1
English Language Proficiency of Japanese and Chinese Technical College Freshmen
Judith Ann Johnson
lntroduction
Scientific and acaaemic exchanges and joint research projects being conducted between Japan and other Asian countries, especially China, are on the rise. At preseng English is the international lingua franca.
Therefore, it is important for scientists, engineers, and technicians work- ing at the international level to be able to communicate ip English with confidence and clarity. In addition to common daily and travel language, they must also possess knowledge of the jargon within their particular field of expertise and know how to use it, properly. Unfortunately, most have had little or no training in the use of specialized English, which fre- quently results in communication difficulties.
There are instructional materials designed to teach'English for Spe- cial Purposes (ESP). However, they are generally directed toward on- the-job use for specific occupations. There is a great need for communi- catively-oriented ESP materials which include scientific and technical vocabulary, expressions and sentence structures that are common to many fields. Because of the similar ESP language needs of both Japanese and Chinese students, the idea of pooling the educational and technical re- sources of technical colleges in both countries to develop suitable communicatively-oriented instructional materials was proposed.
This study is a continuation of previous research which compared the attitudes that Japanese and Chinese college students majoring in sci- ence and technical fields have towards learning English (Johnson, 1994).
Data from that study indicated that Chinese students are more highly
motivated to study English than Japanese students. However, no lan-
2 Judith Ann Johnson
guage proficiency data was collected at that time. The purpose of this study was to provide such data.
Objectives and Procedures
The objective of the study was to determine if the college entry level
of Japanese and Chinese students' communicative English language pro- ficiency is similar.
TOEFL statistics (ETS, p. 24) and research findings such as those of Miyahara, et al (1995) support the common belief 'that Chinese university students' English language proficiency is generally superior to that of Japanese students. Both the TOEFL and a test similar to the TOEFL (Miyahara, 1995) measured listening comprehension, structure and written expression, vocabulary and reading comprehension. In all of these skills, the test scores of the Chinese students were higher than those of the Japanese.
Because the proposed endeavor to produce ESP materials focuses on communicative competency in science-related and technical environments, it was decided that only students majoring in technical and science fields would be included in the study. ' The subjects were Japanese students of Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT), Iizuka, Japan and Chinese stu- dents of Cheng-du University of Electronic Science' and Technology (CUEST), Cheng-du, P.RC.
It was further decided that only communicative ability would be
assessed. Therefore, rather than administering a multiple-skills standard-
ized test, the E74, a language placement test designed by the Center for
the Experimentation and Evaluation of Language Learning Techniques
was used (Ferguson,1974). The E74, which provides an evaluation of
listening comprehension, was already being used, successfully, by KIT to
group freshman students into loosely homogenous groups in order to bet-
ter provide them with training appropriate for their language needs and
abilities, so the same test was selected for this study. The E74 measures
the student's 1) ability to decode information under a time constraint and
2) phonemic discrimination ability. The content is comprised of sentence structures and vocabulary found in common, daily conversations. It is a self-scored test that can be easily and quickly administered in 15 minutes by a non-native speaker of English.
An evaluation of oral English competency was not possible due to the considerable amount of time it would have entailed and the lack of trained pcrsonnel to do the testing.
As ESP training would most likely be incorporated into basic lan- ' guage training at the freshman level, freshmen at both institutions were evaluated within the first three weeks of the first academic semester.
For KIT students, this was in Apri1, 1995; and for CUEST students, in September, 1995. At both schools, the test was administered by teachers in the respective departments.
Description of Students '
The total number of subjects used in this study was 564, two hun- dred eighty-seven freshmen students from each university. Kyushu In- i stitute of Technology students were majoring in artificial intelligence,
computer s6ience and technology, mechanical systems engineering,•
biochemical engineering and science, and control engineering and science.
