Lindsay Bost Curriculum Research Project General Purpose EFL in Japan In Japan, the learning of English is largely encouraged

by the government in order to help its citizens become functioning members of the global community as well as increase the skills necessary to further the success of individuals and the nation. Because English is taught as a foreign language, however, the lack of language immersion and interaction with native speakers poses a challenge to learners fluency and communicative skills and creates a focus on grammar translation and reading skills. In order to foster the language competency of citizens, 90% of Japanese students begin their English studies at a young age with a required minimum classroom study of 3 hours per week (Strong 2007). English language studies are continued throughout secondary schools with the expected outcome of achieving enough proficiency for external exams such as STEP, TOEFL or university entrance exams (Hato 2005). Although standards and requirements such as this exist for elementary and secondary schools, universities and institutes of higher education do not have required curricula and are given relative freedom in designing EFL classes for adults. There are multiple challenges that are faced when designing a course and curriculum for adults who enroll in university English for General Purpose classes. In this paper, Ill expand on the current measures to increase English proficiency in Japan, as

well as outline the contextual constraints influencing English education and how approaches in content organization, choice in materials, and 4-skills teaching can address these constraints.

Ministry of Education Report As stated in Japans Ministry of Education report, academic freedom is held in high regard in Japan, and according to the Fundamental Law of Education, independence, autonomy, and the merits of education and research by higher education institutes shall be respected (MEXT 2011). This lack of constraint means that institutions are given the freedom to create appropriate curricula and develop programs necessary to meet the needs of the students, with quality assurance from a system of mandatory self-evaluations and self-provided standards. With over 70% of 18-year-olds enrolled in higher education, Japan is now in the stage of universal access to higher education. Accordingly, the average age range of learners in an EFL context at the university level is 18-22. WIth this freedom and support given to schools of higher education, there can exist a range of options for EFL curriculum development and course designs. One of the priorities of the Ministries of Education is to internationalize universities in order to meet the ever-changing demands of globalization. These demands may include communicative skills for casual use or business purposes. In order to do this, the Ministry

has created the goal of developing an educational environment in which Japanese students can acquire proficient English skills. This prioritization of English learning implies that adult learners in English for General Purposes may have both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational sources that instructors can capitalize on through course design and activities. It also suggests that EFL classes should focus on the communicative competency of their students and utilize activities that increase fluency to better equip them for international communication.

Proposals & Specific Measures for Developing Proficiency in English for International Communication One of the major problems facing English students in Japan is their lack of communicative skills though equipped with good knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, possibly attributable to shyness (Hato 2005). In contrast with the goals of meeting social and intellectual demands of globalization and participation in a global community, this inward-orientation is counterproductive. The Ministry of Education has identified that ...in the modern society with deepening international competition and coexistence, it is extremely important to develop human resources for activities on a global scale through acquiring language skills and accumulating cross-cultural experience (MEXT 2011). Similarly, they define foreign language proficiency as a tool for smooth intercultural

communication, which implies ...[a] confident and active attitude toward communication with people of different countries and cultures as well as accurate understanding of partners thoughts and intentions based on his/her cultural and social background, logical and reasoned explanation of ones own views, and convincing partners in course debates (MEXT 2011). In order to reach these set goals, the Ministry of Education has created a five-part proposal for elementary and secondary education classes with specific measures to implement through the year 2016. Although these are not at the university level, the proposals are a useful tool to understand the overall goals and attitudes toward language learning, as well as provide some insight as to what kind of English language background an incoming EFL university student may potentially have. The proposals are outlined below, with a brief statement of their specific measures or rationale. 1. English ability required of students - assessment and verification of attainment level. Through various external tests of English proficiency (e.g. STEP, TOEFL), students should have the ability to convey and understand intentions through the use of English. 2. Promoting students awareness of necessity of English in the global society, and stimulating motivation for English learning. Using authentic materials will increase student motivation for learning by demonstrating its real-world opportunities and usability, as well as introduce topics for discussion and

