EFL 環境におけるスピーキング向上：語彙学習と反転授業の視点からの提案

The goal of this study was to examine whether Japanese university EFL learners can increase their self-efficacy through flipped English classes, by incorporating collaborative learning. Participants were 34 female Japanese English majors in their junior year of college. As a class assignment, students were given a vocabulary list (200 words) and a list of topics, from which they could choose a topic to create one-minute monologues. They were divided into two groups: the Collaborative-Study Group (Group-C, n=16) and the Individual-Study Group (Group-I, n=18). In this project, all participants were required to work with the new vocabulary and prepare and rehearse weekly monologues outside of the classroom. They then recorded audio clips, which were uploaded to the universityʼs cloud-based learning management system; this enabled us to monitor the project effectively and easily. For this study, participants of Group-C worked collaboratively with opportunities to present their monologues before the class, while participants of Group-I worked individually without giving any monologue presentations in the class. No other special instructions were given. To measure the changes in the vocabulary size and oral communication abilities, participants gave the Vocabulary Levels Test and the Oral Proficiency Interview-computer test, both at the start and end of the project. Neither the pre- nor post-test results (for either test) showed any statistically significant differences between the two groups. However, we were able to record a noticeable difference in participantsʼ attitudes toward the weekly assignments. Twelve participants of Group-C submitted their assignments by the appointed date, while only three participants of Group-I did. We believe that collaborative learning enhanced studentsʼ sense of solidarity, responsibility, spontaneous rivalry, and/or self-efficacy during the project. We further believe that use of flipped English classes, incorporating collaborative learning, can be highly effective for helping Japanese EFL learners achieve various language-acquisition goals.論