Instructional and Motivational Issues Revisited: How Can We Help and Lead Japanese College Students to Be Proficient in English as a Global Language?

The purpose of this paper is to investigate instructional and motivational effects of learning English as a global language for college students in Japan. Subjects were 328 freshmen who belonged to the faculty of commerce, Chuo University in 2014 and 2015. Analysis is based on their scores of Global Test of English Conversation (GTEC), listening and reading (LR), and Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) Institutional Program (IP) LR administered at an interval of about 9 months. In the faculty of commerce, students are classified into ʻregular (REG),ʼ ʻadvanced (ADV)ʼ or ʻstudy-abroad (SA)ʼ courses according to the scores of GTEC LR at the beginning of April. A majority of the students belong to the REG course that is roughly divided into different levels. If they apply for either ADV or SA courses, their GTEC LR scores need to be satisfactory. Each course consists of 90-minute English A on reading/ writing, and English B on listening/ speaking for 2-credits once a week in each semester. Both are classified into I ・II for freshmen and III・IV for sophomores. The subjects here belonged to either ADV or REG courses in which the investigator taught English B. Instructors are basically free to choose teaching materials according to their own plans. Team teaching is not adopted between English A and B. An exception is a preparatory instruction on TOEIC for freshmen. Twenty minute exercise is required every time according to Upward Listening/ Reading for the TOEIC®Test(2011). The purpose is to encourage them to be well prepared for TOEIC IP LR at the beginning of December. Test scores are evaluated as part of their final grades in the fall semester. As a result of analysis, a very limited number of students showed score improvements between the two tests. This suggests that curricular modification is necessary to enhance instructional and motivational effects. An inevitable question still remains to be answered: How can we help and lead Japanese college students to be proficient in English as a global language