Practical Considerations for Fostering Oral Communication Skills in Large Japanese University Classes

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(1)Title. Practical Considerations for Fostering Oral Communication Skills in Large Japanese University Classes. Author(s). KNOEPFLER, Christopher Alan. Citation. 北海道教育大学紀要. 教育科学編, 68(2): 249-259. Issue Date. 2018-02. URL. http://s-ir.sap.hokkyodai.ac.jp/dspace/handle/123456789/9686. Rights. Hokkaido University of Education.

(2) 北海道教育大学紀要（教育科学編）第68巻第２号 Journal of Hokkaido University of Education（Education）Vol. 68. No.2. 平成 30 年２月 February, 2018. Practical Considerations for Fostering Oral Communication Skills in Large Japanese University Classes KNOEPFLER Christopher Alan Department of English Education, Kushiro Campus, Hokkaido University of Education. 日本の大学における大人数クラスでの英語オーラルコミュニケーションスキルの育成に関する考察カネフラークリストファーアラン北海道教育大学釧路校学校カリキュラム開発専攻英語グループ. ABSTRACT Fostering oral communication skills in large classes (i.e. more than 40 students) in Japanese universities involves overcoming unique challenges as a result of both practical factors such as class size and low frequency of classes, as well as issues specific to the Japanese educational environment. In this paper I present an overview of the extent to which communicative language teaching has been successfully implemented in junior and senior high schools in Japan and discuss factors that have limited this implementation. Using this information to understand the situation of incoming university students, I discuss practical considerations and ideas for building communicative competence in large university classes with particular consideration for navigating the issues of classroom silence, uncertainty aversion, and balanced teaching approaches. . １．Introduction. and principles, but I have also gained a better grasp of the specific and sometimes-challenging. １．１ Overview. environment of a large (40-50 student) univer-. In the past few years of teaching English at a. sity classes. One of my primary goals has been. small Japanese university, I have found myself. to foster improvement of students’ oral commu-. radically adjusting my teaching strategies in an. nication abilities and raise their confidence with. attempt to adapt to the students and environ-. respect to communicating in English about their. ment. Some of this comes simply with an evolv-. personal experiences.. ing understanding of basic teaching methods. In large classes that meet once a week, with. 249.

(3) KNOEPFLER Christopher Alan. students that appear to have had very low ex-. Browne, 2009;Tahira, 2012). Talandis and Stout. posure to real oral communication tasks, it can. (2014) wrote about the situation of incoming. be tempting to take a teacher-centered ap-. freshmen, stating that many students in their. proach and devote class time to lectures and/or. experience enter with speaking abilities below. listening and reading activities. In this paper I. A1 level based on Common European Frame-. discuss issues that make oral communication a. work of Reference despite having studied En-. challenge in large university classes in Japan. glish for six years. Students have also reported. and offer some suggestions of how to deal with. having much greater confidence and experience. these difficulties, drawing on relevant research. when it comes to reading and writing compared. of English teaching theorists, survey data and. to speaking (Harumi, 2012).. case studies of Japanese students and teachers,. In their study, Humphries, Burns and Tanaka. and personal experience.. (2015) interviewed university students about their high school experiences. Seventeen of the. １．２ The Situation of Incoming Freshmen. 104 students in their study indicated that they. Understanding the educational history of in-. essentially never spoke English in high school. coming students is critical for considering how. classes, and many of their interview answers in-. to move forward, so I begin with a look at the. dicated that they felt there was nothing strange. situation in Japanese high schools. It has been. about the situation because, for example, they. repeatedly noted that the policy efforts to raise. were studying for university entrance exams.. Japanese students’ communicative abilities have. Kikuchi and Browne (2009) found similar re-. not met with resounding success. Beginning in. sults in interviews with recent high school grad-. 1989 the Japanese Ministry of Education. uates about their experiences. The majority of. (MEXT) started a push towards communica-. students perceived their high school classes as. tive language teaching (CLT： Yoshida, 2003). In. failing to meet the stated goals of helping them. subsequent reforms, the ministry has steadily. utilize English in communicative situations and. increased the focus on communication skills now. characterized the lessons as being overly test-. placing communicative ability as the primary. oriented. Further evidence for a lack of commu-. goal for junior and senior high school English. nicative teaching comes from analysis of. with a balance between the four skills of read-. MEXT-approved English course textbooks. ing, writing, listening, and speaking (Tahira,. which do not provide adequate opportunities for. 2012). While fostering the ability to communi-. less-structured communication, even in high. cate seems like the obvious goal of any foreign. school oral communication classes (Ogura, 2008). language program, there remains a strong con-. nor strategies and training to promote commu-. trast between these stated goals and the reality. nicative competence (Michaud, 2015).. of many Japanese classrooms. By many accounts, the majority of classes are. １．３ Barriers to Change. teacher-centered, taught in the medium of Japa-. Many researchers have attempted to identify. nese, and do not provide students with adequate. specific reasons for the failure to more fully im-. opportunities to use English communicatively,. plement CLT techniques in Japanese class-. particularly with regard to speaking (Kikuchi &. rooms. One of the most prominent issues has. 250.