debate. 3. Providing students with more opportunities to use English through effective utilization of ALTs, ICT, and other means. By using assistant language teachers (ALTs) and informational and communicative technologies (ICT), learners will gain more exposure to natural and practical English use than they would otherwise in an EFL course. When these teaching aids are utilized, students are able to see facial expressions and movements and hear English from native speakers. 4. Reinforcement of English skills and instruction abilities of English teachers/Strategic improvement of English education at the level of schools and communities. The government will provide English teachers with intensive training in order to increase proficiency and abilities for instruction and course design, as well as encourage teachers to take certification tests (TOEFL, TOEIC, etc.). 5. Modification of university entrance exams toward global society. As shown in the proposals, there is an emphasis placed on the shifting of classes from lecture-driven to communication-driven and student centered, with an increased focus on exposure to English in real settings. There is also a call for an increase of presentations and discussions from the students. While these seem to be standard proficiency and

learner-centered goals, there is a discrepancy with the methods of assessment. Because external proficiency measures are used for primary and secondary school students, they also serve as a type as external motivation and may dictate the types of material and competencies utilized in class. For this reason, there may exist a gap between the presentation of material to an adult who may or may not take external proficiency exams on their own, and the methodology they experienced growing up. When designing an EFL course for the adults who may or may not have a background in this type of English education, one must consider whether the course will be introducing, continuing, or changing the standard teaching methodology.

Conceptualizing and Organizing Content One of the first steps in conceptualizing an EFL course is to consider how the content will be structured and presented. Whether a course is content/theme-based with a focus on topics as students work through a variety of tasks and skills, or task-based with a focus on completion of real-world tasks, learner interest and engagement with the material will vary based on the context of the course. In an EFL context such as this, a task-based approach alone may not be the most motivational for students, as all of their personal English goals may not align and as such, may not be met by learning simulated real-world tasks such as making phone calls, ordering food in a restaurant, giving

directions, etc.. A content-based approach might be a better choice for adult learners in EFL, since a single theme or subject is able to integrate all four skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) and encourage students to draw and connect from their previous knowledge of topics. This may also help make learning more meaningful and bridge that gap between the goal of external test proficiency and internalized competency goals by having the learners actively making connections and noticing the gap between their opinions/knowledge and their language output abilities. In a context where students must maintain intrinsic motivation for personal or career purposes and seek out access to English on their own, an approach that integrates content-based and task-based learning may provide enough relevance for students to gain adequate communicative competence. Similarly, because Japanese adult learners will likely have had minimal to years of exposure to English drills in previous schooling, a theme-based approach can help elevate their previous knowledge. In his 2007 article, Gregory Strong discusses his experiences with this hybrid content and task-based approach while designing an Integrated English Program for Japanese university students. Before designing the new integrated course, English was taught as is typical in Japan: native speakers of English taught oral skills (from a textbook) and intermediate composition (with or without essays and research), while Japanese teachers taught listening comprehension in a language lab and beginning composition

through grammar-translation (Strong 2007). Strongs first act was to integrate the skills so they were less disjointed, done by creating a single core English class taught by a native speaker to develop all four skills, accompanied by a specific listening skills class taught by a Japanese teacher, and finally a writing class taught by either a Japanese teacher or native speaker. In this particular university setting, the overall goals of Strongs course were to increase understanding of English literature and linguistics as well as strengthen learners English skills for potential employment. More specifically, the core class aimed for the development of skills for self-expression, self-awareness, and fluency in discussion, while the listening class aimed to develop active-listening skills in various genres while the writing class aimed for academic writing enhancement. While this particular set of classes was focused on English literature and advancement toward further academic study, its likely that a general purpose English class would have less focus on academic writing and literature, and more focus on four-skills integration and communicative competence. Initially, Strong and his colleague developed a theme-based approach by itself to integrate the core class with listening and writing. For example, the themes of memories, urban life, food, and travel were used for beginners, while intermediate students focused on eras, geography, the workplace, and biographies. The rationale behind the theme-based approach was to motivate students through a curriculum interwoven between classes that would help them more than a traditional context based on isolated

