Classroom Practice in Communication IA to Foster Improvement in Students' English Speaking Competence

The purpose of this paper is to show the author's classroom practice in Communication IA classes and how it was received and evaluated by the students. This paper will at first briefly explain the curriculum reform for undergraduate students at Hiroshima University. Next I will show the details of my classroom practice which focuses on the following aspects; the textbook, classroom activities, the semesters' schedule, and the manner of grading students. Finally, this paper will report on the results of the evaluation questionnaire which asked the students to evaluate the author's Communication IA classes from various viewpoints. The results of the questionnaire showed that the mean scores for the majority of the answers were similar in comparison to those of the whole university. These results can be interpreted to reveal that the author's classroom practice resulted in students being satisfied, but provides incentive for further improvement