(4) Practical Considerations for Fostering Oral Communication Skills in Large Japanese University Classes. been the test-orientation of classes. The pres-. duce new communicative textbooks. They ar-. sures of high-stakes entrance exams for high. gued that in their unique teaching situation, the. school and university, which only measure gram-. students did not face the pressure of high. matical knowledge, vocabulary and receptive. stakes entrance exams;however, the teachers. comprehension abilities have been ever-present. failed to utilize the student-centered and com-. and have led teachers to stick with instructional. municative activities in the textbooks. The class-. methods termed yakudoku that are teacher-cen-. es remained highly structured, teacher-centered. tered and focus on grammar-translation to the. and were devoid of communicative language. exclusion of communicative activities (Cook &. use on the part of students, and the teachers. Gulliver, 2014;Gorsuch, 2001;Kavanagh, 2012).. simply fed answers and translated for students.. Sakui (2004) interviewed junior and senior. Lack of environmental support and clear pur-. high school teachers about their experiences. pose led the teachers to revert to instructional. with attempting to introduce CLT into their. methods that they were used to, and they ended. classrooms. Despite the intention of trying to. up skipping over or undercutting the textbook. make classes more communicative she found. activities that demanded creative use of lan-. that their actual methods mirrored an audio-. guage. The challenges of implementing commu-. lingual approach. She reported that difficulties. nicative teaching are complex and multi-faceted,. were caused by a variety of practical problems. and simply switching out textbooks and remov-. such as “grammar-oriented entrance examina-. ing test-pressures is not enough to make class-. tions, time constraints, classroom management. es more communicative.. problems, and rigid curriculum schedules” (p.162) Teachers have generally shown a desire. １．４ Culture and CLT. to foster communicative abilities as a top priori-. Looking at the situation over the past 20-30. ty, but at the same time have stated that time. years in Japanese schools, many have ques-. constraints and large class sizes prevent them. tioned the cultural appropriateness of CLT in. from doing anything but focus on teaching to. Japan and in Asian, EFL environments in gen-. tests (Nishino, 2008).. eral (Cook & Gulliver, 2014;Thornbury, 2013).. Researchers have also identified inadequate. One source of conflict stems from the culturally. teacher training and support as a problem area. perceived role of the teacher-as-authority. (Kavanagh, 2012;Sakui, 2004;Tahira, 2012).. whose primary job is to transmit knowledge to. Humphries and Burns (2015) reviewed the chal-. the students in traditional Japanese educational. lenges facing teachers, outlining the difficulties. contexts (Tanaka, 2009). The Japanese cultural. of overcoming the constraints and pressures of. tendencies to avoid standing out, social embar-. the workplace, lack of time to cover required. rassment (face-saving), and disturbing the so-. material, and getting their students to do well. cial environment all contribute to an unwilling-. on entrance exams. However, their findings indi-. ness to speak up in class and take risks when. cated deeper problems than teachers teaching. communicating (Heine, 2007;Maftoon & Ziafar,. to tests. In their case study of four Japanese En-. 2013). It is dangerous to make assumptions and. glish teachers at an engineering college (kosen),. overgeneralize with respect to cultural norms,. the researchers followed an attempt to intro-. but these tendencies appear to be very real in. 251.

