| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,700,000)
Fiscal Year 2000: ¥1,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000)
Fiscal Year 1999: ¥2,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,200,000)
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| Research Abstract |
The purpose of this paper is threefold. It aimed, first, to comprehensively examine the current instruction of English at an early stage of English Language Education, secondly, to present a new framework, and finally to demonstrate the usefulness of the framework. One of the reasons for the ineffectiveness of English Language Education is the learning environment. Students are forced to learn in a limited amount of time, having little time to repeat what they have learned. The framework is to provide a new instruction method to help students with this regard.
First, a questionnaire study was conducted to reveal problems in English Language Education. 289 English teachers from various parts of Japan responded and the results were analyzed. It was found that their curricula were almost identical and they teach about 40 students four times a week. It was also revealed that they spent six to seven periods for one lesson of the textbook and the common procedure is Review-Introduction-Expansion-Practice. Comparison of the results with foreign language teaching in the US and the UK demonstrate a considerable difference in the amount and the speed of instruction.
Based on the above findings, the new framework was constructed and teaching was conducted with the principle of "three times faster and repeat twice" for two terms. In an early stage, less difference in achievement than usual was observed. However, as learning progressed, the experimental group ceased to show differences from the control group, due to the delay of writing instruction. It was inferred that this was caused by the test method. The improvement in academic achievement observed in this experiment deserves much attention.
Lastly, there are some remaining issues. A similar experiment should be done in a standard public school, for the current one was conducted in an affiliated school to a university. Also, measures to lessen resistance to the new instruction method should be explored.
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