Exploring teacher-learner utterances in EFL classroom: a case of early English education in Japan

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K00858
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02100:Foreign language education-related
• Research Institution: Takushoku University
• Principal Investigator: Imura Keiko 拓殖大学, 外国語学部, 教授 (90649211)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 小学校外国語活動 / 児童の発話 / 定型表現 / 言語活動 / COLT

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study examined the extent to which Japanese elementary school students engage in freely constructed utterances in English during foreign language classes. The subjects were 62 fifth-grade students from a municipal elementary school, and their utterances from 26 foreign language lessons were transcribed and analyzed. The research questions were two folds. 1) To what extent do students exhibit freely constructed utterances? 2) What factors encourage students to produce such utterances? Firstly, it was suggested that students' speech transitions from fixed expressions to more free-form speech. Additionally, these phenomena were found to be associated not with instruction focused on linguistic forms, but with interactions concerning content or tasks. It was also suggested that language activities affect the length of students' utterances and encourage freely constructed utterances.

Free Research Field

早期英語教育

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の意義は、日本の小学校「外国語」の授業における、児童の発話に着目している点にある。必修化されて間もない外国語の授業に於いては、カリキュラムや指導法の中身の検証に加えて、実際に小学生がどのような言語活動で、どのようなコミュニケーションを行っているかを検証する必要がある。本研究では、児童の授業内発話の実態を明らかにすると共に、教師の問いかけや、授業内タスクとの関連を見た。結論として、児童のより自由度のある発話は、チャンクの分解という形で現れ、それらの発話は、「言語活動」と何らかの関係があるのではないかという仮説に至った。よって、今後この仮説をさらに検証して行く。