conversation Principles
Facilitation Skills
4.Relationship
Describe-Interpret-(Suspend)Evaluation
5. Climate Change
Reaching Agreement
6. Glocalization Indirect direct communication
7. Group Project Critical and reflective thinking
8. Presentation 1 Presentation
9. Presentation 2 Presentation
Six topics will be discussed during the course. We
will discuss one topic for two weeks. In the first
week, we will share some background knowledge(Preparation Lesson), and a week later, we will
discuss a topic (Joint Lesson). For each topic, thestudents are required to do the following.
1. Reading & Self-study: To be completed before
Preparation Lesson.
2. Self-study on Course N@vi BBS between
classes.
3. Reflection: To be completed after Joint
Lessons.
In the following sections, core concepts andtransferable skills are illustrated

Cross-Cultural competence2
Developing the ability to switch perspectives is oneof the most exciting aspects of Cross-Cultural
Distance Learning (CCDL). By encountering views
and opinions different from your own, you will
begin to develop a deeper self-awareness. In otherwords, you will become aware of your own“ethnocentrism”.
Gradually, we want toencourage you to develop a more “ethnorelative”
awareness. This means not just respecting others’
opinions, but also being able to understand why
others have different points of view and why theirvalues & choices may be different from your own.
It involves “suspending” our own values in order toenable us to put ourselves in others’ shoes. The
ability to accommodate or assimilate diverse

perspectives like this is what we call "Cross-culturalcompetence" so that you can solve a part of the real
problems in the incommensurable world; you cansuggest your own unique solution, howevertentative
it may be. In what follows, a brief explanation of
the core concepts is given.
2.1
Engaging Self-Introduction
Stand up and move around talking to different
students. Explain how and why your first namewas chosen and ask your classmates about their firstnames. Practice explaining in a way that overseas
students will understand. For instance, if you werenamed after an actor, overseas students may notknow the actor, you will have to explain what kindof actor the person was/is and why your parents
liked him/her. Once you can introduce yourself toother people in an interesting and informative way,
this skill can be useful for you all your life.
2.2

CCDL Concepts and Skills (1):Translation Equivalence
When explaining about your country and/or culture
in English you may come across some words orexpressions that are more difficult to communicate
than others. There are times when a literal (direct)
translation will not mean anything without someextra explanation. Here are examples of words
that are difficult to translate in another language.
How would you translate them to English?
<Japanese Examples>
1. 空気を読む 2. 以心伝心 3. いいかげん<Chinese Examples>
1. 面子 2. 心領神会 3. 窝心 4. 好不<Taiwanese examples>
1. MRT(Although this is an English word, students outsideof Taiwan do not know what it is)
No equivalent in your partner’s language?
Be prepared to deliver your message to someone
who does not have the same ‘common knowledge’as you. You may need to explain more than you
do to someone from your own background.
No equivalent in English?
The concept or expression may exist in yourpartner’s own language as well as your own
language, but it may be difficult to explain in
English.
Tips: Use 2 or 3 of the following strategies tohelp
1. Describe the situation or context in which it
occurs.
2. Rephrase the literal translation of theexpression (word-for-word meaning) so it
makes some sense in English
3. Describe it as a mixture between 2 or more

4.
5.
6.
7.
2.3

related things which you can name more easily.
Describe the feeling or mood that is associatedwith it.
Describe the outcome or result if itworks/happens/is used, or if it doesn’t/isn’t.
Give a few examples of the word in context, ina sentence it would naturally occur.
Draw it using the WhiteBoard function!

CCDL Concepts and Skills (3):Principles of Spoken Interaction- Grice’s
Maxims and Brown and Levinson’s
Politeness Theory
Our ability to communicate with one anothersuccessfully depends on general assumptions that
we all make as to what linguistic communication is
like, if it is to be successful. Current theory suggeststhat there are two main sets of such assumptions;the first is more to do with facilitating efficient
communication, the second with maintaining good
relationships.
• COOPERATIVENESS
There are certain basic pragmatic ‘rules’ which wefollow and which we assume our interlocutors arefollowing. It was to capture the essence of theserules that the philosopher Grice formulated his‘cooperative principle’ in the form of a set of‘maxims’:⇒ try to make your contribution one that is true
(maxim of quality)⇒ make your contribution as informative as isrequired (neither more nor less) (maxim ofquantity)⇒ make your contributions relevant (maxim of
relevance)⇒ avoid obscurity and ambiguity; be brief andorderly (maxim of manner).
These maxims are relevant to the CCDL
participants, in exchanging information. Someparticipants are verbose and wordy with full of
decorative expressions, which violates all the
maxims. Some participants are too eager to show
their fluency, resulting in many false starts andrepetitions. This also violates Grice’s maxims.
Try to give relevant and essential information in anorderly manner. This is our learners’ starting pointof CCDL discussion. Later, they can violate
maxims deliberately so as to produce special effects.
The effect of violation is that certain special kindsof meaning - implicatures - are created.
Implicatures play an important part in signalling
non-literal (e.g. indirect, metaphorical, ironic)
meanings.
When we obey Grice’s maxims too diligently,
one’s statement can be too direct to the extent ofbeing rude to your partner. If you think yourpartner’s pronunciation of English is bad, you might
say in accordance to Maxim of quality, ‘Your
pronunciation is unintelligible.’ This will hurt yourpartner’s feelings. So, you need to be tactful inpersonal matters. You need to master PolitenessPrinciples as well. R. Lakoff summed up the‘rules’ as follows:⇒ don’t impose⇒ give options⇒ make your receiver feel good.
Another way of looking at these rules is suggested
by Brown and Levinson through the notions ofpositive and negative ‘face.’⇒ Protect ‘negative face’ through strategies ofnegative politeness (for example, don’t make it
difficult to say no)⇒Attend to ‘positive face’ through strategies of
positive politeness (for example by being respectful
and giving compliments).
It should not be surprising that ‘tact’ is often in
conflict with ‘cooperativeness’. The desire not tohurt someone’s feelings, for example, may be inconflict with the requirement to tell the truth: see
On-demand Video by Hugh Trappes-Lomax (2005).
2.4

CCDL Concepts and Skills (4):
Indirect/High Context Culture vsDirect/Low Context Culture andIndirect mode of speech vs Direct modeof speech
Indirect vs direct mode of speech relates to
implicatures mentioned in Section 2.3. It is
important for the CCDL participants to acquire
these skills. There is another dimension to this
distinction.
Indirect / High Context: Culture
People in these cultures tend to infer, suggest andimply rather than say things directly. At least that is
how they appear to people from more
direct/low-context cultures—though not, of course,
to each other. These cultures tend to be morecollectivist, where harmony and saving face are thegreatest goods; hence there is a natural tendency
toward indirectness and away from confrontation.
In collectivist cultures, in-groups are wellestablished and members have developed an
intuitive understanding of each other, in part
because the culture has a long history. This meansthat as a rule people do not need to spell things out
or say very much to get their message across. This
shared understanding is known as context, and in
high-context cultures messages often do not evenneed words to be expressed; nonverbal
communication may be enough, or the message

may be expressed in terms of what is not said ordone. The goal of most communication exchanges
is preserving and strengthening the relationshipwith the other person.
Direct/Low Context Culture:
Direct cultures tend to be less collectivist, with lesswell-developed in-groups, and more individualist
than indirect cultures. People lead more
independent lives and have fewer sharedexperiences; hence, there is less empathic
understanding of others. People need to spell things
out and be more explicit; to say exactly what theymean rather than merely suggest or imply. There isless context; less that can be taken for granted. The
spoken word carries most of the meaning; youshould not read anything into what is not said ordone. The goal of most communication exchanges
is getting or giving information.
No culture, of course will be exclusively direct orindirect- all cultures will have elements of bothpoles but many cultures tend to be more one thanthe other. As always, personal differences will alsocome into play, along with circumstances. On thewhole, however, you should expect to find mostindividuals on the same side of the continuum as
their culture in general. Going back to the
distinction of indirect vs direct mode of speech, ourlearners learn such implicature as, “That is a very
interesting viewpoint”; Implicature is “I don’t
completely agree. We need to talk more about
this. I see things very differently.”
2.5

CCDL Concepts and Skills (5): Reaching
Agreement
There are various ways of arriving at an agreement
when 2 (or more) people or groups are involved:
Submission style, Compromise style, Evasive style
and Consensus style.
(1) Submission style: Allowing another person orgroup to have authority to make decisions or being
willing to hand over control.
(2) Compromise style: An agreement in which
both (or all) sides make a concession by agreeing toaccept less than they originally wanted.
(3) Evasive style: To intentionally avoid dealing
directly with something, especially for strategic
purposes(4) Consensus style: Absence of conflict amongst
all members and general feeling of sharedagreement.
2.6

CCDL Concepts and Skills (6): Describe,Interpret and Evaluation (DIE)This is discussed in Media Presentation.

2.7

CCDL Concepts and Skills (7):Research
MethodTry to gather information from a variety of sources
to make your research valid. It is important totriangulate the information, having different sources.
Therefore, do not gather information from a single
website/newspaper or book. Do not just go to
Wikipaedia! Combine several sources such as:
 Generally available Internet websites
 Academic databases/search engines(usually access via your librarywebsite ON CAMPUS network) Books and academic journals in yourlibrary Newspapers and magazines Survey results
At least ONE source must be an Academic
database/search engineA) Evaluating sources
It is easy to go online and type in keywords to findwhat you are looking for. BUT, because somethingcomes up first on the search engine like yahoo or
google, does not mean that the information is valid.
You need to judge whether the sources are credible
if you are referring to a text (website, newspapers,
books, etc). Use these factors to assess thecredibility of the articles your group members
brought to class. Factors you should consider are:
Authority: Is the writer of the source an expert?
Purpose: Does the source want to inform you or
persuade you?
Audience: Who is the audience? Is it written forexperts? Children?
Currency: Is the information recent?
Quality: Is the language objective?
Accuracy: For factual information, can the same
information be found in other sources?
When you decide to use information from a written
text, keep a record of the source (note where you
got the information: the title, the author’s name anddate of publication) and mention the source in yourpresentation.
Selected References
Brown, P., and Levinson, S. C. (1978). Politeness:some universals in language usage.
Cambridge University Press.
Grice, H. P. (1975). ‘Logic and conversation’, inCole, P. And Morgan, J. L. (Eds). Syntax
and semantics 3 : Speech Acts. New
York: Academic Press. pp 41-58.
Grice, H. P. (1989). Studies in the Way of Words.
Harvard University Press.
Nakano, M. et al. (2005). CCDL Teachers’ Manual.
Waseda University Media Mix.
Trappes-Lomax, H. (2005) On-deTheme-Based Cross Cultural Distance Learning:(2) Media
Michiko Nakano1, Mariko Yokota2, Annette Karseras Sumi2,
Remi Murao1, Darren McDermott1, and Seiko Ito2

1

Waseda University, 2Waseda University International

nakanom@waseda.jp, yokota@w-int.net, alksumi@yahoo.co.uk,
murao@aoni.waseda.jp, darren.mcdermott@fuji.waseda.jp,
s.ito2@kurenai.waseda.jp,

Abstract
Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL) is a joint
seminar that is offered by two universities using an
Internet video-conferencing system.
Students
from two universities in different countries discussvarious topics in small groups after some
preparation in class. From 2008, CCDL courses will
be divided into three separate courses according to
the specific themes to be discussed.
In this paper, course schedules and contents of
CCDL-Media course are illustrated. The Internet
video-conferencing system which is used for joint
discussion is also described in detail. CCDL courses
not only give students opportunity to use English tocommunicate with students in other countries but
also develop students’ transferable skills, which areadaptable generic skills for life and work. In thispaper, we describe how facilitation skills, researchskills, and the concept of high and low context
communication are introduced in class.

