Rethinking the 4/3/2 activity for fluency and accuracy development

2018 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K02882
• Research Institution: Nippon Medical School
• Principal Investigator: KIRK STEVEN 日本医科大学, 医学部, 准教授 (10794753)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): カズノブ ダビッド 千葉大学, 大学院看護学研究科, 助教 (10646657)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: fluency / second language / speaking

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

The 4/3/2 activity is a classroom fluency-building activity where learners repeat the same spontaneous speech three times. This activity has been criticized for leading to poor accuracy because learners may repeat ungrammatical phrases. In order to examine the effect of an awareness-raising activity on the ability of learners to maintain both fluency and accuracy, recordings of Japanese learners of English giving 3 short speeches in English on the same topic were collected. This comprised approximately 100 learners giving 3 speeches each. These conversations are currently in the process of being transcribing and annotated for timing. This is used to calculate typical fluency measures, including mean length of run of speech, length and number of hesitations and pauses, and the speech rate. These measures, as well as other annotations of grammatical errors, will be used to compare the effectiveness of the awareness activity.

Current Status of Research Progress

3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.

Reason

There were some difficulties with finding means of transcribing the data. Originally it was planned to hire graduate students to do the work, but this turned out to not be feasible. At this point, we are using a professional transcribing service to do this work.

Strategy for Future Research Activity

Once the transcriptions are complete, analysis of the results will be done to complete the study.

Causes of Carryover

The method for having the transcriptions made was changed, which what a large portion of the funds are allotted to. The funds to be used for this purpose will be used at the beginning of the 2019 year period.