Yokomoto Katsuya

In this study, I investigated university-level English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ interests in and beliefs about pronunciation teaching and what kinds of interests and beliefs can predict whether they teach pronunciation. Online survey results showed that most of the university-level EFL teachers are interested in pronunciation teaching and learning effective ways to teach pronunciation. Those who are highly interested in pronunciation teaching also teach pronunciation. Another aspect included in the analysis was teachers’ beliefs. Those teachers who believe that teachers should learn the teaching of pronunciation and that teachers can facilitate learners’ development in pronunciation tend to teach pronunciation. The results seem to reflect the struggles that teachers undergo due to lack of previous training in the teaching of pronunciation and emphasize the demands of education and training in the pedagogical pronunciation in the teacher training programs.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate university students’ past experience in pronunciation learning, their beliefs about pronunciation learning, and their expectations about pronunciation teaching at a private university in Tokyo. An online questionnaire was conducted, and the results were analyzed in frequency counts and mean scores. The findings suggest that this university should consider offering an elective course for pronunciation learning to meet the students’ expectations.

In the present study, the interactional sociolinguistic approach was employed to analyze EFL learners’ interaction in group discussions. Two groups of learners participated in the present study: one from a higher level and the other from a lower level class. The results indicated that higher level learners effectively presumed what their interlocutors knew and selected appropriate lexical items, while lower level learners may not have been able to choose appropriate language due to their lack of lexical knowledge and lack of skills to presume what interlocutors knew. Also the findings showed that listeners’ use of top-down processing using schema when interpreting the speaker’s intended messages was crucial in successful communication. Therefore, learners should develop their skills to use schema to communicate both as speakers and listeners.

In this study, an investigation into how self-assessment might help Japanese university students in a freshman English Discussion Class learn discussion skills was conducted. In each lesson, the students used a self-check sheet after each of two discussions to self-assess how well they used the discussion skills they had studied. After reflecting on their own performance in the first self-check, the students chose the criteria they wished to focus on in the second discussion. For the quantitative analysis of the effects of the self-assessment, the students’ performance scores given by the instructor on the two discussions were compared. The results showed that the scores of the chosen criteria improved significantly more than those of the criteria they had not chosen. In addition, 10 students were randomly selected for interviews, and in the interview, they reported that the self-check had helped them understand the lesson objectives better and remember the skills for discussion. On this basis, the conclusion arrived at in this study is that self-assessment can help students to learn discussion skills.