| 研究実績の概要 |
I investigated why Japanese learners of English mentally translate into Japanese when they are reading English texts that are at their language ability level. Several common reasons were identified through this research using interviews and think-aloud protocols with students from ages 7 to 18 in international schools, junior and senior high schools, and university. The reasons vary with L2 level and are mainly related to the capacity of the working memory in the L2, especially at low levels. Higher-level students use the L1 as a tool to aid comprehension and to store information in their working memory as they progress through the text. They use both languages consciously and unconsciously as they become increasingly bilingual. Even very fluent English speakers store and recall in Japanese what they have read in English. This process is subconscious. More research is needed to investigate these phenomena in the field of neuroscience. The level at which students are able to process most of what they read directly in English is upper-intermediate (about CEFR B2 or TOEFL ITP 450). An unexpected finding was that the graded reading material used for the interviews presented difficulties for the readers due to oversights by authors and editors.
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