(5) KNOEPFLER Christopher Alan. my experience and when compared with my. students in a culturally sensitive way. Rather. own educational background or class observa-. than become increasingly frustrated at students. tions in other cultural contexts in which stu-. apparent unwillingness to speak in class, the. dents are far more likely to shout out answers. teacher needs to consider the possible reasons. and half-formed ideas in whole-class interac-. for silence and adapt. In her study, she asked. tions. This kind of behavior can easily be ob-. students to identify reasons for silence and then. served in Japanese elementary schools, but it is. analyzed their responses. She found, unsurpris-. increasingly rare as students reach adulthood. I. ingly, that students pointed to linguistic prob-. further discuss these issues of classroom silence. lems (i.e. not knowing how to say something). below.. as the most common cause, but also found that students reported lack of confidence and issues. １．５ Summary. of communication style (turn-taking). With re-. Upon entry to university, students often lack. gard to the first issue, students tend to avoid. basic oral communication skills both in terms of. saying anything unless they are absolutely sure. speaking fluency and listening ability, as well as. it is a correct response (Tomizawa, as cited in. knowledge of communication strategies. Cultural. Saito & Ebsworth, 2004). Thus, it is best to ac-. norms lead students to expect to passively (and. tively reduce the amount of uncertainty in the. silently) receive knowledge from the teacher. classroom to avoid the situation in which stu-. who stands at the front and lectures. Finally,. dents freeze or start conversing in Japanese be-. there are practical problems such as a large. cause they do not know exactly what they. class sizes (40-50 students) and low frequency. should be doing. Teachers need to remember. of classes (once a week) (Talandis & Stout,. that having students check in pairs is always an. 2014). In the following I address these issues in. option and should be used liberally.. turn and discuss ways to have more successful. While pair work is of course often used in. oral communication in large university classes.. tasks and discussions, it also works in large classes when checking directions for activities.. ２．PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS. Assuming that teachers are using as much classroom English as possible, common tech-. ２．１ Working through Silence. niques to make directions and questions clear. The deep silence and lack of discernable re-. are also indispensable. It is often helpful to con-. sponse from students in Japanese classrooms. vey the same information in both spoken and. can be startling at times. During teacher-stu-. written form. For example, when introducing. dent (whole-class) interactions, teachers are of-. simple discussion questions, these should be. ten met with silence when singling out students. written on the board. Tasks should be clearly. to answer questions or asking questions of the. demonstrated in a way that exactly mirrors. whole class. This problem is a source of frustra-. how the activity will be conducted. Many of. tion for both Japanese teachers of English as. these techniques are common sense to experi-. well as native speaker teachers (Harumi,. enced teachers, but they are also easily forgot-. 2010;Saito & Ebsworth, 2004). Harumi (2010). ten when standing in front of 50 blankly staring. advocates understanding the use of silence by. faces. Large classes demand a much higher level. 252.

