earticle

영어

Japanese university English programs have gradually enacted requirements that have led to a shift away from courses founded on English for General Purposes and toward those based on English for Academic Purposes. This study aims to examine, in relation to can-do statements for English, the following: effects of the course Basic Academic English, correlations between English proficiency and self-ratings, comparisons of proficiency ratings in the four language skills, and assessments of the can-do statement difficulty order. Participants in the study consisted of sophomores (n=114) who were enrolled in six university Basic Academic English classes. English proficiency levels of the participants varied with a range extending from STEP Eiken Exam G2 to G4. An identical pre/post can-do statement questionnaire was administered to the participants and examined areas that included both academic skills and the four language skills (20 each). The questionnaire　(Qs=88) utilized items adapted from CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001) with additional modification based on previous studies (Jordan, 1997 and others). An analysis of the data revealed the following four points. First, pre/post self-ratings were found to be statistically significant (p<.05) which suggests that the ‘Basic Academic English’ class had a positive effect. Second, the correlation of the four language skills between the level-based classes and self-ratings was predominantly significant (p<.001/ p<.05). However, there was a relatively weak correlation found in writing (Pearson r values: .879 ~.558). Third, the can-do achievement ratings among the four language skills revealed that listening was rated the highest while writing was rated the lowest. Lastly, the study found that some of the can-do statements did not correspond to the progressing level of difficulty in the framework. Specifically, can-do writing statements displayed no regular patterns of increased difficulty. A further study may need to investigate the irregularities found in the arrangement of statement difficulty order.