Keywords
CCDL, Course Development, Facilitation Skills,
Research Skills, High & Low Context
Communication

Introduction
The Cross Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL)
course at Waseda University is now in its fourthyear and has been subject to a process of continuous
development. The renewed theme-based CCDL
courses which will be offered in 2008 have beendeveloped reflecting the comment and feedback
from teachers and students who have taken part inprevious courses. By analyzing students’ topic
preferences, one of the new CCDL courses is
specially designed for dealing with the topic ofmass media. Mass media are often mirrors ofsociety and public opinion, but at the same time

people are subconsciously influenced by them. One
major objective of this CCDL-Media course is tohave our students break the stereotypes of country
images given by the media, and have them redefine
images of their partner country in ways that are
acceptable and recognizable to their counterparts at
the partner university. Students will also learn tothink critically about media sources and their
credibility, and to be aware of unreliable sources of
information.
Setting students’ sights beyond the end of thecourse links closely with another CCDL aim, whichis to encourage students to develop as autonomous
learners. Reflection worksheets and the BBS entries
are written after each ‘Joint Lesson’ with the partner
university. Both of these work towards motivating
students to find intrinsic value in studying. Such
unstructured learning environments encourage
students to identify with the CCDL material in theirown terms. During the course, activities anddiscussions are autonomously managed by thestudents through taking turns in the role offacilitator.
CCDL tips, skills and concepts are introduced
throughout the course to help students become
better, more sophisticated communicators. Manyof the skills they will learn apply not just tocommunication in English but to communication in
any language. They are generic, transferable skills
that can be usefully adapted to a range of situations
outside the classroom. CCDL Skills will help
students make the most of the CCDL course but
will also help them in life and work in the future.
In this paper, first the course schedule of the
CCDL-Media course is introduced. Next a brief
explanation is given of the LiveOn system, anInternet video-conferencing system used in ‘Joint
Lessons’. Thirdly, the concept of high and low
context communication and two of the importantCCDL skills, specifically facilitation skills andresearch skills are described.

1

Course Schedule

The CCDL-Media course comprises of 6 topics that
relate to mass media. Students will discuss the same
topic for two weeks; the first week is for discussion
among their own university classmates (Preparation
Lesson), and the second week is for discussion withthe partner university students (Joint Lesson). Table
1 shows the course schedule and the topics.
During the first half of the course (Topics 1-3)
there is a high degree of overlap between
preparation and joint lessons. This gives students
time to practice language-related expressions in aface-to-face setting with home-country students,
making them more resilient to additional challenges
created by the “noise” of the technology interface
compounded by unfamiliar accents. By the second
half of the course (Topics 4-6), students become
accustomed to the ‘lower context’ environment
created by the technology interface and are able togo deeper with their discussions and to undertake
more sophisticated activities. For the detailed
information of the lesson procedure, refer to
Theme-based CCDL: (3) International Career Pathin the present proceedings.

differently, recognizing the stereotyped view givenby the media. In Topic 5, front page news of several
newspapers is compared. Students will discuss how
the same news is conveyed differently in different
cultures. In Topic 6, students decide their own
discussion topics for a group project.

2

LiveOn system

The ‘Joint Lesson’ is conducted using an Internet
video-conferencing system called LiveOn (Figure 1).
Three students from each university, a maximum 6
students in total, will be assigned to one Chat Room.
One student per Chat Room will be taking the roleof facilitator during all group work. Instructors cansilently move in and out of Chat Rooms to monitor
students’ conversations. During the introduction
Preparation Lessons, instructors can keep theircamera on and talk to students as they drop in
occasionally to see how students are doing.

Table 1: Course Schedule & Topics
LessonnumberTopic

1

Generic Introduction

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

Topic 1:
Welcome to CCDL
Topic 2:Advertisement
Topic 3:
Gender Image
Topic 4:
Country Image
Topic 5:
Front page news
Topic 6:
Group Project

Lesson style
Individual
LessonPreparation
Joint
Preparation
Joint
Preparation
Joint
Preparation
Joint
Preparation
Joint
Preparation
Joint

In Topic 1, students are introduced to fundamental
aspects of CCDL such as international English,
ethnocentrism, and the use of LiveOn system (referto the next section). In Topic 2, students compare
advertising techniques, and have discussions on
subconscious influences of advertising. Topic 3 andTopic 4 deal with gender image and country image
given by the media. Students find out how theimage of gender and countries are perceived

Figure 1: LiveOn system
The LiveOn system has many useful functions
to support the discussion such as document sharing
system, desktop sharing system, White Board, Text
Box chat, and File Transfer system to name but afew. If the sound quality is too bad to continue thediscussion, students can use the Text Box as themain tool. Students can also make use of the Text
Box to reinforce the clarity of their message. The
Text Box is helpful when a) students are not sure
about the pronunciation of words in English, b)
when other group members do not seem tounderstand what the student said, and c) when thegroup members want to keep a record of key points.
The facilitator will also start off, or change thetopic of discussions by writing the discussion
questions into the Text Box. White Board can beused when students want to illustrate something. Ifthey have difficulty explaining something, they can
simply draw it. At the end of each session, students
save the Text Box and White Board to keep as arecord.

3

CCDL Skills & Concepts

In the ‘Preparation Lesson’, students are introduced

to CCDL skills and concepts. CCDL skills aremainly concerned with the process ofcommunication and understanding meaning, notjust vocabulary. The examples of these skills are
facilitation skills and conversation management
skills to name a few. CCDL concepts are introduced
to raise students’ awareness about culture andcommunication at a deeper level than simply‘speaking English’. Ethno-relativism and risk
orientations are two of these concepts.
In the following section, the concept of high andlow context communication, facilitation skills, andresearch skills are described in detail. For the rest of
the skills and concepts, refer to “Theme-based
CCDL: (1) Social & global Issue” and“Theme-based CCDL: (3) International CareerPath” in the present proceedings.
3.1
High and low context communication"Context" refers to the situation in a communication
setting and includes everything surrounding theverbal message such as a) sensory perception andawareness of the interlocutor's nonverbal
communications, b) sensory perception of theperipheral surrounding environment, c) knowledgeof the speaker's personal life history, family
background, acquaintances, education, employer,
etc., and d) assumptions about the speaker based on
the combined sensory awareness and backgroundknowledge.
High context cultures have high awareness andability to make assumptions or informed guesses,
low context cultures are less sensitive to contextual
information and/or place less priority on thesechannels of communication. Direct verbal messages
are necessary in low context environments such as
those that are mediated by technology interface.
The technology interface prevents us from being
able to pick up on as many nonverbal cues as areavailable during face-to-face communication. The
lack of nonverbal cues reduces our ability to usehigh context communication. This is why the roleof facilitator described in the following section isextremely important in CCDL.
3.2
Facilitation Skills
Facilitating is one of the core CCDL skills thatstudents have the opportunity to develop during thecourse. All students take turns facilitating activities
and discussions. Students learn how to facilitate bya) observing others facilitate, b) experiencing beinga participant 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 between people
with different
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
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.

Being the engine/cooking oil in the system;
helping things go smoothly; stopping thingsfrom 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 same time.
Directing discussion by calling on individual
people by name.

8.

Typing in key words in the TextBox.
Table 2: Factors of Source Evaluation

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.
3.3
Research Skills
Since it demands autonomy and familiarity with theenvironment, the topics that require students to doresearch are placed at the second half of the course(Topics 4-6). Students are instructed to gather
information from a variety of sources to make theirresearch valid. It is important to let the students
triangulate the information with different sources,
because they tend to gather information from asingle website such as Wikipedia.
The following are the recommended sources forstudents.
• Generally available internet websites• Academic databases/search engines (usuallyaccess via the library website ON CAMPUS
network)• Books and academic journals in the library• Newspapers and magazines• Survey results
If the articles that students found were in theirnative language, they would have to translatetechnical terms and tricky expressions in English
and be prepared to speak about it in English.
3.3.1
Evaluating Sources
It is easy for students to go online and type in
keywords to find what they are looking for.
Although something that comes up first on a searchengine like Yahoo or Google is not necessarily valid.
Students tend to simply adopt the information theysee first. They need to be able to judge whether thesources are credible if they are referring to a text.
Table 2 shows the factors introduced to the students
to assess the credibility of the articles that the groupmembers bring to class.

Authority
PurposeAudience
Currency
Quality
Accuracy

Is the writer of the source an expert?
Does the source want to inform you or
persuade you?
Who is the audience? Is it written forexperts? Children?
Is the information recent?
Is the language objective?
For factual information, can the same
information be found in other sources?

When they decide to use information from a written
text, students are told to keep a reference of thesource such as where they got the information, thetitle, the author’s name, and date of publication.

4

Conclusion

Developing the skills and awareness necessary tocommunicate with people from various cultures
around the globe stimulates college students’interests and enriches their learning experiences.
CCDL is a program which enhances students’inter-cultural or cross-cultural awareness, andincreases mutual understanding among Asian
countries. In addition to negotiating cultural issues,
we must also be prepared to negotiate the logistics
of distance communication: to communicate inspite of time differences and irrespective of thevarious barriers to communication that technology
can present us with. In order to communicate acrosscultures and geography we need an ever wider
repertoire of communicative and cognitive styles
and the ability to adapt according to the situation.
References
Nakano, M. (2006). Inter-university collaboratoins:
Global literacy education and cross-culturalcompetence. Proceedings of APRU DLI
2006.
Nakano M., Ueda, N., Owada, K., Oya, M., Tsutsui,E., Negishi, J., Yoshimoto, M., & Kondo, Y.
(2005). Networked English language
education at Waseda University: Toward
creating Asian-Pacific Intelligence (1).
Proceedings of the 10th Conference of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, 161-172.

Theme-Based Cross Cultural Distance Learning:(3) International Career Path
Michiko Nakano1, Annette Karseras Sumi2, Remi Murao1,
Mariko Yokota2, Seiko Ito2, and Darren McDermott1

1

Waseda University, 2Waseda University International

nakanom@waseda.jp, alksumi@yahoo.co.uk, murao@aoni.waseda.jp,
yokota@w-int.net, s.ito2@kurenai.waseda.jp,
darren.mcdermott@fuji.waseda.jp

Abstract
The CCDL-International Career Path course, which
will be offered by Waseda University and its partner
universities from 2008, aims to prepare students toenter an international arena as 'global players'. This
course covers 6 topics that relate to controversial
issues of business such as ‘distribution of rewards’and ‘work life balance’, and students will learn toreach agreement or to negotiate these issues by
having discussions with partner university students.
Students will also learn how people from different
cultural backgrounds cope differently with businessissues, which enables them to recognize their own
cultural values. In this paper, overall flow of thecourse and CCDL skills and concepts will be
described.

Keywords
Course Development, CCDL,
Business, Skills and Concepts

International

through foreign investment capital, to work for a
multinational in order to be a part of big impact
projects, or to use English for international tradingfrom a home-country company.
Based on this survey result, one of the three
CCDL courses which will be offered from 2008
was specially designed for students wanting tostudy English for business purpose. In this paper theoverall course structure of the theme-based CCDL
and specific content of International Career Pathcourse will be described.

1

Course Structure

The CCDL-International Career Path course deals
with 6 topics on business issues. Each topic is
discussed for two weeks. During the first week,
students share ideas on the topic among classmatesfrom their own university (Preparation Lesson), andthe following week, students discuss the topic withoverseas students (Joint Lesson).

Introduction

Table 1: Course Structure & Topics

Economic globalization and advanced IT
technology make communicating with people
whose background is different from our own
inevitable. In order to succeed as part of the global
workforce, it is important to be open-minded to thedifferences between cultures. This requires us also
to develop a heightened awareness of our own
perspectives and the cultural values that underpin
them.
Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL) is a
joint seminar that is offered by two universities atundergraduate level using Internet. Students fromtwo universities discuss various topics in small
groups after some preparation in class. Student
feedback surveys from the previous CCDL course
showed that students are willing to use their English
to take part in the international community fromtheir home country, working for a firm established

LessonnumberTopic

1

Generic Introduction

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

Topic 1:
Welcome to CCDL
Topic 2: Distributionof rewards
Topic 3:
Entrepreneurs
Topic 4:
Job interviews
Topic 5:Work Life balance
Topic 6:
Group Project

Lesson style
Individual
LessonPreparation
Joint
Preparation
Joint
Preparation
Joint
Preparation
Joint
Preparation
Joint
Preparation
JointBefore each lesson, students are encouraged to do‘Self-Study’ on Course N@vi, a Learning
Management System developed by Waseda
University. After having the ‘Joint Lesson’, students
report in a ‘Reflection Sheet’ what they havelearned from discussion with their counterparts atthe overseas partner university. The overall flow of
the course will be 1) Self-Study 1, 2) Preparation
Lesson, 3) Self-Study 2, 4) Joint Lesson, and 5)
Reflection. Table 1 shows the structure of thiscourse and the 6 topics being dealt with.