(6) Practical Considerations for Fostering Oral Communication Skills in Large Japanese University Classes. of preparation with respect to directing activi-. people more fluently and articulately than they. ties and discussions.. do in front of 1 person. Sometimes, it is best to identify students who. ２．２ Getting a Response. are more confident and willing to be in the spot-. Sometimes it is necessary to get responses. light. In a group of 40-50 students there are of-. from individuals during teacher-class interac-. ten those who might speak out in class sponta-. tions. This might occur, for example, when do-. neously, behavior that is sometimes regarded. ing whole-class feedback for discussions, check-. as disruptive by both instructors and peers. ing directions, or soliciting volunteers for task. (Tanaka, 2009). This is an opportunity for the. demonstrations. It comes as no surprise that be-. teacher to create new classroom norms. The. ing forced to perform by the teacher has been. teacher should respond positively to students. shown to be a strong demotivator and source of. who speak out and this behavior should be en-. anxiety for Japanese students (William &. couraged explicitly. Students need to be told. Andrade, 2008). Somewhat paradoxically. that asking questions in class is often for the. though, students may feel that they need to be. benefit of everyone compared to, for example,. called on in order to have permission to speak.. waiting until the end of class to admit that they. As Harumi (2010) wrote “some learners think. did not understand what the homework assign-. they should respond or express themselves only. ment was.. when they are nominated individually. It should,. Strategically calling on students can also be. however, be noted that some individuals did not. an effective method of classroom management.. wish to be singled out” (p. 264). It appears that. In the past I have had students who make off-. a delicate balancing act is necessary when nom-. topic jokes or comments (e.g. mood-makers). In. inating students.. one particular lesson about the conversational. Above all, it is nearly always counter-produc-. technique of saying ‘no’ politely, I called on one. tive to randomly call on students without giving. such student to help me demonstrate the lan-. them ample time to think individually and in. guage. It was not planned or forewarned, but I. pairs or groups. As Saito and Ebsworth (2004). knew that this particular student could handle. reported, “the [Japanese] EFL students reacted. the attention, and it was a much more concrete. negatively when a teacher called on students. demonstration of the target language than the. randomly, voicing that they preferred knowing. textbook dialogue would have been for the oth-. exactly which question they would be answer-. ers. Targeting the student was, importantly,. ing so that they could prepare themselves”. done without malice or intent to make him look. (p. 118). Calling on students is an accountability. bad in front of his peers, I was more than happy. measure (making sure students are staying on. to have him in the class. I also noticed that in. task) and a way of getting feedback for stu-. this situation and in others, students’ urge to. dents efficiently (e.g. they can hear other stu-. make disruptive comments seems greatly dimin-. dents’ thoughts on a discussion question). It can. ished after receiving the attention of the whole. also lead quickly to feelings of animosity be-. class for that moment.. tween students and teachers and feelings of embarrassment. No one speaks in front of 50. 253.

(7) KNOEPFLER Christopher Alan. ２．３ Tools for Avoiding Silence. per, meaningful oral communication practice is. Despite the best intentions, there will always. quite clearly impossible without having students. be situations in which students really do not. speak to each other. As discussed above, howev-. know what to say when called upon or especial-. er, students do not have adequate chances to. ly when interacting with peers. Students need. communicate with classmates in junior and se-. to be explicitly coached on what to do in these. nior high school and are thus often unfamiliar. situations. Students should learn set phrases for. with common pair tasks such as ‘spot the differ-. asking clarification, indicating that they do not. ences’, ‘find someone who,’ or jigsaw readings. It. understand and giving approximate responses. is best not to assume that students know what. (Harmer, 2015;Nation & Newton, 2008;Richards,. to do in these kinds of tasks.. 2008, William & Andrade, 2009). Giving students. It seems clear that students are motivated to. a list of ‘classroom English’ and then expecting. develop better oral communication skills, at. students to use it probably will not be enough.. least to the extent that they complain about not. They should practice the phrases regularly to. having had chances to speak English in high. reach a certain level of fluency, and teachers. school (Kikuchi, 2009). Feedback from anony-. should repeatedly remind and encourage stu-. mous goal statements in my classes indicates. dents to uses phrases such as, “what do you. that students really want to be able to speak. mean?”, “how do you say…?” etc.. more fluently. However, when it comes to actu-. In Addition, Talandis and Stout (2014) advo-. ally practicing conversation, it is important to. cate “direct instruction of pragmatic strategies”. convince students of the value of using pair-. (p. 11), and in the textbook by Talandis and. work for two reasons. First, given students’. Vannieu (2015), the authors outline ‘golden. background of studying English specifically for. rules’ for effective communication that explain. tests and the cultural norms with respect to the. clearly to students, for example, how their si-. role of the teacher, they may associate tradition-. lence in conversation might be misinterpreted.. al teacher-centered, grammar-translation meth-. As well as this kind of explicit instruction,. ods with ‘real’ study of English. As such, com-. teachers should be encouraging, not showing. municative and student-centered tasks, can be. frustration and impatience when students can. considered less valid and useful ways of study-. not answer. In whole class interactions, students. ing English in the eyes of students (Sakui,. may need time to gather their thoughts, and it. 2004). Students may wonder why the teacher,. is also helpful to direct class attention back. who is supposed to be a transmitter of knowl-. away from individual students by again address-. edge, spends much of the class apparently. ing the class as a whole： either eliciting help or. standing around while the students are sup-. shifting the conversation.. posed to talk to each other. Second, students often report a resistance or sense of awkwardness. ２．４ Making Good Use of Pair-work. when speaking English to other Japanese. For. Pair-work and group-work are indispensable. example in Humphries et al. (2015) some of the. tools in communicative language teaching. students interviewed mentioned that they had. (Harmer, 2015;Scrivener, 2011). In the 40 to 50. no chance to speak English in class because. student classes which are the focus of this pa-. there was no assistant language teacher (ALT). 254.

