Making of an evaluating system for English learners' productive skills and its application

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25370644
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Foreign language education
• Research Institution: University of Nagasaki
• Principal Investigator: Uemura Toshihiko 長崎県立大学, 国際情報学部, 教授 (50176640)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): YUKIMARU Naomi 北九州市立大学, 外国語学部英米学科, 准教授 (10593337) ; KARATSU Rie 長崎県立大学, 国際情報学部, 准教授 (60458114) ; YAMAUCHI Hisako 長崎県立大学, 国際情報学部, 教授 (70200582)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: CEFR / 多読用英語リーダー / 新JACET8000

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This project aimed at making a system which evaluates English learners' productive knowledge. Based on large spoken corpora, English graded reader texts and other related English text data, several frequency-based wordlists were compiled, and compared with the new JACET List of 8000 Basic Words (new JACET800). A close examination suggested that the top 3000 words of the new JACET8000, JACET3000, could be used as the lexical base when English learners' productive vocabulary is evaluated. Students' English writing and criterial features of Hawkins & Filipovic (2012) were compared to make a list of distinctive properties which represent levels of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), and which range from A2 to C1. Our tentative conclusion is that JACET3000 and the CEFR distinguishing syntactic level markers are two core components on which the productive knowledge and skills of English learners are evaluated.

Free Research Field

英語学