2018 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Assessing Foreign Language Activity Assistants' perspectives on primary Foreign Language Activities
| Project/Area Number |
16K02952
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| Research Institution | Fukushima University |
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Principal Investigator |
Mahoney Sean 福島大学, 行政政策学類, 准教授 (50292454)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
猪井 新一 茨城大学, 教育学部, 教授 (80254887)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2016-10-21 – 2020-03-31
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| Keywords | 小学校外国語活動 / 外国語活動協力者 / ノン・ネイティブ・スピーカー / 教科 / 英語の非母語話者 / 外国語活動支援者 / 英語教育 / EAA |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The Principal Investigator presented “Non-native English-speaking ALTs” at Japan’s national JASELE conference at Ryokoku University (Kyoto) last August, focussing on data from 5 of the 12 non-native English-speaking assistants interviewed so far. In October, 2018 he published “New assistant types for English Activities in Japan’s primary schools” in KOTESOL 2017 (pp. 97-108), a paper that was based on the project's pilot study.
Also in October, the Principal Investigator visited South Korea to attend the KOTESOL Conference, at which he presented a paper entitled “Turning to non-native English-speaking assistants in primary schools.” That presentation seems to have been particularly well-received, and led to his being asked originally to write an article for a future edition of The English Connection, a KOTESOL quarterly magazine. The new article was submitted in December 2018, but was deemed “a bit too academic for magazine readership,” and subsequently recommended by the editor-in-chief for the Korea TESOL Journal, a KOTESOL-produced, refereed journal. It is currently being reviewed.
In early 2019, the Principal Investigator had a presentation proposal accepted for the 2019 Asia TEFL Conference, which will be held in Bangkok, Thailand in June. He has also recently been accepted to present at JALT 2019 in November. Lastly, in addition to the 63 pages of interview data collected, the two investigators share a file of relevant literature summaries that currently exceed 241 pages.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
The Principal Investigator was diagnosed with skin cancer early in FY 2018 and had to undergo five operations, including two skin grafts, between July 2018 and March 2019. Doctor consultations, operations, recovery periods, and follow-up appointments have made considerable demands on his time and energy.
After careful consultation with the Co-investigator, we decided to use SurveyMonkey for the upcoming large-scale survey, which has had to be postponed by several months for the reason stated above. Funding for the survey has been transferred from FY 2018 to FY 2019. We have finalised all survey questions in English and Japanese, have adapted them to SurveyMonkey format, and are employing two assistants to create a list of 5000 primary schools, randomly chosen from the 全国学校総覧 2018 with the aid of the Random Integer Set Generator (at the website random.org). We will soon print and post an introduction to our research to schools, along with link to the (bilingual) online surveys, which can be completed on PCs, tablets, or even smartphones. This technological advancement saves return postage costs and efficiently expedites the response process for schools and prospective respondents while meeting our own goal of casting a wide net to reach as many assistants as possible. Since assistants in our target group can be found only in a minority of primary English classrooms, with the best estimates (Mahoney & Inoi, 2014; MEXT, 2017) seeing them in about 11% of all classes, a response rate of between 5 and 12% (n = 250-600) would be considered a success.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Since assistants in our target group are seldom kept on updated lists at prefectural or even municipal boards of education, we shall cast a wide net with our survey. The school address list should be completed by the end of June, and we intend to post it to 5000 schools before the summer break. This timing will allow even new assistants several months to acquire experience, and they can take the summer holidays to respond. We plan to allow about three months for responses to arrive. Throughout FY 2019, we will continue interviewing primary school assistant teachers, observing classes, and broadening the geographical range of such activities.
We will also continue to procure, read, and make extensive notes on recent and historical materials related to teaching English as a foreign language to young learners in Japan and worldwide.
The Principal Investigator will present “Help from experienced non-native English-speakers at primary schools in Japan” at the Asia TELF Conference in June 2019, and at the JALT （全国言語教育学会） 2019 Conference in November. He has also submitted a proposal to the national JES (小学校英語教育学会) Conference, to be held in July 2019. The Co-investigator will soon submit a proposal to the JASELE (全国英語教育学会) Conference in August 2019.
With the unexpected health issues and consequent postponement of our nationwide survey, plans for the non-native English-speaking assistant symposium are on hold. It will take place if our budget and timeframes allow.
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| Causes of Carryover |
Again, the Principal Investigator was diagnosed with skin cancer early in FY 2018 and had to undergo five operations, including two skin grafts, between July 2018 and March 2019. Doctor consultations, operations, recovery periods, and follow-up appointments have made considerable demands on his time and energy. For this reason, many preparations and the launch of our nationwide survey has had to be postponed until FY 2019.
We have received estimates from a printer’s, and calculate that of printing, packaging, and sending two A4 sized pages in envelopes to 5000 schools at approximately 600,000 yen, which is slightly less than what had been originally proposed (670,000 yen). In addition, we will pay research assistants for approximately 100 hours of work, at 780 yen per hour, totalling 78,000 yen. As for conferences, if all goes according to plans, we expect costs for the international and domestic conferences to total approximately 200,000 respectively. We also intend to produce a printed final report at the end of FY 2019, and post it to prefectural boards of education.
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Research Products
(3 results)