(8) Practical Considerations for Fostering Oral Communication Skills in Large Japanese University Classes. who came to class, implying that the possibility. do so without the fear of appearing awkward or. of speaking to peers or the Japanese teacher. over-eager. In this way, the instructor can es-. was not even a possibility in their eyes.. tablish positive norms for pair interaction.. Setting clear expectations at the beginning of the course regarding the use of peer-and. ２．５ Getting students to speak in English.. group-conversation and explaining why it is. A common scene in English class is the pair. useful and necessary is important. Furthermore,. or group of students who quickly start speaking. this kind of internalized native-speakerism is. English only when they notice the teacher slow-. counterproductive in the context of the emerg-. ly approaching. One of the greatest challenges. ing push for cultural competence (Richards,. is actually convincing students to use English in. 2008). Teachers should remind students of the. the monolingual environment. It is necessary to. global status of English and the extent to which. establish an expectation of using English in. interactions between non-native speakers are. class, and this starts with the teacher using in. common.. English. Interviews with students also suggest. Pairing students is also a complex issue for. that they find it easier to speak English when. teachers. In large classes, students have a wide. the teacher enforces an English policy (Hum-. range of abilities and levels of motivation. Harm-. phries et al., 2015;Leichsenring, 2017). The be-. er (2015) discusses the benefits of grouping stu-. havioral standards established in junior high. dents by ability, suggesting that both stronger. school and high school will probably be of no. and weaker students can benefit from this ar-. help in this situation, and given the social pres-. rangement, the former learning through tutor-. sures that students face, even those who are en-. ing. He also warns that this kind of arrangement. thusiastic about speaking English in class might. can lead to difficulties. In any case, students. avoid doing so out of embarrassment. Thus, it is. should not be stuck with the same partner for. the teacher’s responsibility to establish the ex-. extended periods of time as it leads to frustra-. pectation that students use English when inter-. tion. I use seating charts in my class which let. acting with each other as much as possible.. me ensure that students are arranged in a way. Simply telling students to ‘speak English’ is. that lends itself to quick pair changes. Depend-. not enough however. As I will discuss below,. ing on the activity, having students move in two. students need a strong repertoire of set phrases. concentric circles or move freely about the class. and routines to help them interact with each. can also be effective ways of creating pairs.. other in class. It is helpful to remind students. When students move freely about the class-. that they should use the phrases they know. room during tasks, it is important to encourage. such as ‘excuse me’ when navigating around. the smooth mixing of pairs. The teacher should. classmates during mingle activities, as well as. encourage students to speak with people other. provide and practice phrases that they can use. than their friends and to seek out partners pro-. in upcoming tasks (e.g. ‘how do you spell that?’). actively rather than wait for someone to speak. Students can also police each other with respect. to them. Even though students may desire to. to language use. For example, during group dis-. interact with different people in the class, telling. cussions the teacher can appoint ‘English police’. them that they should gives them a license to. in each group who are responsible for making. 255.