skill learning through exercises and activities. This is also helpful for courses that are taught by a team of (as opposed to a single) teachers in that the common thread of content makes for a smooth transition between classes and skill focus. After editing and expanding the learning materials of the courses, the missing component of the course was found to be the integration of a task-based framework to create objective assessment measures for all four skills. While pedagogical tasks (decision making, problem solving, opinion exchange) were already included in the course, real-world tasks were introduced that students would be able to utilize in actual settings. Of the real-world tasks, the most emphasis was placed on the development of discussion skills. Strong and his colleague found that students engaging in both task-based and skill-based discussions significantly increased their skills. After seeing the trials and errors of the development of an EFL class in a university setting, one is left the potential solution of fostering motivation through a content or theme-based curriculum that allows learners to utilize and integrate real-world knowledge so as to not isolate or compartmentalize their knowledge of English.

Incorporating the Use of Authentic Materials As previously mentioned, in an EFL context the lack of contact with native speakers and difficulty accessing language immersion and practice can be a hindrance to learners.

The use of authentic materials may be integral for this reason, as well as for proper development of communicative competence. The distinction between EFL textbooks and authentic materials may be significant. On one hand, textbooks and examples must be written by authors, i.e. the examples of discourse are contrived in order to illustrate grammar points. On the other hand, authentic discourse cannot always provide clear and clean-cut examples of language in discourse but does have the ability to maintain relevance in the real-world and contain real message. Based on theories from SLA, authentic input materials are more likely to develop a broad range of competencies due to learners being able to notice more types of discourse features within them (Gilmore 2011). While it is likely that teachers of adult EFL classes in Japan will rely on a textbook to some extent, there are various ways to integrate authentic input into the learning to make it more effective and personalized. One way of incorporating meaningful authentic material use is shown in Alex Gilmores 2009 study of the use of online corpora for feedback. Gilmore identifies a number of advantage and disadvantages to the varying degrees of error feedback a teacher may provide, e.g. complete reformulation being accurate but time consuming and discouraging full cognitive processing, and minimal feedback requiring greater cognitive processing but not suitable for less proficient students (Gilmore 2009). This partially represents the continuum between fluency and accuracy on which a teacher must find

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balance in order to increase both for students. This is especially salient in Japanese EFL while much of the focus for primary and secondary school is on reading and writing comprehension and grammar translation in order to pass proficiency exams (Nishino 2008), listening and speaking skills may be viewed as less relevant but must be developed in order to acquire fluency. In the study, problem areas in the reports of Japanese university English students were highlighted and students were then given the tools to work with the BNC and COBUILD online corpora in order to make their own corrections. Afterward, the problematic highlighted sentences and their corresponding corrected sentences were blindly rated for naturalness, and students provided feedback on their own use of the corpora. The results showed that 61.14% of changes were rated as more natural, 32.57% as equivalent, and 6.29% as less natural (Gilmore 2009). Student feedback showed that nearly everyone believed online corpora were useful for redrafting, and they enjoyed the real English that the concordance lines provided. This study shows that authentic material such as corpora can be utilized in such a way that encourages students to be active participants in their own learning while working with real sentences. This provides learners with access to colloquialisms, idiomatic expressions, irregular word usage, etc. Also salient for adult learners who may enter the class with a range of goals (academic study, business, conversational skills, etc.), the learning with corpora is tailored by each student to meet their own learning goals and problem areas including

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grammar, multiword phrases, and sounding like a native speaker.