Students of Cheng-du University of Electronic Science and Technology k, were majoring in computer science, electronic engineering, chemical en- gineering, automation engineering and communications engineering. The students were randomly selected,
The total number of freshman who were non-English majors at
CUEST was 1,618. There were 574 freshman enrolled at KIT. Female
students accounted for 5.10fo of the non-English major freshmen at CUES
and 6.5% of the KIT freshman class were females. (See Table 1)
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Table 1
Female and Mqle Distributions of KIT and CUEST Freshman
Univ. Total Male Female
KIT 451 93.59o
6.50/oCUEST 1618 94.90/o
Test Results
It was hypothesized that there would be no meaningful difference in the communicative proficiency levels of Chinese and Japanese freshmen.
However, in Table 2 the results of a Paired t-test revealed a significant difference of Åq.OOOI between)the two groups.
Table 2 Paired t-test
Hypotheslzed Difference = O
MeanDlff. DF t-Value P-Value
Japanese,Chinese -4,547 286 -13.641 Åq.OOOI
Analyses of the test scores for each grpup in Tables and 3 and 4 show the mean score of the Japanese students, 9.65, to be almost five
points below the mean of the Chinese students, 14.20. The highest score ' in the Chinese group was 28.75 while that of the Japanese was only 19.00.
Table 3
Analysis of Test Scores of Japanese Fresltmen Japanese
Mean
Std. Dev.
Std. Error Count Minimum Maximum
# Missing
9.654 3.250 .t92
287 1.500 19,OOO
o
x.
Table 4
Analysis of Test Scores of Chinese Freshmen Chinese
Mean Std. Dev.
Std. Error Count Minimum Maximum # Missing
The distribution of scores for both groups are shown in Figures 1 and 2.
Figure 1
Distribution of Scores of Japanese Freshmen 70
60 50 E 40 8 o 30 20 10 o
O 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Scores 14.201
4.894
.289
287
2.500
28.750
o
6 Judith Ann Johnson
Figure 2
Distribution of Scores for Chlnege Freshmen 80
70 60 50 E
o=o 40 30
20 10
o
O. 5 10 15 20 25 30
Scores
Conclusions
Data from this study found a significant difference in English lan-
guage comprehension ability between Japanese and Chinese college freshmen majoring in science and technical subjects, as measured by the -t E74 placement test of listening comprehension. Perhaps the fact that a
mQre select group of students attend institutions of higher learning in China than in Japan and the Chinese students' stronger motivation to learn English influenced this difference in test results (Johnson, 1994).
Due to the small sampling, at present, the results cannot be general- ized to all Japanese and Chinese students of science and technical majors.
However, they are useful as a basis for guiding the development of in- structional materials for students at KIT and CUEST.
It appears that due to the higher English language competency level
of the Chinese students, materials for use by both Chinese and Japanese
students would have to be developed to begin at two distinct levels of in- struction and overlap at some point. The next step toward the develop-
ment of shared materials will be an analysis of the content being taught in the relevant departments of both colleges to identify common content needed to be taught in a basic ESP course that would be appropriate for the students at both institutions.
References
Ferguson, N. (1974). E74: A Short test of self-assessment of listening comprehension.
Geneva:CEEL.
Ferguson,N. (1985). The Gordian Knot, Attitudes to language teaching. Geneva:
CEEL.
Hall,R.A.(1964). IntroductoryLinguistics. Philadelphia:ChiltonBooks.
Johnson, J. A. (1994). Attitudes of Japanese and Chinese College Students with Tech- nical and Science Majors Toward. Learning English-A Comparative Study. Bul- letin of the Faculty of Computer `stience and Systems Engineering Kyushu Institute of Technologor, Human Sciences, 8, 101-115. .
Miyahara, F., M. Namoto, S. Yamanaka, R. Murakami, M. Kinoshita tind H. Yamamo- to. English Proficiency and English Learning Attitudes of University Students in - Japan in Comparison with Those in China and Korea. Lingztistic Science,10, 35'60. Fukuoka : The Institute of Languages and Cultures, Kyushu University.
ETS (Educational Testing Service). (1990'91). TOEFL Test and Sbore ManuaL Princeton, N.J : ETS.
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