Yukari Miyake

Thesis topic: “Influences on L2 learning and the effective ways of learning”

I chose this topic to know how our Japanese language knowledge, cultural characteristics and the traditional forms of education influence our second language (L2) learning, and to find out the ways to overcome those difficulties.

Summary

I divided the factors which have influences on our learning English into the three groups as follows. Then I made 11 questions based on these factors and asked the subjects to give some effective ways of learning English that they have experienced.

A.  Influences of our Japanese knowledge

There is a system between L1 and L2, called Interlanguage, which decides the learner’s achievement. (Selinker, 1972)

Latent language structure—have access to the universal grammar

Interlanguage and realize grammatical structure.

Latent psychological structure—does not have access to the universal grammar and does not realize grammatical structure.

B.  Influences of our Japanese characteristics

For example, the Japanese typically do not feel confident about communicating with non-Japanese speakers in English. The Japanese do not have much experience in developing mutual grounds or finding common interests with other nationalities. The Japanese are usually shy, un-talkative and generally conservative people in front of strangers.

C.  Influence of the traditional forms of education

Starting age: critical period for skills as well as performance

Teaching style: from the grammar-translation approach (Marianne Celce-Murcia, 2001) to the direct approach (Richards and Rodgers, 1986)

Learning style: acquisition and learning

‘fluency in second language performance is due to what we have acquired, not what we have learned.’(Krashen, 1981)

What I found out from the questionnaire

I distributed the questionnaire to 48 people and got responds from 42 subjects.

Q1. Why do you like or dislike learning English?

93% of the subjects like learning English mainly because of the global communication. 7% of the subjects dislike learning English because it’s tiresome to learn many English words.

Q2. What are the factors which prevent you from learning English? (Top 3)

A lot of vocabulary to learn, lack of opportunities to use and lack of confidence in speaking have much more influences on their learning English than teaching style.

Q3. How do you solve the problems you identified in question 2?

Most people think that they can improve their difficulties if they study hard. On the other hand, some people do not try hard to overcome their difficulties because they already know that they just need to accept the fact that English is different from Japanese and difficult to acquire.

Q4. How does your Japanese knowledge influence your learning of English?

The subjects seem to think their knowledge of Japanese grammar has more influence on their learning English than Japanese pronunciation.

Q5. What are the good methods to overcome grammatical and phonetic differences between Japanese and English?

45% of the subjects prefer learning grammar by study-aid books to learning through oral conversation. The rest of the subjects also learn grammar by reading or writing, not by listening or speaking. As for pronunciation, 45% of the subjects use radio, CD or TV and they imitate native English speakers.

Q6. How did the characteristics of Japanese influence your learning of English?

67% of the subjects are positive about talking to foreigners in English. However, 70% of the subjects are negative about using English in front of other Japanese. When it comes to the opportunities to use English, 48% do not have any opportunities and 17% think they would not use English in the future, though 93% of the subjects are motivated to learn English.

Q7. What are the good methods to overcome the negative characteristics of Japanese people and their lack of interests towards learning English?

To overcome their negative characteristics, the subjects suggest that they should try to know more about other countries as well as Japanese history, ask questions and stop using vague expressions, and try not to be afraid of making mistakes. On the other hand, they do not think that their interests towards learning English would decrease in this globalized society even if they do not have enough opportunities to use.

Q8. How do the traditional forms of education in Japan influence your learning English?

71% of the subjects think that earlier English education would not be successful if we are taught in the same traditional methods as today. 45% think that we would not be like a native speaker under the current forms of education even if we study very hard. 47% think that Japanese teachers should speak in English during the class.

Q9. If we start English education earlier in life, how should the learners learn?

About 50% of the subjects think that learning English words as many as possible by listening to only English and using other materials, not textbooks, might be the effective way of learning in early ages.

Q10. What are the effective methods that you recommend in learning English?

Reading books out loud without caring about grammar and listening to natural English from TV or Films were the popular methods.

Q11. What are the better ways of learning that you experienced outside of school?

In cram schools, subjects learn many English words and grammar by heart. In English conversation schools, they talk as much as possible in English and discuss with a small group. In English language schools abroad, they talk and write in English a lot and never think about Japanese. Those were the methods that most subjects agreed as better ways of learning.

Conclusion

Most of the subjects were motivated to learn English though they do not have any opportunities to use English. However, the problem is, even if we could speak very fluently and have opportunities to use English, we cannot communicate without the knowledge and abilities to give our own opinions and to explain. What we need in English lessons now is the productivity and flexibility in their speaking and writing.

In this experiment, I should have distributed this questionnaire to more people so that I could have got more data. Also, I should have given this questionnaire to more people who are not from English department.

References

Sisak, C. 1997. Interlangauge.

http://www.uncc.edu/colleges/arts_and_sciences/language/courses/4263/4263intl.htm

Pasty M, Lightbown. And Spada, N. 2000. How languages are learned. Oxford University Press.