2

Self-Study 1

2.1
Reading
In order to give students some backgroundknowledge as well as the language input specific to
the topic, reading materials were gathered fromnewspapers and academic articles. Some of thereading materials were written by a member of our
CCDL project team so that the content would best
match the topic. After getting the copyright license,
reading materials were uploaded on Course N@vi
togetherwithvocabularychecksandcomprehension questions. Students complete thereadings before the preparation lesson.
2.2
On-demand Lecture
Since theme-based CCDL is ultimately aiming forstudents to be able to discuss their professions inEnglish, on-demand lectures were given byprofessors in the Faculty of Commerce at Waseda
University, one of whom specializes inentrepreneurship and entrepreneurial finance. The
lectures were 20~30 minutes long, and students
must complete comprehension questions after
listening to the lecture at home.
2.3
Discussion Preparation
When starting to discuss a controversial topic, there
needs to be a personal buy-in or a personalconnection to the topic. For ‘Self-Study 1’, a list of
personal buy-in questions for the topic is given to
students. The following are a few examples of thesequestions from the topic ‘Entrepreneurs’.
[Examples of personal buy-in questions](a) Do you think you have what it takes to be agood entrepreneur? Why or why not?
(b) Would you prefer to start up your own business(be an entrepreneur and create your own
company) or working for an establishedcompany (be an employee)?
(c) There are different types of risks involved instarting your won business and working in an
established company. What kinds of risk can

you think of in relation to your answer (b)above?

3

Preparation Lesson

3.1
Skills and Concepts
In the preparation lesson, CCDL tips, skills andconcepts are introduced to help students become
better, more sophisticated communicators. Many of
the skills they will learn apply not only tocommunication in English but also tocommunication in any language. They are generic,transferable skills that can be usefully adapted to arange of situations beyond the end of the course.
CCDL skills will help students make the most of the
CCDL course but these will also help them in life
and work in the future. There are 15 or more skills
and concepts introduced throughout the course, buthere we will explain four of which are especiallyconcerned with international business, which are 1)
reaching agreement, 2) risk orientation, 3)
emotional intelligence, and 4) social intelligence.
As for the remaining skills and concepts, refer to“Theme-based CCDL: (1) Social & Global Issues”,
and “Theme-based CCDL: (2) Media” of thepresent proceedings.
3.1.1
Reaching Agreement
Ways of reaching agreement is one of thefundamental principles of the CCDL course toenhance mutual understanding across the East
Asian region. There are various ways of arriving at
an agreement when two or more people or groups
are involved. Students are introduced to different
styles of agreement such as a) submission style, b)
compromise style, c) evasion style, d) consensus
style, and they are also introduced to activities
which develop their joint decision making andnegotiating skills. These are key to developing such
understanding in life and work beyond theclassroom. During the second half of the course,
students come to understand the strengths andweaknesses of the 4 different styles of agreement.
3.1.2
Risk Orientation
Research has shown that some cultures and people
seem to enjoy risk and change, while other culturesand people prefer stability over change (Gudykunst& Nishida, 2001; Hofstede, 1980; Singh & Matsuo,
2004). It is said that countries like Canada,
Australia, the UK, and the United States havegreater tolerance for ambiguity and risky situations,whereas countries like Greece, Japan, and Mexico
value security and low-risk situations. The conceptof risk orientation is introduced in connection to the
topic of ‘Entrepreneur’. Students will find out
whether they are more of a risk taker orconservative individual by scoring a list of risk
orientation questions. Teachers from both
universities will put the class results up onto the
Course N@vi Notice Board so that students cancompare and discuss their results in the Joint lesson.
3.1.3
Emotional Intelligence
How people show their emotions and how muchemotion to show can vary both among individuals
and cultures. Japanese are said to ‘minimize’
displays of emotion, for example, hiding upset witha poker face or keeping back tears in public. In
some Asian cultures, people tend to ‘substitute’ one
feeling for another, for example, giving positive
assurance where it is impolite to say no (Goleman,
1995). It is significant to be able to employ thesestrategies appropriately, and be aware that thesestrategies are used differently in other cultures.
Table 2: A framework of Emotional Competence(Goleman, 2000)

Recognition

Regulation<Self>
Personal
Competence
Self-Awareness<Other>SocialCompetenceSocialAwareness

Emotional
Self-AwarenessAccurate
Self-Assessment
Self-Confidence
Self-Management

EmpathyService
Orientation
Organizational
Awareness
RelationshipManagement

Self-control
Self-control
Trustworthiness
Conscientiousness
Adaptability
Achievement drive
Initiative(+Innovation)

Developing
othersInfluence
Communication
Conflict
management
Leadership
Changecatalyst
Building Bonds
Teamwork&
Collaboration

The concept of Emotional Intelligence was first
introduced by Salovey and Mayer (1990), being
defined as “the subset of social intelligence thatinvolves the ability to monitor one’s own andothers’ feelings and emotions to discriminate among
them and to use this information to guide one’s
thinking and actions.” Salovey and Mayer (1990)
propose that there is a set of conceptually related
mental processes involving emotional information,
which are a) appraising and expressing emotions inthe self and others, b) regulating emotion in the self

and others, and c) using emotions in adaptive ways.
CCDL enhances students’ ability to perceive andunderstand emotions of other students and to
manage their own emotions even with barriers oftechnology and language between them.
Goleman (1995) defines emotional intelligencein somewhat broader sense than Salovey and Meyer.
His approach is better adapted the objectives of our
CCDL course. He proposes four broad domains ofemotional intelligence; self-awareness, social
awareness, self-management, and relationshipmanagement, with twenty specific competencies
falling into one of these domains (Table 2).
Emotional intelligence is considered to determine
the potential for learning the fundamentals of
self-mastery and the like, whereas emotional
competence shows how much of that potential ismastered in ways that can be translated intoon-the-job capabilities (Goleman, 1995; xv).
Students are introduced to Goleman’s framework ofemotional competence during the business-related
activities in preparation lesson, so as to become
better communicators or to develop leadershipskills.
3.1.4
Social Intelligence
Later in his work, Goleman (2006) looks closer into‘social competence’ which was previously included
as a part of ‘emotional competence’, andreintroduced the domain separately as ‘Social
Intelligence’. The ingredients of social intelligenceproposed by Goleman (2006) correspond with theskills necessary for CCDL. Followings are the skills
included in Goleman’s social intelligence.
<Social Awareness>
Primal empathy: Feeling with others; sensing
non-verbal emotional signals.
Attunement: Listening with full receptivity;
attuning to a person.
Emphatic accuracy: Understanding another person’s
thoughts, feelings, and intentions.
Social cognition: Knowing how the social world
works.
<Social Facility>
Synchrony: Interacting smoothly at the nonverbal
level.
Self-presentation: Presenting ourselves effectively.
Influence: Shaping the outcome of social
interactions.
Concern: Caring about others’ needs and acting
accordingly.
(Goleman, 2006; 84.)

3.2
Discussion
Besides introducing some of the important skills
and concepts of CCDL, the ‘Preparation Lesson’ isused for reviewing readings and on-demand
lectures, as well as having group discussions on the
personal buy-in questions given in ‘Self-Study 1’.
The discussion questions then move on frompersonal questions to more general questions, forexample, asking for the pros and cons of being anentrepreneur.

4

Self-Study 2

In ‘Self-Study 1’, reading materials and on-demand
lectures were given to the students in order to havesome background knowledge of the topic, whereasin ‘Self-Study 2’, students themselves have to dosome research and gather information of the topic
on their own. In case of ‘Entrepreneur’, students
will do research on one entrepreneur in theircountry, explaining 1) his/her personal background,2) his/her business, 3) influence on society, and 4)
their opinion of the person. Students can use the
BBS on the Course N@vi to upload any documents
they want to share with other students.

5

Joint Lesson

Joint lessons will be conducted using a videoconferencing system called LiveOn (For the detailrefer to “Theme-based CCDL: (2) Media” in thepresent proceedings). Three students from each
university cooperate in the same chat room, one ofwhom will take the role of facilitator. Facilitation
skills are introduced in an earlier preparation lesson
as one of the transferable skills. Students take turns
introducing what they have learned from theirresearch. Discussion questions at this stage are
deeper, moving on from personal questions togeneral questions to more global questions, such as“Are entrepreneurs good or bad for an economy?”
If the chat group cannot come to a conclusion
within the time frame, they can continue their
discussion on the BBS set up for each chat group.

6

Reflection

After the joint lesson, students are asked to hand in
the reflection sheet covering the following; What interesting points emerged from yourdiscussion in the joint session?
 What were the commonalities between
members’ understanding and experience of theissues raised?
 What differences existed between the contextsof all participants (even between groupmembers) on the issue and what did thisindicate about their respective cultures of
work?

7

Summary

In this paper, course structure of CCDL was
explained as having 5 stages, namely, ‘Self-Study1’, ‘Preparation Lesson’, ‘Self-Study 2’, ‘Joint
Lesson’, and ‘Reflection’. Since CCDL is a
student-centered course which aims to develop
autonomous learners, a self study phase before eachlesson is an essential part. Reflection worksheets
and the chat group BBS both work towards
motivating students to find intrinsic value instudying. Such unstructured learning environments
encourage students to make meaning from the
CCDL material and apply it to their own contexts.

References
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence. New
Youk: Bantam Books.
Goleman, D. (2000). Working with Emotional
Intelligence. Bantam Dell Pub Group.
Goleman, D. (2006). Social Intelligence. New York:
Bantam Books.
Gudykunst, W. & Nishida, T. (2001) Anxiety,uncertainty and perceived effectivenessofcommunication across relationships andcultures.
International
JournalofIntercultural Relations, 25(1), 55-72.
Hofstede, G.. (1980). Culture's consequences:international differences in work-related
values. , Sage, Beverly Hills (CA).
Salovey, P. and Mayer, J.D. (1990). Emotional
Intelligence. Imagination, Cognition, andPersonality, 9, 185-211.
Singh, N. & Matsuo, H. (2004). Measuring cultural
adaptation on the Web: a content analytic
study of U.S. and Japanese Web sites.
Journal of Business Research 57(8),864-872.

On the Acquisition of Passives in Child Language
Ho HanAjou University
hhan@ajou.ac.kr

Abstract
This study explores an alternative account of thedevelopmental patterns in the acquisition ofpassives crosslinguistically, particularly as for theacquisition of English and Korean. English has two
types of passives, adjectival (lexical) and verbal(structural) passives. It is observed that adjectival
passives are acquired earlier than verbal ones. In
generative grammar, researchers have contended
that it is because verbal passives involve syntactic
movement of an argument, creating a chain, while
adjectival ones are not. Borer & Wexler (1987)
argued that early child English lacks anA(rgument)-chain. Considering child Korean data,
children produce passive-like constructions
involving syntactic movement later than themorpheme –ci- occurs. Thus it seems that Borer &Wexler’s argument is justifiable crosslinguistically.
However, Korean children produce unaccusative
sentences quite early, which also forms an A-chain.
In this study, I argue that a semantic/pragmatic
analysis might provide a better account of theacquisition of passives along with the acquisition of
unaccusative constructions. Both in the acquisitionof English and that of Korean, it is found that young
children develop structures which are low in theTransitivity Hierarchy. Therefore, I will conclude
that the notion of transitivity gives us a clue toexplain the developmental pattern of passives inchild language.

Keywords
language acquisition,transitivity

1

passives,

unaccusatives,

Introduction

English has two types of passives, adjectival
passives and verbal passives, as illustrated asfollows:(1) a. The violin was not used for a long time.
(an adjectival passive)b. The violin was played by one of
the audience. (a verbal passive)

Adjectival passives include a predicate with no 'byagent' phrase, expressing a certain state of being,
while a 'by-agent' phrase usually appears in verbal
ones which denote an action or a process. Under
generative grammar, it was proposed that verbal
passives are involved with movement, yielding anargument chain (A-chain), but adjectival ones arenot.
Children acquiring English develop two typesof passives in order, adjectival passives first andverbal ones later. Thus, Borer & Wexler (1987)
argued that this order shows the late development ofA-chains, and took this as evidence for the
Maturation Hypothesis that grammatical properties
are biologically preprogrammed and mature.
The analysis of passives above, of course,
applies to English. The question is whether the
analysis based on forming an A-chain still may holdcrosslinguistically. In this paper, I will propose analternative account which is arguably moreplausible in terms of generalizability. My argument
is based on a semantic approach with the Transivity
Hierarchy proposed by Hopper & Thompson (1980)
and developed by Hukuda (2006).

