| Presentation | 2014-06-21 Production of English Question Sentences by Japanese EFL Learners : Lack of Training for Automatization Yasunari HARADA, Miwa MORISHITA, |
|---|---|
| PDF Download Page |  PDF download Page Link |
| Abstract(in Japanese) | (See Japanese page) |
| Abstract(in English) | Acquisition of communicative competence has become one of the most important objectives of English language education in Japan. Asking the right questions at the right time is an integral part of effective oral interactions but Japanese learners of English experience processing and other difficulties in doing so. In Japanese, question sentences are formed simply by adding the question marker "ka" at the end of a sentence without changing the word order. Constructing English question sentences on the fly poses non-negligible processing difficulties for Japanese learners of English. We will first report on the results of one of our earlier studies using information gap tasks with Japanese university students studying English. We found that they tend to (1) use much less wh-questions than yes-no questions, (2) make syntactic and vocabulary errors when trying to produce questions, and (3) notice errors in terms of vocabulary but not in terms of constructions. Among utterances produced, correctly constructed question sentences were hard to find, suggesting that simply implementing pair or group work in class would not lead to increased awareness in correct syntactic forms of English questions. We will then report on the results of a series of follow-up data collection efforts conducted in 2013, in which Japanese university students with diverse proficiency levels were asked to produce English wh-question sentences based on visually or aurally presented English statement sentences. We confirmed that even students with relatively high proficiency exhibited difficulty in coming up with the right word order. Possible reasons for this would be, not necessarily in the order of greater importance, (i) influence of their native language, in which indefinites (or wh-elements) are placed in situ rather than at the beginning of the sentences, (ii) insufficient exposure in their English language textbooks in high schools and (iii) lack of proper productive drills. |
| Keyword(in Japanese) | (See Japanese page) |
| Keyword(in English) | question sentences / subject-auxiliary inversion / wh-question / effective oral communication / cognitive difficulty |
| Paper # | TL2014-8 |
| Date of Issue |
| Conference Information | |
| Committee | TL |
|---|---|
| Conference Date | 2014/6/14(1days) |
| Place (in Japanese) | (See Japanese page) |
| Place (in English) | |
| Topics (in Japanese) | (See Japanese page) |
| Topics (in English) | |
| Chair | |
| Vice Chair | |
| Secretary | |
| Assistant | |
| Paper Information | |
| Registration To | Thought and Language (TL) |
|---|---|
| Language | JPN |
| Title (in Japanese) | (See Japanese page) |
| Sub Title (in Japanese) | (See Japanese page) |
| Title (in English) | Production of English Question Sentences by Japanese EFL Learners : Lack of Training for Automatization |
| Sub Title (in English) | |
| Keyword(1) | question sentences |
| Keyword(2) | subject-auxiliary inversion |
| Keyword(3) | wh-question |
| Keyword(4) | effective oral communication |
| Keyword(5) | cognitive difficulty |
| 1st Author's Name | Yasunari HARADA |
| 1st Author's Affiliation | Faculty of Law, Waseda University() |
| 2nd Author's Name | Miwa MORISHITA |
| 2nd Author's Affiliation | Faculty of Business Administration, Kobe Gakuin University |
| Date | 2014-06-21 |
| Paper # | TL2014-8 |
| Volume (vol) | vol.114 |
| Number (no) | 100 |
| Page | pp.pp.- |
| #Pages | 6 |
| Date of Issue | |