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Cebu International EFL Conference
Abstract of paper
Author
Ben Olah
Bunkyo Gakuin University
Tokyo,
Japan
Sawako Kato, Ed.
Bunkyo Gakuin University
Tokyo,
Japan
Title
A study on the factors which interfere with the improvement of Japanese university students’ communicative ability
Abstract
In Japan, the lack of English communicative ability has been a challenging problem for English teachers for a long time. A lot of effort has been made to rectify this problem at all levels, from governmental to that of individual English teachers. However, this regrettable situation has still not changed. In fact, it is not so simple to find out the answer to the question of why many Japanese lack English communicative ability in spite of relatively long periods of time learning (university students learn English for six years in junior and junior high school) because the reasons are so complicated. In other words, these reasons are related to culture, education, and even individual difference.
In this study, which aimed to improve this deplorable present situation, the factors which interfere with the improvement of students’ communicative ability were explored by analyzing errors from the students’ written data. Errors were analyzed in terms of not only whether they were right or wrong, but also whether they were comprehensible or not. Judging whether the sentences were comprehensible or incomprehensible is a rather subjective matter, however, it is important to clarify this information when students express themselves in authentic situations. The study was conducted among 101 Japanese university students who had learned English for six years before entering university. First, the written data was examined to confirm whether it was comprehensible or not. This data was grouped into three; natural, comprehensible, and incomprehensible. Second, using the data which was not considered to be natural English, the error sources (i.e what kinds of errors appeared frequently) were identified;. The error sources were categorized into three; (1) errors influences by L1 (2) a lack of grammatical knowledge (3) errors which arose from a lack of knowledge of words. Finally, written data together with the results of an open-ended questionnaire conducted among the sample was used to examine what kinds of elements become obstacles, or what is the most difficult element for the students to express.
The result showed 81% of the students could not make natural English passages. 14% of the students could make comprehensible passages if they were not strictly checked for grammar (i.e. wrong preposition or countable or non-countable use and so on). However, 65% of the students could not make comprehensible passages at all. Their errors are mainly derived from their lack of knowledge of the fundamental sentence patterns which are quite different from Japanese. This finding is consistent with the students’ statement in the open-ended questionnaire; 42% of the students admit the most difficult thing in putting Japanese into English is the structural difference between them. It could be said that the factors which interfere with the improvement of Japanese university students’ communicative ability is students do not have enough knowledge of the structural differences between the two languages. As the result suggests teaching fundamental English sentence patterns or how to build English sentences is imperative for teaching English to Japanese university students. More effort should be concentrated on the language difference between L2 and L1.
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