2

Acquisition of passives in child
Korean2.1

Passive constructions in Korean
The Korean language has several ways ofmaking passive-like constructions, which are either
involved with passive morphology or not. The latteris the case that a verb carries a passive meaning byitself, as seen in (2a), while the former comes withthe morpheme -hi- or ci- as in (2b) and (2c),respectively.
(2) a. Mina-ka
tol-e
mac-ass-ta
Mina-Nom. stone-with be.hit-Past-Decl“Mina was hit with a stone.”b. Mina-ka Yuno-eke cap-hi-ess-ta
Mina-Nom Yuno-by catch-Pass-Past-Decl“Mina was caught by Yuno

c. byung-i
kkay-ci-ess-ta
bottle-Nom break-Pass-Past-Decl‘The bottle was broken”
The morpheme –ci- in (2c) is also attached to atransitive verb and makes it an unaccusative.
(3) Mina-ka
namu-ese ttele-ci-ess-ta
Mina-Nom tree-from let.fall-Pass-Past-Decl‘Mina fell down from a tree.”.
Park (2005) argued that passive-like constructions
with –ci- involves syntactic movement while thosewith –hi- does not.
2.2
Acquisition of passive-like constructions
According to the child Korean data, which wereanalyzed in Kim (1997), children develop the (2a)type constructions quite early, the (2b)-type ones
with –hi- next, and later the (2c)-type ones with –ci-.
Now, if we accept Park’s analysis on Koreanpassive-like constructions, we might adopt Borer &Wexler’s (1987) argument since the syntactic
passives involving A-chain develop late.
But there are a few things that we should
consider. First, Kim (1997) states that the –cipassive develops late because adult Korean does notshow much use of it, and thus its late occurrence
could be due to the scarcity of the relevant input.
Second, considering (3), it is predicted that
unaccusatives like (3) are produced late since it isinvolved with A-movement that creates an A-chain
as discussed in Belletti & Rizzi (1988). However,unaccusative sentences appear quite early in child
Korean. The story sounds contradictory if we try to
explain child Korean data with syntactic approach.

3

Transitivity Hierarchy

Transitivity is taken to be associated with theconcept of an activity being carried over from anagent to a patient. Hopper & Thompson (1980: 252)
proposed the following parameters of Transitivity.
(4) HIGH
LOW
2or more participants 1 particpant
actionnon-action
telicatelicpunctual
non-punctual
volitional
non-volitionalaffirmative
negative
realisirrealis
A high in potency
A low in potency
O totally affected
O not affected
O highly individuated O non-individuated(A=agent; O=object)

With the above hierarchy, we can explain thedevelopmental pattern of passives in child language.
First, verbal passives in child English carry highTransitivity while adjectival ones low Transitivity.
Second, Korean –ci- passives denote highTransitivity and develop later. On the other hand,unaccusatives with –ci- show low Transitivity anddevelop early.
Note that both types of constructions involve an
A-chain. Now we can explain why structures with
an A-chain develop in the different order. It is not
the presence or absence of an A-chain that explains
such order but the Transitivity Hierarchy thatgoverns the order.
Based on the argument above, I conclude thatchildren begin with passives with low Transitivity
and later can process the constructions with highTransitivity. This is a preliminary remark and, inorder to generalize this, we need to research onother types of constructions involving seemingly Amovement.

References
Belletti, A. & Rizzi, G. (1988). Psych-verbs andtheta theory. Linguistic Inquiry 19, 1, 1-34.
Borer, H. & Wexler, K. (1987). The maturation ofsyntax. In T. Roeper & E. Williams,
Parameters Setting. Dordrech: Foris.
Fukuda, S. (2006) Transitivity Bias Hypothesis andAcquisition of Verbs with Transitivity
Alternation in Japanese and English. Ms.
University of California, San Diego.
Hopper, P. J. & Thompson, H. A. (1980).
Transitivity in grammar and discourse.
Language, 56, 2, 251-299.
Kim, Y.-J. (1997). The acquisition of Korean. In D.
I. Slobin (Ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study ofLanguage Acquisition, Vol. 4 (pp. 335-444).
Mahwah, NJ: LEA
Park, S.-D. (2005). Parameters of Passive
Constructions in English and Korean.
Cornell University, Doctoral dissertation.

Adaptation of Cross-Cultural Distance Learning to EFL Context
of Korean Universities-A Case study of Kangwon National Univ., Hanyang Women’sCollege, and Namseoul Univ.Nak-Seung Baek, Kyunghee Choi, Bok-Myung Chang

Abstract
Until recently much research has proved that
Cross-Cultural
Distance
Learning(henceforth
CCDL) project plays a very important role inhelping the nonnative speakers (like Japanese,
Korean, and Chinese, etc) acquire theirself-confidence and gives them the non-threatening
environment to practice English abilities.
Through the survey on the history, the courses’
names which participated in this project in Korea
and students’ number, and the results of thequestionnaire about this project, this research would
like to prove the significance and importance of
CCDL in cultivating the communicativecompetence of Korean students in university level.

Keywords
Cross-Cultural Distance Learning, Non-Native
Speakers,
Communicative
Competence,
University Level
Introduction
Until recently much research has proved that
Cross-Cultural
Distance
Learning(henceforth
CCDL) project plays a very important role inhelping the nonnative speakers acquire theirself-confidence and gives them the non-threatening
environment to practice English abilities.
For example, Yano(2006) pointed out theimportance of CCDL by suggesting the effects of
NNS-NNS interaction. He argued three effects of
the interaction. First, using English in the
NNS-NNS interaction helps the Japanese learners
to liberate themselves from the inferiority complex
toward native speakers. Second, using English forcommunication forces the interlocutors to beattentive to what is going on and leaves little room
to pay attention to their pronunciation, their use ofarticles, and prepositions and other grammaticalmatters. Third, nonnative speaker interlocutors attimes show difficulties in expressing in English andoften make similar grammatical mistakes asJapanese do. This makes the Japanese learners torealize it is more important to participate in thediscussion and express their ideas and opinions thanbeing silent until your English becomes perfect,
which never comes after all. So it is natural that we
make efforts to develop CCDL project based on theneeds and circumstances of EFL learners.

1 CCDL of Namseoul University
Namseoul University has been participated in
CCDL since the second semester of 2005. CCDL
project in Namseoul University consists with twoparts.
1.1Video Chatting Activities
Namseoul University - Waseda University partners
meet in cyber space through a “Live On” program.
For one hour once a week, and they had to record
all the interactions through text chat and submit
them as a report for the course.
1.2 Video Conferencing Lecture
Every Thursday from 14:40 to 16:10, during which
every student must participate in the course throughlistening and speaking only in English.

2 CCDL of Hanyang Women’s College
Hanyang Women’s College (HWC hereafter) started
its CCDL program with Waseda University (WU
heareafter) in the beginning of the second semester
in 2006. The Cross-cultural Distance Learning Lab
of HWC is equipped with 16 PCs for chatting and
the PolyCom system for video conferencing. Video
conferences between the two schools are held onlyin the spring semester.
2.1 The 2nd Semester in 2006
2.1.1 Chatting Sessions
The professors from HWC and WU agreed to haveoral chatting with the use of headset for the last 5
minutes of the each session. The total of 72 students
of HWC – 58 freshmen taking English
Conversation for Tourism II and 14 sophomores
taking Business English – and 49 freshmen of WU
took part in the first cooperative chatting program.
The topics of the sessions included self-introduction,summer break, DOs and DON’Ts in Korea andJapan, campus life, and major studies.
At the end of the semester, HWC conducted aquestionnaire survey, which reveals that most of the
HWC students participated in the chatting sessions
to improve their English proficiency. The second
reason for their participation was to make Japanese
friends. 36 out of 46 students responded that the
chatting was helpful in improving their English
proficiency. 40 out of 46 students answered thatthey could learn about Japanese culture through thechatting. When they were asked which area ofEnglish they were most weak at, most of themthought they lacked grammar skills and thenvocabulary. Quite a number of them thought thatthe duration of their sessions was too short and theywanted to have more chances to do oral chatting
using headsets.
2.2 The 1st Semester in 2007
2.2.1 Chatting Sessions
More students participated in the second chatting
program. From the Korean side, 95 sophomore
students of English Conversation for Tourism III,
20 freshmen of English Conversation for Tourism I
and 14 freshmen of Business English participated in
the sessions. Meanwhile, from the Japanese side, 36
freshmen of Writing Practice IB, 32 freshmen of
Writing Practice IC, and 35 sophomore students ofEnglish II (Comprehension) took part in the
program. The total of 129 of HWC students and 103
WU students were involved in the second program.
The topics included self-introduction, dating,marriage, sports, and traveling foreign countries.
2.2.2 Video Conference
The Video Conferences between WU and HWC
were held on every Thursday afternoon from 3 p.mtill 4 p.m. Some 20 sophomores of WU led byProfessor Matsusaka and 23 sophomores in the
Department of Tourism of HWC led by Professor
Kyunghee Choi participated in the VCs. The
handout was made each week by the presenters anddistributed to the students of both schools about aweek before the VC. The first, third, and fifthsessions were conducted by WU and the second andfourth by HWC. When they were asked how the VC
helped them improve their English skills, they said
they were able to improve speaking skills by asking
and listening to questions. They were able toimprove writing skills by writing a script for thepresentation. They also gained confidence in
speaking with foreigners in English. They
expressed that the VC topics were interesting andhelpful for them to understand Japanese culture.
However, they found that listening to what Japanesepresenters said was difficult to understand due tothe physical and psychological distances and also

due to their poor listening abilities.
3 Conclusions
1) The first thing is that most students were very
impressed with the possibility of being able toget in touch with students and cultures in foreigncountries through CCDL program.
2) The second is that they could develop theirEnglish proficiency through CCDL.
3) The third is that they wish to participate in
CCDL program again if possible, and they think
this project activated the interests in cultural
understanding and world English.
References
Baek, N. S. (2002). A study in the teaching method ofEnglish literature through the Internet and its effect.
English Language & Literature Teaching, 8(1), 1-13.
Chang, B.M. (2005). World English Acquisition through
CCDL Project. Journal of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 9(2), 241-261.
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 AcrossCultures (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.
Nakano, M, et. al.(2006). Networked English Language
Education at Waseda University: Toward creating
Asian-Pacific Intelligence (2)-CCDL and Cyber
Seminars.In Proceedings of the 10th Conference of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics,
173-184.
Nakano,M. (2006). General Framework: CCDL.In
CCDL Teachers’ Manual Vol.1, pp.7-16. Tokyo:
CCDL Research Center, Waseda University.
Park, K.J.(2001).The importance of CCDL in English
education. English Language & Literature Teaching,
7(2), 77-101
Park, K., Nakano, M. and Lee, H.(2003). Cross-Cultural
Distance Learning and Language Acquisition. Seoul:
Hankook Publishing Company.
Poulisse, N.(1987).Problems and solutions in theclassification of compensatory strategies. Second
Language Research,3, 141-153.
Yano, Y.(2006).The Effect of NNS-NNS interaction in
University-level ELT in Japan. In CCDL Teachers’
Manual Vol. 1,39-46. Tokyo: CCDL ResearchCenter, Waseda University.

A Study of Grammar Development among Japanese University Students:
Intransitive Verbs, Transitive Verbs, Ditransitive Verbs and Logical
Subjects in Xcomps – Part (1)Michiko Nakano1, Naoki Sugino2, Kenichi Yamakawa3, Yuko Shimizu2 and Hiromasa Ohba4
1

Waseda University, 2Ritsumeikan University, 3Yasuda Women’s University and4

Joetu University of Education
nakanom@waseda.jp

Abstract
This paper deals with Grammar Development
among Japanese University students in the area of
intransitive verbs, transitive verbs, ditransitive
Verbs in Part 1 and logical subjects in Xcomps inPart 2. We have been collecting grammatical
judgment data for seven years since 2000. Last
year we analyzed the judgment data, using Item
Response Theory (IRT). As a result, we can now
present some developmental stages acrossgrammatical constructions, based on the Difficultyscores yielded by IRT. This paper summarizes ourinvestigation.