(9) KNOEPFLER Christopher Alan. sure that group members speak English. Anoth-. bury (2005) argued for a scaffolded approach. er clear cause of students resorting to Japanese. that moves from controlled practice in language. is simply not knowing what to say and getting. where the possibility of making mistakes is lim-. stuck in conversation. I discuss how to avoid. ited and then towards gradual freer language. this situation in the next section.. use. With respect to large university classes, I find. ２．６ Taking a Balanced Approach. it helpful, however, to make drills and practice. During my first year of teaching university, I. more student-centered. One common form of. used a textbook for my first year students that. oral practice (among many suggested in Nation. I felt was full of really interesting content that I. & Newton, 2008) is the substitution table. In. was sure would generate lots of discussion and. this technique the teacher elicits target phrases. interest among students. The class and textbook. by prompting the student with a single word or. did not go as planned, and one of the reasons. part of the phrase. This process is repeated by. was my own beliefs about what I was supposed. changing part of the previous phrase.. to be doing and the students were supposed to be able to do. I was trying to make classes as. Teacher： I’m going to go to the park. Store. communicative as possible but without giving. Students： I’m going to go to the store. . the students the necessary support that they. Teacher： Trip.. needed.. Students： I’m going to go on a trip.. In their ‘four-strands’ approach, Nation and. Teacher： She. . Newton (2008) make the case for a balanced cur-. Students： She is going to go on a trip.. riculum where students spend a fourth of the time (depending on students’ needs) focusing. Ideally this would be done as quickly as possi-. on developing fluency. Specifically in the Japa-. ble, but one can imagine how many students. nese context, many have called for a balanced. would be left behind in a large class. This kind. approach that continues to utilize techniques. of activity can be easily adapted for pair work. such as choral drills, dialogue practice and. by giving students the prompts on a sheet of. form-focused instruction (Saito, 2008;Tanaka,. paper and having them quiz each other. Putting. 2009).. students in the position of the teacher can force. Dörnyei and Thurrell (1994) wrote, “As. them to listen and help them raise awareness of. teachers we are beginning to realize that free. what kinds of errors are common. This kind of. communicative activities are potentially much. student-centered controlled practice can also be. more efficient, and are also appreciated more by. done in pairs or groups in which the students. students, if specific language input, especially. are given slips of paper to prompt target lan-. conversational routines and phrases, are includ-. guage.. ed” (p.47). This is not a particularly controver-. One note of caution is that students are often. sial point of view (Cook & Gulliver, 2014;Kava-. reluctant to point out mistakes to each other.. nagh, 2012;Talandis & Stout, 2014), but in my. This is especially a problem when older and. own experiences and in observing others it is a. younger students are paired (sempai-kohai).. prevalent issue. In teaching speaking, Thorn-. Thus, they need clear instructions on how to. 256.

(10) Practical Considerations for Fostering Oral Communication Skills in Large Japanese University Classes. give feedback and help each other.. cific areas of skill development when designing. In addition to having focused language prac-. activities (see also Dornyei & Thurrell, 1994).. tice in class, getting students to pre-study vocabulary can be helpful in leveling the playing. ２．８ Conversational Activities. field for weaker students. With the wide range. I advocate focusing on familiar topics about. of abilities, it is frustrating for students who re-. experiences and everyday life for large classes,. ally lag behind in knowledge of language that is. especially at the basic level. In university, stu-. used in activities. Online and app-based vocabu-. dents have the benefit of meeting new people. lary practice such as Quizlet and Memrise are. from a variety of different hometowns and back-. very helpful here and should be used to prepare. grounds. English class can be an excellent. students for class and help students build fluen-. chance for students to simply talk to their peers. cy with common phrases used in classroom in-. in ways that might not be possible in other lec-. teraction.. ture style classes. Talking about personal experiences and themselves can also be motivating. ２．７ Conversational Skills. in that these topics are simple and familiar and. Fluid conversations in English require the in-. thus easier to speak about.. tegration of a great many skills. Talandis &. In my large classes, interview and mingle ac-. Stout (2014) outline how many of the interac-. tivities have been relatively simple and easy to. tions they observed in class broke down quickly. use. For example, the ‘find someone who’ activi-. and contained long sustained silence. In addition. ty is a good way for students to speak about. to ample practice of target phrases and scaffold-. their own experiences as is easily tailored to the. ing of communication activities, students need. lives and interests of the students. In this task,. help with specific skills that will help them start,. students ask each other questions in order to. sustain and end conversations more smoothly.. find people in the class who have certain experi-. Among the many strategies they advocate. ences or characteristics. I think it is appropriate. teaching to students is the idea of ‘saying more.’