2004 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Study on Establishing Criteria on TOEFL
Project/Area Number |
15520363
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Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
Section | 一般 |
Research Field |
Foreign language education
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Research Institution | University of Aizu |
Principal Investigator |
MURAKAWA Hisako University of Aizu, The School of Computer Science and Engineering, Professor, コンピュータ理工学部, 教授 (90174284)
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Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
CUMMING Martha University of Aizu, The School of Computer Science and Engineering, Associate Professor, コンピュータ理工学部, 助教授 (40347240)
GILESPIE Sandra International Christian University, The College of Liberal Arts, Assistant Professor, 教養学部, 講師 (10347239)
STEPHEN G.L University of Aizu, The School of Computer Science and Engineering, Associate Professor, コンピュータ理工学部, 助教授 (10254111)
ASAI Nobuyoshi University of Aizu, The School of Computer Science and Engineering, Assistant Professor, コンピュータ理工学部, 講師 (80325969)
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Project Period (FY) |
2003 – 2004
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Keywords | TOEFL TWE / TESOL / TEFL / Teaching methodology / Teaching writing / Error analysis / Testing / Evaluation |
Research Abstract |
The essays of 177 out of 1308 students were analyzed. There are Content, Organization, structure, word Choice, Verb Usage, Mechanics. There are 8 sub categories in Content, 6 in Organization, 6 in Structure, 17 in Word choice, 8 in Verb usage, and 4 in Mechanics. In the category of Content, the most common problem was for unclearmeaning. The second greatest problem found was the lack of supporting evidence. The third and fourth problems concerned weak conclusions. In terms of organization the biggest problem was that these were too short, Problems with sentence structure and dependent clause structures were serious and occurred in 71 % of the essays. Another structure problem was sentences beginning with conjunctions. Articles were clearly the biggest challenge to the student writers. Out of 177 writers, 155 of them made errors in the use of articles. The biggest problem students had with verbs was the use of an incorrect verb and incorrect verb tense. Students had spacing problems in their essay with either too many spaces or too few with an average of 2.64 spacing errors in the 84 essays with this problem.
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