Keywords
VT, VI, Ditransitive,
IRT

LogicalSubjects, Xcomp,Introduction
The present reanalysis of our grammatical judgment
data involves the three tests; Y, N and S tests. Y test
examined unaccusative, and unergative verbs.
The previous studies showed that the unergative
verbs are acquired earlier than unaccusative verbs.
It has been argued that the underlying forms aredifferent in these verbs:
Unergative verbs: laugh (X _ ): [John [VPlaughed] ]Unaccusative verbs: arrive ( _ <Y>): [empty [VParrived John] ]Transitive verbs ： break (X_<Y>): [John [VPbroke the vase] ]To test this hypothesis, Y test contained transitive
verbs. We also included the passivized forms,
since if learners believe that some implicit agent
causes Y to do the action denoted by the verb, theirassumption might force the form to be passivized.
In N-test, there were four kinds of sentences: (1)prepositional to-datives and for-datives; (2) theirdi-transitive counterparts; (3) passive sentences of
prepositional datives; (4) passive sentences of the
di-transitive ones. There were some items whichcannot be regarded as dative sentences so that we

can test whether the learners can differentiate dative
constructions from non-dative constructions. We
also tested whether animacy effects in subject
nouns can influence learners’ grammatical
judgments.
All our data had been analyzed in view ofCompetition Model which proposes that learners go
through the four stages. The most primitive stage iscalled ‘cue-unconscious’ stage where learners do
not possess any means to judge the grammaticalityof a sentence, hence their responses are at random.
The next developmental stage is called ‘meaning
dependent’ in which learners can understand thethematic roles of the entities denoted by the nounphrases, but thematic understanding are not mapped
onto the grammatical functions, in short,incomplete understanding of syntax. The next stage
is called transitional stage where the thematic rolesof the entities denoted by the noun phrases can besometimes mapped onto grammatical functions, but
this mapping is not stable. In the last stage ofdevelopment, learners can map the thematic roles
onto grammatical functions successfully, hence, thisgroup is called ‘syntax-dependent’.
Thisinterpretation of Competition Model is based on the
Lexical Mapping Theory (LMT) in Lexical
Functional Syntax (LFS): Bresnan (2001). LMT
bridges the connection derived from argument
structures to grammatical functions, suggesting thatlearners’ semantic understanding in the form ofargument structures influence learners’ grammatical
judgments. In order to relate our data analysis to thelearner’s grammatical growth, all the participants’grammatical ability was individually assessed bymeasure of English Grammar (MEG): see Shimizu
et al. (2003). Sugino et al. (2003) illustrated that
there were four types of subjects: syntax dependent,
transitional, meaning dependent and cue
unconscious groups in terms of the MEG scores asfollows:
Cue unconscious group: below 49 points
Meaning dependent group: between 50 -59 points

Transitional group: between 60 – 79 points
Syntax dependent group: more than 80 points
To sum up, cue unconscious participants are those
whose grammatical judgments are ‘uncertain’;
meaning dependents rely on argument structure;syntax dependents can map from argument
structures to grammatical functions; that is, theycanpossess
Lexicalmappingabilities.
Transitional participants are between meaning
dependents and syntax dependents.
In S test, we examined a learner’s understandingof the logical subject of Xcomp, as shown below.
The mother promised the boy to go to the school.
The mother told the boy to go to the school.
The logical subject of the XCOMP is determined
whether the main verb is subject-control or
object-control. This is specified in the lexicon as
follows
Promise V ↑ pred =promise < ↑subj ↑obj ↑xcomp>↑xcomp subj = subj
Tell V ↑ pred =‘tell <↑subj ↑obj ↑xcomp>↑xcomp subj = ↑obj
In our previous studies, the data was analyzed inview of Competition Model, by manipulating nounphrases to elicit different responses from theparticipants, depending on their developmental
stage, i.e., cue-unconscious, meaning dependent,
transitional and syntax dependent stages.
In this presentation, we will examine our data inview of the difficulty valued estimated by the Item
Response Theory (IRT).

Grammatical Judgments on intransitive
verbs and transitive verbs (Y-test)

1

Y test contained 8 types of grammatical judgments,a ~ h. The following 8 tables summarize the target
sentences and difficulty values.
Type a ( unaccusative verbs)
YC-a My grandmother died when I was five.-1.64
YC-a She fell down from a second floor window.-1.24
YC-a Laptop computers first appeared in the 1990s.
-0.83
YC-a Your letter arrived yesterday.
-1.19
YC-a Do you think ghosts exist?
-0.71
YC-a A funny thing happened in the office today.-1.09
Mean
-1.17
Type b ( unergative verbs)
YC-b Children played with a ball on the beach.-0.83
YC-b She works for a computer company. -1.18
YC-b We laughed when we saw his face.-1.98
YC-b They danced all night at the bar.-1.47
YC-b Her father cried at her wedding ceremony.-1.95
YC-b She usually sings in the bathroom. -1.47
Mean
-1.48
Type c Ill-formed passives with unergative ve
YC-c *New types of shoes were appeared in the shops.

0.22
YC-c *A temple was existed here hundreds of years
ago.
-0.44
YC-c *I was not there when the accident was
happened. 0.86
YC-c *I hit him so hard that he was fallen down. 0.88
YC-c *Because of the rain, the train was arrived late.
-0.35
YC-c *At least 300 people were died in theearthquake.0.37
Mean
0.26
Type d Ill-formed passives with unaccusative verbs
YC-d *They were laughed when she told a funny joke.
0.22
YC-d *He was cried when he heard of his mother’s
death.
-0.36
YC-d *Mary is sung at the church every Sunday.-0.55
YC-d *Because of the rain, we were played insideyesterday. -0.35
YC-d *She was danced with him until midnight.-0.20
YC-d *Tom was worked until late yesterday.-0.26
Mean
-0.25
Type e Intransitive verbs ( unergative types) used astransitive verbs
YC-e *Finally the waitress arrived the salad to us.
-1.11
YC-e *Jimmy happens a lot of trouble to me. -0.67
YC-e *The lack of rain died all the flowers. -0.93
YC-e *He exists a lot of new words.
-0.12
YC-e *He fell down the glass on the floor.
0.35
YC-e *The next day the reporter appeared theaccident in the newspaper. -0.47
Mean
-0.49
Type f Intransitive verbs (unaccusative types) used astransitive verbs
YC-f *They sang their son at the concert. -1.18
YC-f *They danced the couple at the wedding
ceremony.
-0.50
YC-f *The boss worked his employees very hard.
-0.78
YC-f *The boy hit his little sister and cried her. -0.65
YC-f *The young comedian always laughs me. -0.22
YC-f *She played her daughters together. -0.49
Mean
-0.64
Type g Passive sentences with transitive verbs
YC-g
The door was broken by the police. -1.30
YC-g
A lot of roses are grown in the village.-1.31
YC-g
The factory was burned by the fire. -2.13
YC-g
The snow was melted by the hot sun. -2.09
YC-g
Their shirts were dried in the room.-1.38
YC-g
Many restaurants were closed last year.-0.88
Mean
-1.52
Type h Transitive sentences
YC-h He closed the gate at six o'clock.
-1.58
YC-h The sun soon melted the ice in the lake. 0.46
YC-h She dried her hands on the towel.
0.18
YC-h I broke a glass in the kitchen.
-1.74

YC-h We grow tomatoes in our garden every year.
-1.60
YC-h I burned all my letters.
-1.45
Mean
-0.96
The difficulty mean values suggest the following
grammar development:
Difficulty values
Transitive verbs (passivized) -1.52
Intransitive (unergative verbs)-1.48
Intransitve (unaccusative verbs) -1.17
Transitive verbs-0.96

2.0 N test: Ditransitive Verbs and transitiveverbs
N Test is to test grammatical knowledge of dative
alterations. It contains six kinds of test items
which we call here A, B, C, D, E, and F.
Group A: Well-formed ditransitives
A01
Mr. Jones gave me some money.-2.05
A02
The company gave him a new job.-1.65
A03
My wife sent me three golf clubs.-1.92
A04
The family sent him ten apples.-1.64
Mean
-1.82
A05
John found me a new dress. -0.31
A06
The company found him a new office. 0.05
A07
Simon made us a new dinner table.-1.46
A08
The company made the secretary a new
uniform.
5.09
Mean
0.84
Group B: Ill-formed ditransitives
B01 *Mr. Jones reported me the accident.
4.03
B02 *The police reported Bill the fire.
0.83
B03 *My wife moved me three golf clubs.
-1.33
B04 *The family moved him a box of apples. -1.18
Mean
0.59
B05 *King Arthur fought the queen the monster.-1.58
B06 *The company burned me a lot of boxes. -0.89
B07 *Simon discovered us a nice dinner table. -1.18
B08 *The company discovered them a new house.
-1.33
Mean
-1.25
Group C: Prepositional datives
C01 Mr. Jones gave some money to me.
-1.68
C02 The company gave a new job to him.
-1.99
C03My wife sent three golf clubs to me.
-2.44
C04The family sent ten apples to me.
-1.76
Mean
-1.97
C05 John found a new dress for me.
-2.18
C06 The company found a new office for him. -1.57
C07 Simon made a new dinner table for us.
-1.59
C08 The company made a new uniform for thesecretary.
-1.78
Mean
-1.78
Group D: Distracter Items which appear to look like
prepositional to-datives and prepositional for-datives.
There are four items for each distracter type.
D01Mr. Jones reported the accident to me.-2.10
D02The police reported the fire to Bill. -1.29

D03My wife moved three golf clubs to me.-0.98
D04The family moved a box of apples to me.-1.71
Mean
-1.52
D05 King Arthur fought the monster for the queen.
-1.65
D06 The company burned a lot of boxes for me.-1.03
D07 Simon discovered a nice dinner table for us.-2.35
D08The company discovered a new house for them.
-1.84
Mean
-1.72
Group E: Well-formed Passives:
E01I was given some money by Mr. Jones.-1.69
E02He was given a new job by the company.-1.59
E03I was sent three golf clubs by my wife.-1.36
E04He was sent ten apples by the family.-0.63
Mean
-1.32
E05 I was found a new dress by John. 3.29
E06 He was found a new office by the company. 5.31
E07 We were made a new dinner table by Simon. 5.97
E08 The secretary was made a new uniform by thecompany.
3.33
Mean
4.48
Group F: Ill-formed Passives: theme subjects
F01 *Some money was given me by Mr. Jones.1.42
F02 *The new job was given him by the company.
1.74
F03 *Three golf clubs were sent me by mywife.1.50
F04 *Ten apples were sent him by the family. 1.67
Mean
1.58
F05 *The new dress was found me by John. -1.23
F06 *The new office was found him by thecompany.
-1.42
F07 *The new dinner table was made us by Simon.
-0.88
F08 *The new house was made them by thecompany.
-1.14
Mean
-1.17
The mean difficulty values suggest the following
grammatical development. We have combinedsome constructions in Y test.
C-to prepositional dative + to )-1.97
A-to Ditransitives-1.82

C-for prepositional dative + for-1.78
D-for transitive verb + for
-1.72
D-to
transitive verb + to
-1.52
=VT passive
E-tohuman subject passives-1.32*B-for *non-dative verbs turned into ditransitives-1.25*F-for *theme passives-1.17= unaccusative*B-to*non-dative verbs turned into ditransitives
0.59
A-for
Ditransitives
0.84
*F-to
*theme passives
1.58
E-for
human subject passives
4.48

S-test and integrated analysis of intransitive,
transitive, ditransitive verbs are discussed in Part 2,
along with the analysis of logical subjects in
Xcomps.
References
Bresnan, J. (2001). Lexical-Functional Syntax. MA:Blackwell.
Nakano, M., Sugino, N., Ohba, H., Yamakawa, K.,& Shimizu, Y. (2004). A Preliminary Analysis
of Grammatical Judgment Test: dative
constructions and their passive forms.
Proceedings of the 8th Conference of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics.
231-290.
Nakano, M., Sugino, N., Ohba, H., Yamakawa, K., &Shimizu, Y. (2005). An Analysis of Grammatical
Judgment Test: Dative Constructions, Their
Passive Forms, Unaccusative and Unergative
Constructions. Proceedings of the 9th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 386-394.
Ohba, H., Sugino, N., Nakano, M., Yamakawa, K.,
Shimizu, Y., & Kimura, S. (2006). The
Development of Grammatical Competence ofJapanese EFL Learners: Focusing on Relative
Clause Constructions. Journal of Pan-Pacific
Association of Applied Linguistics, 10, 1, 73-87.
Ohba, H., Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Shimizu, Y., &Nakano, M. (2005). The Acquisition of
wh-questions by Adult Japanese EFL Learners.
Poster presented at the PAAL conference,
Edinburgh, UK.
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 Reliablity 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 a Sample-Free
Grammatical Proficiency Test for SLA
Research. Proceedings of the 9th

Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 227-236.
Sugino, N., Nakano, M., Ohba, H., Kimura, S.,
Yamakawa, K., & Shimizu, Y. (2005). The
Development of Grammatical Competence ofJapanese EFL Learners: Focusing on Dative
Alternation. Proceedings of the 9th Conferenceof Pan-Pacific Association of Applied
Linguistics, 322-331.
Sugino, N., Yamakawa, K., Ohba, H., Nakano, M. &Shimizu, Y. (forthcoming). The Acquisition of
Psych Verbs by Japanese EFL Learners: From
the Perspective of Cue Dependency.
Ueda, N., Oya, M., & Owada, K. (2004). A Study ofJapanese Learners’ Input: Textbook Analysis of
Dative Verbs. Poster session presented at the 9th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, Namseoul University,
Chonan, Republic of Korea.
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 Verb. Annual Review
of English Language Education in Japan, 14,
1-10.
Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Kimura, S., Nakano, M.,
Ohba, H., & Shimizu, Y. (2005). Nihonjin Eigo
Gakushusha ni yoru Hitaikaku Doushi to
Hinoukaku Doushi no Shuutoku. [TheAcquisition
Processesof
Unaccusative/Unergative Verbs by Japanese
EFL Learners.] JACET Chugoku-Shikoku
Chapter Research Bulletin, 2, 91-110.
Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Ohba, H., Nakano, M.,& Shimizu, Y. (2006). Acquisition of English
grammatical features by adult Japanese EFL
learners: The application of Item Response
Theory in SLA research. Proceedings of
CLaSIC. 942-974.