. to remind students that the goal of this activity. Students have a tendency to answer questions. is not to fill in the worksheet but to communi-. precisely, possibly for fear that giving extra in-. cate with their classmates. As such, fluency, not. formation would be inappropriate. In my experi-. accuracy is the goal.. ence, Japanese students also have particular dif-. There is certainly something unnatural about. ficult with asking follow-up questions. Given the. walking around and asking people questions off. teacher centered approaches common in high. of sheet of paper, so this not a fully communica-. schools, it is probably that opportunities to for-. tive task that mimics real life interaction, but I. mulate follow-up questions in their six years of. think having more structure in this way is ap-. study were rare.. propriate for large classes with a wide range of. Richards (2008) lists additional common skills. abilities and it is often much more motivating. involved in interactional conversation such as. that simply telling students to ‘talk for 3 min-. “opening and closing conversations, choosing. utes’.. topics… turn taking, using adjacency-pairs” etc.. When engaging in activities like this, I also. (page 20). It is helpful to consider these as spe-. find if helpful to have students do something. 257.

(11) KNOEPFLER Christopher Alan. with the information they get from others. In. in elementary school, university classes might. addition to asking follow-up questions and tak-. be the only chance for some (certainly not all). ing notes about what they learn about, I may. students to work English conversational skills. have students be on the look-out for classmates. before heading out into the world. Questions re-. who, for example, had the most interesting/bor-. main about how best to reconcile what some. ing/busiest Spring vacation. This kind of goal. consider to be culturally incompatible aspects of. should be explained ahead of time and can then. communicative language teaching and the de-. be discussed in pairs, groups and then as a class.. sire to give students necessary practice with. As Littlewood (2004) contends, the communi-. English conversation. Activities and tasks found. cativeness of a task is not a property of the task. in European and American textbooks, especially. itself, but a function of how students interact. those designed for free communication, will. with the task. If students approach communica-. probably require a great deal of adaptation and. tion activities as transactional, robotic interac-. additional support. Taking a balanced approach. tions with peers and do not really listen and re-. by giving students adequate practice with lan-. spond to each other, then it should not be. guage to develop automaticity of spoken En-. considered a communicative task. On the other. glish, knowledge of conversation strategies, and. hand, students may take controlled and straight-. opportunities to use the language seems like a. forward exercise as a chance to use language. sound approach. Above all, teachers, both a pri-. creatively. Thus, in large classes there will be a. mary source of inspiration as well as anxiety. communicativeness spectrum. It may be useful. and frustration for learners, need to remain pa-. to pay attention to what students are doing. tient and understanding in working within their. with a task and encourage more creative use as. particular situations.. a kind of ad hoc task differentiation.. REFERENCES ３．CONCLUSION The challenges of oral communication work in large university classes are many. The situation. Cook, M., & Gulliver, T. (2014). Helping Japanese teachers of English overcome obstacles to communicative language teaching in overseas teacher development programs. Asian EFL Journals, 79.. is far from ideal, but this does not mean that we. Dörnyei, Z., & Thurrell, S. (1994). Teaching conversa-. should give up on doing student-centered. tional skills intensively： Course content and rationale.. speaking activities in these situations. What is more, students are motivated and generally seem to respond positively to opportunities to speak to each other in class (Leichsenring, 2017;Talandis Jr. & Stout, 2014). In the end, we must consider that junior high school and high school classes will be slow to change. While. ELT Journal, 48⑴, 40-49. Gorsuch, G. (2001). Japanese EFL teachers’ perceptions of communicative, audiolingual and yakudoku activities. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 9⑽. Harmer, J. (2015). English language teaching. Harlow： Pearson Education Limited. Harumi, S. (2011). Classroom silence： Voices from Japanese EFL learners. ELT Journal, 65⑶, 260-269. Heine, S. J. (2007). Culture and motivation： What moti-. there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic, par-. vates people to act in the ways that they do. Hand-. ticularly with regard to upcoming curriculum. book of cultural psychology, 714-733.. changes and introduction of English as a subject. 258. Humphries, S., & Burns, A. (2015). ‘In reality it’s almost.

