第4会場(小会議室2) (5F) 司会:島田勝正(桃山学院大学)
発表者氏名(所属) 発表題目
① 千田誠二(和光大学) 大学初級英語クラスにおける学習者の不安について ② 松田佳奈 (近畿大学) 日本人大学生に対する個に応じたリーディング指導法 ③ 階戸陽太(静岡県立大学) 大学における協同学習を用いた授業に関する質的研究
Effects of a debate task on changes of communication variables
賀 城大学 佐藤臨 郎 良教育大学
In recent years, junior high and high school teachers have been confronted with various difficulties, such as developing learners’ communicative skills and conducting classes completely in English. Many of us would admit that it is very difficult to enhance learners’ communication abilities in an all-English-classroom context because of their limited linguistic resources. Consequently, in some classrooms traditional grammar instruction may be dominated, and in other classrooms English instruction may be scarcely employed. However, some studies showed negative effects of traditional language classroom on learners’ motivation and basic human needs and also suggested positive effects of all English instruction and communicative language classroom on learners’ communication variables. Although these studies gave us insights into motivation research in classroom, the number of studies and research contexts are still restricted. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how communication variables (i.e., willingness to communicate (WTC), communication apprehension (CA), and perceived communication competence (PCC)) of Japanese university learners would vary in seven-week debate activities. This study is unique in that even though WTC is considered to have both trait (relatively fixed) and state (relatively dynamic) aspects, few studies have been conducted to examine the development of communication variables in a short-span communicative task. Seventy learners participated in the study and were asked to complete a questionnaire before and after the debate task. As a result of a paired sample t-test, it was revealed that WTC and CA did not significantly change, but PCC showed a dramatic increase with a moderate effect size. It is inferred from these results that (a) if learners gained their experiences of actually speaking and using English, they were able to foster the level of PCC, (b) the increase in PCC did not lead to the development of WTC probably because of a limited period, and (c) the difficulties of the debate activity and the debate topic must be taken into account. Two presenters, each of whom has a different view toward task activities, will have heated discussion on the results, followed by much more heated discussion with the audience.