A Study of Grammar Development among Japanese University Students:
Intransitive Verbs, Transitive Verbs, Ditransitive Verbs and Logical
Subjects in Xcomps – Part (2)Michiko Nakano1, Naoki Sugino2, Kenichi Yamakawa3, Yuko Shimizu2 and Hiromasa Ohba4
1

Waseda University, 2Ritsumeikan University, 3Yasuda Women’s University and4

Joetu University of Education
nakanom@waseda.jp

Abstract
This paper deals with Grammar Development
among Japanese University students in the area of
intransitive verbs, transitive verbs, ditransitive
Verbs and logical subjects in Xcomps. We havebeen collecting grammatical judgment data forseven years since 2000. Last year we analyzed thejudgment data, using Item Response Theory (IRT).
As a result, we can now present somedevelopmental
stagesacrossgrammaticalconstructions, based on the Difficulty scores
yielded by IRT. This paper summarizes ourinvestigation.

Keywords
VT, VI, Ditransitive, XCOMP, IRT

Introduction
The present reanalysis of our grammatical judgment
data involves the three tests; Y, N and S tests. Y test
examined unaccusative, and unergative verbs.
The previous studies showed that the unergative
verbs are acquired earlier than unaccusative verbs.
It has been argued that the underlying forms aredifferent in these verbs:
Unergative verbs: laugh (X _ ): [John [VPlaughed] ]Unaccusative verbs: arrive ( _ <Y>): [empty [VParrived John] ]Transitive verbs ： break (X_<Y>): [John [VPbroke the vase] ]To test this hypothesis, Y test contained transitive
verbs. We also included the passivized forms,
since if learners believe that some implicit agent
causes Y to do the action denoted by the verb, theirassumption might force the form to be passivized.
In N-test, there were four kinds of sentences: (1)prepositional to-datives and for-datives; (2) theirdi-transitive counterparts; (3) passive sentences of
prepositional datives; (4) passive sentences of the
di-transitive ones. There were some items whichcannot be regarded as dative sentences so that we cantest whether the learners can differentiate dative

constructions from non-dative constructions. We
also tested whether animacy effects in subject nouns
can influence learners’ grammatical judgments.
All our data had been analyzed in view ofCompetition Model which proposes that learners go
through the four stages. The most primitive stage iscalled ‘cue-unconscious’ stage where learners do
not possess any means to judge the grammaticalityof a sentence, hence their responses are at random.
The next developmental stage is called ‘meaning
dependent’ in which learners can understand thethematic roles of the entities denoted by the nounphrases, but thematic understanding are not mapped
onto the grammatical functions, in short,incomplete understanding of syntax. The next stage
is called transitional stage where the thematic rolesof the entities denoted by the noun phrases can besometimes mapped onto grammatical functions, but
this mapping is not stable. In the last stage ofdevelopment, learners can map the thematic roles
onto grammatical functions successfully, hence, thisgroup is called ‘syntax-dependent’.
Thisinterpretation of Competition Model is based on the
Lexical Mapping Theory (LMT) in Lexical
Functional Syntax (LFS): Bresnan (2001). LMT
bridges the connection derived from argument
structures to grammatical functions, suggesting thatlearners’ semantic understanding in the form ofargument structures influence learners’ grammatical
judgments. In order to relate our data analysis to thelearner’s grammatical growth, all the participants’grammatical ability was individually assessed bymeasure of English Grammar (MEG): see Shimizu
et al. (2003). Sugino et al. (2003) illustrated that
there were four types of subjects: syntax dependent,
transitional, meaning dependent and cue
unconscious groups in terms of the MEG scores asfollows:
Cue unconscious group: below 49 points
Meaning dependent group: between 50 -59 points
Transitional group: between 60 – 79 points
Syntax dependent group: more than 80 points

To sum up, cue unconscious participants are those
whose grammatical judgments are ‘uncertain’;
meaning dependents rely on argument structure;syntax dependents can map from argument
structures to grammatical functions; that is, theycanpossess
Lexicalmappingabilities.
Transitional participants are between meaning
dependents and syntax dependents.
In S test, we examined a learner’s understandingof the logical subject of Xcomp, as shown below.
The mother promised the boy to go to the school.
The mother told the boy to go to the school.
The logical subject of the XCOMP is determined
whether the main verb is subject-control or
object-control. This is specified in the lexicon as
follows
Promise V ↑ pred =promise < ↑subj ↑obj ↑xcomp>↑xcomp subj = subj
Tell V ↑ pred =‘tell <↑subj ↑obj ↑xcomp>↑xcomp subj = ↑obj
In our previous studies, the data was analyzed inview of Competition Model, by manipulating nounphrases to elicit different responses from theparticipants, depending on their developmental
stage, i.e., cue-unconscious, meaning dependent,
transitional and syntax dependent stages.
In this presentation, we will examine our data inview of the difficulty valued estimated by the Item
Response Theory (IRT).

1

Y and N tests

In Part (1) we have seen that the mean difficulty
values suggest the following grammaticaldevelopment.
We have combined someconstructions in Y test.
C-to prepositional dative + to )-1.97
A-to Ditransitives-1.82
C-for prepositional dative + for -1.78
D-for transitive verb + for -1.72
D-totransitive verb + to -1.52=VT passive
E-tohuman subject passives-1.32*B-for *non-dative verbs turned into ditransitives-1.25*F-for *theme passives-1.17= unaccusative*B-to*non-dative verbs turned into ditransitives
0.59
A-for
Ditransitives
0.84
*F-to
*theme passives
1.58
E-for
human subject passives
4.48

2

S test: logical subjects in xcomps

In this test, we had three experimental conditions:converging, neutral and conflicting conditions. In
the converging conditions, the thematic role of alogical subject of each xcomp is pragmaticallycongruent to the grammatical function of a sentence,as shown in the following example:
The boy promised his mother to study harder forthe exam.
Logical subject
xcomp(It is the boy who studies harder for the exam.)
In the converging condition, a learner can judge thelogical subject of the xcom, even without relying on
the syntactic knowledge. On the other hand, in theconflicting condition, the thematic role of a logicalsubject of xcomp is not congruent to thegrammatical function of a sentence, as shown in thefollowing example:
The mother promised her son to study harder for theexam.
(It is the mother who studies harder for the exam,
which is contrary to our normal expectation.)In this example, unless a learner knows the lexical
property of the verb, promise, he/she tends to makea mistake. If the learner who relies on thethematic roles lacks correct syntactic intuition, heor she is bound to make an erroneous judgment.
In the neutral condition, the thematic roles ofeach subject noun and object noun are neutral withrespect to our normal pragmatic expectation, as
shown in the following example: Tom promised
Mary to study harder for the exam.
In this example, it is our knowledge of lexical
property of the verb, promise, that can tell us which
noun phrase denotes the logical subject of the
xcomp. The result of IRT analysis is given in thefollowing table.
S44 CONV. The boy promised his mother to study
harder for the exam.
-1.93
S47 CONV. The baseball player promised the boy
to hit a homerun for him.-1.46
S13 CONV.The student promised the teacher tohand in his report by tomorrow.-1.41
S20 CONV.The police officer told the driver to stop
the car immediately.
-1.34
S11 CONV. The mother told her son to clean up the
room.
-1.30
S42 CONV. The customer asked the waitress tobring a new spoon.-1.27
Avg. CONV.Average of the Converging Cue
Sentences-1.27
S46 CONV. The doctor told the patient to havesome rest.
-1.24
S06 CONV. The patient promised the doctor to takethe medicine.
-1.16
S39 CONV. The boy asked his mother to bake acake for his birthday.
-1.13
S33CONV.The interviewer asked the actor to talkabout his new film.
-1.10
S05CONV.The teacher told the student to look up
the word in a dictionary.-1.08
S10NEUT.John promised Ken to show his newcomputer.
-1.04
S27NEUT.Ken promised John to show his newcomputer.
-1.03
S29NEUT.John promised Mary to attend the lecture.
-1.02
S36NEUT.Peter asked Ken to come and see his newcomputer.
-0.91
S15NEUT.Ken asked Peter to come and see his newcomputer.
-0.88
S25CONV.The boss asked his secretary to reserve a
hotel room for his business trip.
-0.85
S12NEUT.Ken asked Lucy to bake a birthday cakefor their father.
-0.74
S21NEUT.Mary promised John to attend the lecture.
-0.68
Avg.NEUT.Averageofthe
Neutral
Cue
Sentences-0.66
S26 NEUT.Peter told Ken to join the baseballclub.-0.50
S23NEUT.Lucy asked Ken to bake a birthday cakefor their father.
-0.43
S32NEUT.Ken told Peter to join the baseballclub.-0.35
S24CONF.The student told the teacher to look up
the word in a dictionary.-0.32
S45 CONF.The boy told his mother to clean up the
room.
-0.29
S07 NEUT.Lucy told Sam to visit Peter's house at
six.
-0.28
S37CONF.The driver told the police officer to stop
the car immediately.
-0.28
S48CONF.The mother asked her son to bake a cakefor his birthday. -0.17
S30NEUT.Sam told Lucy to visit Peter's house at
six.
-0.02
S14CONF.The patient told the doctor to have some
rest.
0.10
S09CONF.The secretary asked his boss to reserve a
hotel room for his business trip.
0.27
S38CONF.The doctor promised his patient to takethe medicine.
0.29
Avg.CONF. Average of the Conflicting Cue
Sentences
0.31
S35CONF.The boy promised the baseball player tohit a homerun for him.0.36
S19CONF.The actor asked the interviewer to talkabout his new film.
0.39
S02CONF.The waitress asked the customer to bringa new spoon.
0.64
S04CONF.The teacher promised the student to handin his report by tomorrow.1.31
S18CONF.The mother promised her son to study

harder for the exam.
1.39
In this experiment, we had two kinds of verbs:
subject control verb as ‘promise’ and object control
verbs such as ‘tell’ and ‘ask.’ When we compare
these, we get the following result:Conversing subject control verb -1.49
Conversing object control verbs -1.16
Neutral subject control verb
-0.94
Neutral object control verbs-0.51
Conflicting object control verbs 0.04
Conflicting subject control verb 0.84

3.0 Integrated analysis
We can summarize our result in terms of verb types
and difficulty values as follows:
subject
C-to prepositional dative + to
-1.97-o
A-to Ditransitives [Input B ias]
-1.82
-oC-for prepositional dative + for-1.78-oD-for transitive verb + for-1.72-oD-to transitive verb + to
-1.52-o
=VT passive-rIntransitive ( unergatives)-1.48-o= Converging subject control-oE-to human subject passives-1.32-r*B-for *non-dative verbs turned into ditransitives-1.25= Converging*F-for *theme passives-1.17+o= Intransitive (unaccusative)-r= Converging object control verbs-oTransitive verbs-0.96-oNeutral Subject control verb
-0.94
-oNeutral-0.66
Conflicting
0.31*B-to *non-dative verbs turned into ditransitives
0.59
A-for Ditransitives
0.84-o= Conflicting subject control*F-to *theme passives
1.58+oE-for human subject passives[NL transfer]
4.48-rE-to and E-for refer to the same human subject
passives, but Japanese learners find E-to easier thanE-for. We have attributed this big difference to the
NL transfer, since in Japanese passive constructions
have adversative readings and beneficiary E-for issemantically conflicting with adversative intuitions:Nakano et al. (2004). Dative ditransitives (such asgive and send) are by far easier than beneficiary
ditrasitives, to which we found a strong Input bias
in our textbook corpus: Ueda et al. (2004). Apartfrom these exceptions, we can generalize ourfindings as follows:1. subject nouns which receives [-o] features arelearned earlier and stable.
2 subject nouns which receives [-r] features arelearned in the next stage.
3 subject nouns which receives [+o] features andwhich blocks ill-formed passive sentences arelearned in the last stage.
In our traditional terms, the following grammar
development is suggested in our investigation:
1.
2.
3.
4.

5.
6.

7.

8.

VT ( verbs whose primary category istransitive)
Dative Ditransitive (if the input is salient)
VI (unergative) At this stage, convergent
subject control is learned.
VI (unaccusative) At this stage, [+o] is
acquired and the convergent object control islearned.
VT passives At this stage, neutral subject
control is learned.
Ungrammaticality of *B-for can be judged
correctly (heavy reliance on the argument
structures is reduced.) At this stage conversing
conditions can be adequately dealt with.
VT (verbs whose primary category is
intransitive) At this stage neutral subject
control is learned.
Beneficiary ditransitives At this stage,
conflicting subject control can be managed.