(12) Practical Considerations for Fostering Oral Communication Skills in Large Japanese University Classes. impossible’： CLT-oriented curriculum change. ELT Journal, 69⑶, 239-248. Humphries, S. C., Burns, A., & Tanaka, T. (2015). “My. Tahira, M. (2012). Behind MEXT’s new course of study guidelines. The Language Teacher, 36⑶, 3-8. Talandis Jr. J., & Stout, M. (2014). Getting EFL students. head became blank and I couldn’t speak”： Classroom. to speak： an action research approach. ELT Journal,. factors that influence English speaking. The Asian. 69⑴, 11-25.. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2⑶, 164-175. Kavanagh, B. (2012). The theory and practice of communicative language teaching in Japan. Academic Research International, 2⑵, 730. Kikuchi, K. (2009). Listening to our learners’ voices：. Talandis Jr. J., Vannieu, B., Richmond, S., Azra, J. (2015). Conversations in class. Kyoto： Alma Publishing. Tanaka, T. (2009). Communicative language teaching and its cultural appropriateness in Japan. Doshisha studies in English, 84, 107-123.. what demotivates Japanese high school students?.. Thornbury, S. (2005). How to teach speaking. Longman.. Language Teaching Research, 13⑷, 453-471.. Thornbury, S. (2013). Big questions in ELT. Amazon.. Kikuchi, K., & Browne, C. (2009). English educational. Yoshida, K. (2003). Language education policy in Ja-. policy for high schools in Japan： Ideals vs. reality.. pan—The problem of espoused objectives versus. RELC journal, 40⑵, 172-191.. practice. Modern Language Journal, 87⑵, 291-293.. Leichsenring, A. (2017). Classroom-based speaking and. Williams, K. E., & Andrade, M. R. (2008). Foreign lan-. listening learning strategies： Japanese learner prefer-. guage learning anxiety in Japanese EFL university. ences (Doctoral dissertation).. classes： Causes, coping, and locus of control. Electronic. Littlewood, W. (2004). The task-based approach： Some. Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 5⑵, 181-191.. questions and suggestions. ELT journal, 58⑷, 319326.. （釧路校特任講師）. Maftoon, P., & Ziafar, M. (2013). Effective factors in interactions within Japanese EFL classrooms. The Clearing House： A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 86⑵, 74-79. Michaud, M. (2015). Oral communication in the Japanese senior high school： Communicative competence and comparisons of textbooks used for EFL instruction. Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching, 6 ⑵, 231-257. Nation, I. S., & Newton, J. (2008). Teaching ESL/EFL listening and speaking. Routledge. Nishino, T. (2008). Japanese secondary school teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding communicative language teaching： An exploratory survey. JALT Journal, 30⑴, 27. Ogura, F. (2008). Communicative competence and senior high school oral communication textbooks in Japan. The Language Teacher, 32⑿, 3-8. Richards, J. C. (2008). Teaching listening and speaking. Cambridge： Cambridge University Press. Saito, H., & Ebsworth, M. E. (2004). Seeing English language teaching and learning through the eyes of Japanese EFL and ESL students. Foreign Language Annals, 37⑴, 111-124. Sakui, K. (2004). Wearing two pairs of shoes： Language teaching in Japan. ELT journal, 58⑵, 155-163. Scrivener, J. (2011). Learning teaching (pp.7-13). Oxford： Heinemann.. 259.

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