References
Bresnan, J. (2001). Lexical-Functional Syntax. MA:Blackwell.
Nakano, M., Sugino, N., Ohba, H., Yamakawa, K.,& Shimizu, Y. (2004). A Preliminary Analysis
of Grammatical Judgment Test: dative
constructions and their passive forms.
Proceedings of the 8th Conference of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics.
231-290.
Nakano, M., Sugino, N., Ohba, H., Yamakawa, K.,& Shimizu, Y. (2005). An Analysis ofGrammatical
Judgment
Test:
DativeConstructions,
Their
Passive
Forms,
Unaccusative and Unergative Constructions.
Proceedings of the 9th Conference of
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics,
386-394.
Ohba, H., Sugino, N., Nakano, M., Yamakawa, K.,
Shimizu, Y., & Kimura, S. (2006). The
Development of Grammatical Competence ofJapanese EFL Learners: Focusing on Relative
Clause Constructions. Journal of Pan-Pacific
Association of Applied Linguistics, 10, 1,
73-87.
Ohba, H., Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Shimizu, Y., &Nakano, M. (2005). The Acquisition of

wh-questions by Adult Japanese EFL Learners.
Poster presented at the PAAL conference,
Edinburgh, UK.
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 Reliablity 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 a Sample-Free
Grammatical Proficiency Test for SLA
Research. Proceedings of the 9th

Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 227-236.
Sugino, N., Nakano, M., Ohba, H., Kimura, S.,
Yamakawa, K., & Shimizu, Y. (2005). The
Development of Grammatical Competence ofJapanese EFL Learners: Focusing on Dative
Alternation. Proceedings of the 9th
Conference of Pan-Pacific Association ofApplied Linguistics, 322-331.
Sugino, N., Yamakawa, K., Ohba, H., Nakano, M.
& Shimizu, Y. (forthcoming). The Acquisitionof Psych Verbs by Japanese EFL Learners:
From the Perspective of Cue Dependency.
Ueda, N., Oya, M., & Owada, K. (2004). A Study ofJapanese Learners’ Input: Textbook Analysis
of Dative Verbs. Poster session presented at
the 9th Conference of Pan-Pacific Associationof Applied Linguistics, Namseoul University,
Chonan, Republic of Korea.
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
Verb.
AnnualReview of English Language Education in
Japan, 14, 1-10.
Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Kimura, S., Nakano, M.,
Ohba, H., & Shimizu, Y. (2005). Nihonjin
Eigo Gakushusha ni yoru Hitaikaku Doushi to
Hinoukaku Doushi no Shuutoku. [TheAcquisition
Processesof
Unaccusative/Unergative Verbs by Japanese
EFL Learners.] JACET Chugoku-Shikoku
Chapter Research Bulletin, 2, 91-110.
Yamakawa, K., Sugino, N., Ohba, H., Nakano, M.,& Shimizu, Y. (2006). Acquisition of English
grammatical features by adult Japanese EFL
learners: The application of Item Response
Theory in SLA research. Proceedings of
CLaSIC. 942-974.

A Study of Foreign Language Anxiety and its Constructs ofJapanese College Students Learning English
Nami Iwaki

Education Center for International Students, Nagoya University
iwaki@ecis.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Abstract
The present study examined the anxiety constructsof Japanese college students learning English over
one full academic year. The purpose of this study
was to investigate the relationship between anxiety,achievement, and the construct of foreign language
anxiety among university students learning English
in Japan. The construct of foreign language anxiety
is group of factors that make up what learners feelanxious about when learning a foreign language.
Longitudinal data were gathered in order to probe
1) whether the construct of foreign language
anxiety vary according to each major, and 2)
whether the construct of foreign language anxiety
changes over a year.
The study discovered that the object of thestudents’ anxiety seem to fluctuate as the year goesby, exhibiting different anxiety constructs. Throughanalyses, the study found that the overall constructof the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scaleor FLCAS, (Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope, 1986) for
the Japanese students of this study was quite
different from that of Horwitz et al.’s. In their study,
they suggested that the FLCAS is composed ofthree components, Communication apprehension,
Speech anxiety, and Test anxiety. However, for thisstudy, the factor analysis extracted a two-factor
solution, which was composed of Fear of speaking
in the English Classroom and General English Class
Performance Anxiety.

Keywords
Foreign language anxiety, foreign language anxiety
constructs, Japanese undergraduate English majors /non-English majors

Introduction
Language classroom anxiety is a widespread
phenomenon which is described as “the feeling oftension and apprehension specifically associatedwith second language contexts, including speaking,listening, and learning” (MacIntyre & Gardner,
1994, p. 284). The recent body of research on
foreign language classroom suggests that a highlevel of anxiety can interfere with foreign language
learning, and it has become a variable that must beheeded in teaching and accounted for in research(Burden, 2004; Elkhafaifi, 2005).
Although the study of language anxiety has
progressed considerably in recent years, the studyof foreign language anxiety is still a relatively new
area. Similarly, language learning anxiety did not
become a major research concern in Japan until
quite recently. In addition, only a few of thesestudies used a longitudinal research design, which
is an important research tool. This study
longitudinally investigated the foreign language
anxiety of Japanese college students learning
English over one year. The first part of this study
examined the difference in foreign language anxiety
among students of different majors. The second partof the study dealt with the anxiety construct and its
stability among English major students. As
suggested by Samimy and Tabuse (1992), if
anxiety-determining variables change over time, itis speculated that different predictors of
performance should emerge among learners. This
paper seeks to test this theory.

1

Data collection procedures

For English majors, data collection was done in thefirst week of April, at the beginning of the academic
year, and also in the last week of January, at the endof that year. The students were asked to complete abackground questionnaire and the Foreign
Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS)
during their Oral Communication Class. A brief
description of the present study was presented,
along with an informed consent form. For the othermajors, the same survey was administered once, inthe first week of April. The same procedures were
followed as those for the English majors, and thesurvey was handed out during an English class.
1.1
Participants
The total number of participants in this study was
578 students, ranging in age from 18 to 25, with anaverage age of 21.5. The participants were fromvarious majors; first (114) and second year (133)English majors, 68 first year Business majors, 209
first and second year Mathematical Sciences andInformation Engineering majors and 56 first andsecond year students majoring in Culture andInformation.
1.2
Instrumentation
The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale(FLCAS) by Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986), abackground questionnaire, and the Michigan test ofEnglish (University of Michigan, 1972) wereadministered. The background questionnaire asked
for the following information: the participant’s
gender, experience of living abroad, prior language
training (past or present English conversation
classes attended outside university), experience oftraveling abroad, and whether they had native
English-speaking friends. The entire survey washanded out during English class time.
In addition, the word “foreign language” in theoriginal scales was replaced with “English.” Forexample, the original question “I never feel quite
sure of myself when I am speaking in my foreign
language class,” was changed to “I never feel quite
sure of myself when I am speaking in my English
class.”

2

Research Questions

Research Question 1: Does the structure of the
FLCAS vary with the major of the participants?
Research Question 2: Does the structure of the
FLCAS change over time for English majors(Longitudinal participants)?

3

Results

Research Question 1: The series of factor analyses
by different majors showed that factors vary
according to the group investigated. These results
indicate that different sets of learners show different
constructs of language anxiety. If the groups werelongitudinally investigated, the post result might
have been different and a new construct may havebeen found. However, one factor, speaking anxiety,
was found to be common to all three groups. All
students, regardless of major, seemed to be anxious
when speaking English in the classroom. Students
from the present study may have lacked confidencein speaking English.
The results of the FLCAS scores for each major
are shown in Figure 1. The FLCAS yields acomposite score ranging from 33 to 165, with ahigher score signifying a higher degree of anxiety.
In this study, the total scores of 578 students using
Pre-test scores ranged from 44 to 155, with a meanof 102.91 and a standard deviation of 20.41.

Research Question 2: The series of factor analyses
found that the FLCAS structure for pre-test FLCAS
and post-test FLCAS was different. Factor analysis
also indicated that different majors showed different
anxiety constructs. The results suggest that there
may be a difference in constructs between different
majors and different constructs among students
over time. Due to the page limitation of theProceeding, only the result of the first year
students’ is presented.
First Year Students’ pre- and post-test FLCAS
Constructs
For first year English major’s pre-test FLCAS, thefactor analysis extracted a two-factor solution. The
factors were “Lack of self-confidence / Fear of
impromptu speech” and “Concerns over the English
class”. It seems that at the beginning of the year,
students were afraid to speak out or to be called on
to speak in class. It is quite understandable thatstudents felt this way since most of them did nothave much experience speaking English in highschool (Brown, 2004; Hojo, 1996). Also, since thisquestionnaire was given in the first week of school,
they were perhaps still unfamiliar with theuniversity and their classmates. They lacked
confidence and were probably worried about theirEnglish class.
On the other hand, the post-test FLCAS consistedof three factors: “Low-self confidence in theclassroom”, “Comparison with others”, and“Negative attitudes toward the English class”. It
seems students’ concerns toward the English classwere more diverse than with the post-test FLCAS.
At the beginning of the course, students were
anxious and had concerns about English class.
When school began, students were not aware of
their classmates’ English proficiency level, the classrequirements or the demands from their teachers.
However, when they took the FLCAS for thesecond time, which was almost 10 months after
their post-test FLCAS, they had become aware of
their classmates’ ability and also their own English
ability. Therefore, they were able to compare
themselves with other students. The results of thisstudy indicate that the object of students’ anxiety
may change over time.
Students who show no anxiety at the beginningof the year may show significantly more anxiety as
the class continues, while students who are fearfulof teacher evaluation at first may fear peer pressure
as the course progresses. Students who are afraid of
speaking in class may show a different variety of

FLCAS 14
FLCAS 1FLCAS 12
Factor 2 Comparison with Others
FLCAS 25
FLCAS 23
FLCAS 10FLCAS 18
FLCAS 26
FLCAS 2
FLCAS 11
FLCAS 8FLCAS 30FLCAS 7FLCAS 32
Factor 3 Negative Attitudes toward theEnglish ClassFLCAS 17
FLCAS 16
FLCAS 31FLCAS 21
FLCAS 19
FLCAS 29
% of variance% of total variance accounted for by thesolution

language anxiety later on. Language anxiety is acontinuous phenomenon which is likely to change
in the process of language learning. These results
suggest the need for instructors and teachers tounderstand and pay careful attention to learners’changes of perceptions toward learning thelanguage in classrooms.
Table 1: Summary of Factor Analysis: First year
students’ Pre-test FLCAS
FactorF1
1
Factor 1 Lack of Self-confidence/ Fear of
Impromptu Speech
FLCAS 9FLCAS 33
FLCAS 28
FLCAS 27
FLCAS 26
FLCAS 18
FLCAS 4
FLCAS 20FLCAS 16
FLCAS 3
FLCAS 1FLCAS 13FLCAS 14FLCAS 31FLCAS 2
FLCAS 32
FLCAS 8FLCAS 12FLCAS 15
Factor 2 Concerns over the English ClassFLCAS 25
FLCAS 30FLCAS 19
FLCAS 10FLCAS 17
FLCAS 29
FLCAS 23
FLCAS 21
FLCAS 22FLCAS 7% of variance% of total variance accounted for by thesolution
Items not included in factor solution
FLCAS 6
FLCAS 5FLCAS 11
FLCAS 24

F2
2

.75
.70
-.69
.67
.66
-.65
.65
.64
.61
.60
.57
.57
-.56
.53
-.52
-.49
-.48
.46
.44

h2

.61
.52
.54
.63
.49
.48
.46
.46
.61
.39
.37
.39
.33
.46
.30
.30
.26
.27
.32

24.6

.64
.62
.60
.57
.56
.54
.54
.50
-.42
.40
14

Items not included in factor solution
FLCAS 5FLCAS 6
FLCAS 15
FLCAS 22FLCAS 28

Factor 1 Low-self Confidence in theClassroom
FLCAS 33
FLCAS 3
FLCAS 27
FLCAS 20FLCAS 9FLCAS 13FLCAS 24
FLCAS 4

.67
.66
.63
.63
.61
.58
.50
.48

42.1

.09
.11
.38
.33
.43

.03
-.10
.12
.36
.44

-.22
.23
.37
.25
.17

106
104
102

98
96
First Year
EnglishMajors

.22
-.03
.16
.45

F2

16.0

.51
.69
.57
.24
.29
.36

100

SecondYear
EnglishMajorsMath &
Info.
MajorsBusiness
MajorsInfo.
MajorsAverage
Score

Figure 1. FLCAS Average Scores by Major

4

Factor
F1

16.0

.64
.62
.55
.46
.42
.41
10.1

108

Table 2: Summary of Factor Analysis: First year
students’ Post-test FLCAS
Factors and items

.57
.56
.64
.48
.51
.46
.31
.34
.35
.29
.34

.67
.63
.62
-.62
.54
-.53
-.52
-.49
.45
.44
-.43

110

.54
.41
.41
.56
.41
.39
.47
.26
.20
.24

38.6

-.04
-.19
.36
.46

.30
.45
.32

112

FLCAS Scores

Factors and items

-.47
.44
.43

F3

h2

.59
.56
.64
.55
.53
.46
.49
.32

References

Brown, R. (2004). Learning consequences of fear ofnegative evaluating and modesty forJapanese EFL learners. The Language
Teacher, 28, 1, 15-17.
Burden, P. (2004). The teacher as facilitator:
Reducing anxiety in the EFL university
classroom. JALT Hokkaido Journal, 8,
3-18.
Elkhafaifi, H. (2005). Listening comprehension andanxiety in the Arabic language classroom.

The Modern Language Journal, 89,
206-220.
Hojo, R. (1996). A study of students’ anxiety overclassroom English (6). Bulletin of Joetsu
University of Education, 16, 495-505.
Horwitz, E., Horwitz, M., & Cope, J. A. (1986).
Foreign language classroom anxiety. The
Modern Language Journal 70, 125-132.
Michigan (1977). Michigan placement testTechnical manual. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan.
MacIntyre, P., & Gardner, R. (1994). The Effects of
induced anxiety on three stages ofcognitive processing in computerized
vocabulary learning. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition, 16, 1-17.
Samimy, K., & Tabuse, M. (1992). Affective
variables and a less commonly taught
language: A study in beginning Japaneseclasses. Language Learning, 42, 377-398.

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 iscorrecting.
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 otherstudents.
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 otherclasses.
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 teachersays.
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.

The Recognition of the Cultural Similarity as an Effective EFL
Learning Strategy
Keum Sook No

College of General Education, Kyungwon University
ksno@kyungwon.ac.kr

Abstract

4

The purpose of this paper is to study the recognitionof the cultural similarity as an effective EFL
learning strategy.

4.1
Data Analysis
This study examines three groups of University
students to prove the effect of EFL learning basedon the recognition of the cultural similarity. This
study surveyed and analyzed the results of arepresentative sample of M.A. and Ph. D. thesis on
Culture/English Education.

Keywords
Cultural similarity (universals), cultural differences(diversity), non-native speakers of English, native
speakers of English, global language

Introduction
The NNSs (Non‐Native Speakers of English)classcan be found authentic skills as an effective EFL
learning strategy using the basic understanding of
cultural similarity between NSs (Native Speakers ofEnglish) and NNSs.

1

Culture & Language

A language is just as culture-bound are thetraditional
habitsandvalueorientations
characteristic of the society whose members use it.
The term culture also is all-inclusive. When one
talks about a culture, the explicit mention of
language is strictly speaking, redundant because
any particular language is a form of learned
behavior and therefore a part of culture2

4.2
Data Analysis and Discussion
It can be detrimental for EFL learners to emphasize
acceptance of English culture as an objective in
EFL classes. Since that kind of attitude can create asense of inferiority in an EFL learner, EFL classes
should emphasize reliance on their own culture toencounter the foreign culture in EFL classes.

5

Conclusion

To get rid of having those inconsistency, it isnecessary to recognize the cultural similarity
between the target culture of EFL learners and thevernacular culture as a Non‐Native Speakers ofEnglish. This paper is the study that to be concerned
the recognition of the cultural similarity thancultural differences can take an effective EFL
learning strategy.

Cultural differences (diversity)

Throughout history, human have expressed aninterest in cultural diversity. Different values, norms,
beliefs, and practices have been recognized bypeoples everywhere. People have compared andcontrasted their respective cultural traditions.

3

Data Analysis and Discussion

Cultural similarity

Some anthropologists began to recognize thathuman throughout the world share somefundamental behavioral characteristics. George
Murdock(1945), an anthropologist who devoted
himself to cross-cultural analysis for culturalsimilarity.

References
Agar, M. (1994). Language Shock: Understanding
the Culture of Conversation. New York: Quill,
William Morrow.
Baldwin, E., Longhurst, B., McCracken, S., Ogborn,M., & Smith, G. (1999). Introducing Cultural
Studies. Athens: The University of Georgia
Press.
Burke, P. & Porter, R. (Ed.). (1994). The Social
History of Language. New York, Melbourne:
Cambridge University Press.
Cavallaro, D. (2001). Critical and Cultural Theory.
London, New Brunswick, NJ: The Athlone
Press.
Edwards, J. (1994). Multilingualism. London, NewYork: Routledge.
Hall, E. T. (1989). Beyond Culture. New York :Anchor Books.
Hamers, J. F. & Blanc. M. H. A. (2000).
Bilinguality and Bilingualism (2nd ed.).
Cambridge,
New
York,
Melbourne:
Cambridge University Press.
Kuper, A. (2001). Culture: The Anthropologists'
Account. Cambridge, MA, London: Harvard
University Press.
Murdock, G. (1945). “The Common Denominatorof Cultures”. In Ralph Linton, (Ed.)
pp.123-142. The Science of Man in the World
Crisis. New York: Columbia University Press.

Analysis of Native English Speaking Teacher Role in Korean
English Education
Hyun Sun Im and Kyung-Ja Park

Korea University
heatherim@hotmail.com

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the overall
effectiveness of a Native English Speaking Teacher(NEST) on students studying English in Korea
within the framework of team teaching which
Ministry of English (MOE) has implemented. Inorder to administer the study, three surveys wereadministered to NESTs, Non-Native English
Speaking Teachers (NNEST) and Students Learning
English in Korea (SLEK).

the English Program in Korea (EPIK).
► Curriculums of English lessons
NEST (1hr)

Mon

Lesson :storybook
HW :findingdefinitions of words

Wed

Lesson :storybook
HW :findingdefinitions of words

Fri

Lesson :storybook
HW :findingdefinitions of words

Keywords
Native English Speaking Teacher, Non-native
English Speaking Teacher, Ministry of English,
Students learning English in Korea, English
program in Korea, Frequency Band

Introduction
As more and more Native English Speaking
Teachers participate in English Education in Korea,
it is crucial to examine the effect of a role of Native
English Speaking Teacher V.S Non Native English
Speaking Teacher.

1

Survey Data

The first survey was administered to NESTs
currently working in Korea on a one- year E-2 visa.
The NESTs were from all over Korea, but they werelimited to private institutions known as Hagwons.
The second survey was administered to NNESTs intheir native language to reduce misunderstanding
the questions. As well these NNESTs were from allover Korea and were limited to private institutions.
The third and final survey was administered to
SLEKs who belonged to the ESL English Education
Center in Incheon. The survey was in their native
language, again to reduce their confusion withquestions and allow for honest answers.
Apart from the surveys an analysis of a groupof SLEK writing compositions was preformed. The
analysis was to be used as factual data that would
be compared to results of the surveys to support theneed for a further analysis of NESTs in Korea and

* HW
*D
* WB

NNEST (1hr)
Lesson :LG book
HW :LG vocab (T)D2Tape recording
Lesson :LG book
HW :LG
listening
dictation
D2
Tape recordingEB
Lesson :LG book
HW :LG unit (T)D2Tape recording
WB*T: homework: diary: work book that comes along with student’s
book of let’s go series: produced by ESL English education Center
mainly practicing and reviewing from Let’sgo series: Test2

Survey result* EB

The surveys for NNEST and NEST have the samequestions to see the comparison and contrast of thetwo groups. The surveys are divided into 5
categories containing at least 6 questions.

 Personal information: age, gender, education
background Background knowledge: knowledge of Engli
sh history, qualification for a teacher
 English education in Korea: problems / solu
tions, strength, weakness
 Preference for native or Korean teacher ofEnglish: Advantage and disadvantage of NE
ST and NNEST teachers Conception of English language: Awarenessof different Englishes

Graph 2. Role of NNEST
100.0%
90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
NNES T
NES T

50.0%
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%

The survey for SLEK is to show how they feel
about NEST and NNEST teaching. The survey
consists of two sections,

10.0%
0.0%
effective way to exchange culture

explain in ga teacher should

help thepersistent

words andhave the sameunderstandin glearn in gleadin g

basic grammarroleothersrules

 Personal information: age, gender, Standard
English, Experience relating to the language Teacher preference: attitude towards NEST
and NNEST teaching methods

52% of the participants had studied English formore than 5 years, and most of them had studied atleast 1 year or more.
Graph 3. The length of English education

NESTs were equally divided, on what their role was,between helping with unnatural expression/misuse
of words and understanding of cultures, whereas
NNESTs at 62.5% saw the role mainly as helping
with unnatural expressions/misuses of words.
Graph 1. Role of NEST
70.0%

60.0%

50.0%

40.0%
NNES T
NES T
30.0%

20.0%

10.0%

0.0%
u n n atu ral
u n de rs tan din ge x pre s s ion an dof c u ltu re s
mis u s e ofw ordss e n te n c es tru c tu re ss pe akin g

adpatin g agood le arn in g
h abitNESTs at 69.2 % believed the role of a NNEST
is explaining words and basic grammar, whereas a
NNEST at 86.7 felt their role was to help thestudents understand the new language and act as
bridge between the first language and the second
language.

51% of them first started their English with ateacher visiting their home regularly and 24% ofthem learned at a private English school. Moreover
10% of the students learned from private tutors. It isevident that students in Korea encountered theEnglish language in a variety of ways, and this has
many effects on the English Education system as
English is no longer learnt just in the classroom
anymore.

Graph 4 . First encountered English education

The graph 5. shows how important of a role
NESTs have to students. 43% students answeredwith average and 33% said that they were bit ofhelp and very helpful by 19% of students and only
5% with negative response.
Graph 5. Role of NEST to SLEKGraph 6. Role of NNEST to SLEK

3

Composition Result

The compositions were broken down word for word
to be compared to the NNEST class, which uses theLet’s Go 1 to 4 books, and the NEST, which uses avariety of storybooks. This is done to gauge whichclass is more effective when it comes to writing.
The compositions were then compared to the FB
to check the students English proficiency by seeing
how many words belong to the most frequently
used words in everyday conversation.
Graph 7. Frequency band with the composition

38% of the students said that NNESTs knowboth the advantages and disadvantages of learning
English, so that the teaching by a NNEST is quite
compulsory. 43% said it is agreed but it is justcrucial, and 19% said just average.
As is shown from graph 7, 66.0% of words from thecompositions belong to D-3 the most frequently
used words in the English language, 17% belong to
D-2 and only 4.0% to D-1 the least frequently used
words in the English language. In short,vocabularies that the students used for theircomposition are mostly based on D-3 words. There
are 11.5 % of the words that do not belong to FB.

However, most of these words are proper nouns,
contractions, and compound nouns with no definite
identification of the words themselves. When thesewords were examined different tenses wereconsidered the same words as long as the figures ofspeech didn’t change.
Graph 8. shows that 73.4 % of the words that theyused in their composition are straight from the LG
book and only 6.9% come from the storybooks. The
other 19.7 % might be acquired through media,
books, family, or friends. Although 6.9% of thecomposition words match the words from the story
book, the percentage may not correctly reflect thestory book as being the definite source of thesewords as students could have acquired these words
from sources other than the storybook. It can beconcluded that the textbook contributed largely tothe outcome of the writing thus in English
education, selecting a textbook is very importantbecause the strong positive results of learning
English are very much depended on the textbook
used. In other words, the NEST class isn’t very
effective in this specific case because of the use of
the words from storybook shows a very low
percentage.
Graph 8. Matching words of Composition Words

4

Conclusion

It can be seen that based upon the results of student
compositions that a NEST provides more of a
supplementary role to the NNEST and not theleading role as put forth by the EPIK. Upon further
review, of both the composition results and student
survey, when putting to much emphasis andresponsibility on the NEST, this can becounter-productive for the EPIK thus undermining
its ability to operate effectively. As well therequirements or lack of requirements, put forth by
the MOE, for NEST can also lead to detrimental
results for the English education system bothprivately and publicly. The role of a NEST needs tobe re-examined and further studied before theimplementation of an actual effective and positive
plan.
References. (2002).

.

.
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.

(2005). Improving Team Teaching
Between Native and Non Native English
Speaking Teachers: An Action Research
Studyin
Korea.
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Ahn, S.M., & Ono,S. (1998). A comparative studyof the EPIK program and the JET program.
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Krashen, S., & Terrell, T. D. (1983). The Natural
Approach: Language Acquisition in theClassroom. Oxford: Pergamon press.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice inSecond Language Acquisition. Oxford:
Pergamon Press.