Isolating vs Integrating Skills One of the challenges in any EFL course is how to effectively teach listening and speaking skills despite the lack of exposure to the language outside the classroom. In this particular adult EFL context in Japan, the primary focus on reading and writing in secondary schools to meet proficiency exam benchmarks adds to this challenge. One of the ways to approach this challenge is to determine whether the four skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) are best taught in isolation to improve proficiency of each skill by itself, or through integration where multiple skills are practiced at once. Assuming that an EFL class would meet at least 3 to 4 times per week as is standard for language learning (and in the case of Strongs 2007 curriculum development study), I would argue that the best way to approach skills classes would be to group listening and speaking skills into one class, and reading and writing skills on the other. Specifically, I think there should be a focus on listening and speaking in order to develop the communicative goals outlined in the Ministry of Educations objectives and measures. Barbara Fujiwaras 1996 study serves as an example of the effectiveness of teaching listening comprehension in isolation. Working with university students in Japan, Fujiwara recounts her experience of the beginnings of her listening course and her

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editing of the course as it progressed in order to optimize class time, effectiveness, and student satisfaction. Before considering the content of the course, Fujiwara set a clear course goal to foster the growth of students listening skills in such a way that they become capable and independent learners who take responsibility for their own learning. This independence and responsibility should be a common goal of a general purpose EFL course whose learners will come from varying backgrounds and have different personal goals. To begin her course, Fujiwara chose two main sources of input: a series of BBC radio extracts that taught effective listening strategies, and a British television show that contained relatable social situations and interactions. This kind of content strays from anything too academic that may be unrelatable or incomprehensible to some students, and it avoids too much basic conversational or task-based activity that may already be the focus of a speaking skills class. By selecting this content, she was also able to provide an opportunity to raise cultural awareness through discussion of materials. The other aspect of the course was a series of theme-based group presentations (family life, education, racial discrimination, work, religion) based on authentic English material (movies, television, music, etc.) that would serve as input and comprehension checks for classmates. In this way, students were able to take control of their own learning by choosing material to fit their own needs and interests, as well as create auto-input for discussion and comprehension. Student feedback expressed unhappiness with the BBC

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listening strategies excerpts, although she was able to see them utilizing the strategies taught. This indicates that listening strategies may not be most effective when explicitly taught, but rather interwoven through other listening comprehension material. The effectiveness of Fujiwaras course demonstrates that with the constraints of having a lack of exposure to English and minimal prior focus on listening and speaking, Japanese learners can develop isolated listening skills, intercultural understanding, and exposure to natural language through authentic material simultaneously.

Needs Assessment If I were to design this course, the first instrument for needs assessment that I would use is an online survey (Appendix A) that students would complete a few weeks to a month before the course began. With these survey results, I would be able to get an idea of the class profile in terms of age, language background, and reasons for taking the course. If there were multiple students with the same goals or purposes, I could then plan to include specific vocabulary, tasks, and materials relevant to their needs. The purpose question along with the write-in about topic interest and occupation would all serve to determine what kinds of domains the students might have prior knowledge of as well as information that they have motivation to learn. This instrument would serve as a tool to get a general idea of what kinds of themes or content that the course would be based

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around and then form the basic outline of the year. By asking about group work, individual work habits, etc. I would get an idea for how much or how little certain kinds of activities should be incorporated. Teacher talk and repetition exercises, for example, arent ideal for communicative language teaching, but if the learners enjoyed it and benefitted from it in the past, I would incorporate it into the course. Grammar and speaking, reading, writing, and listening skills would be integrated into the course through a structural sequence of difficulty, but specific vocabulary sets would be developed based on the themes and content bases determined by the survey. The second needs assessment instrument is an individual assignment given halfway through the course (see Appendix B). This is an activity where the students are asked to reflect on their own work and experience throughout the first half of the semester/course as well as express what they would like to achieve in the remaining classes. This reflection serves multiple purposes, the first being a means of ongoing needs assessment so that the course can be rearranged and reorganized as needed. By asking students directly how they feel about the progression of the course in terms of their own learning styles, activities can be added or removed. The second purpose this serves is as a means to promote learner autonomy and motivation by having each student recognize their own performance and develop future goals accordingly. The reflection could act as a way to create a mental map of what they need to do in order to reach their own language goals.

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Conclusion As mentioned throughout the discussion in this paper, understanding the context of a general purpose EFL course in Japan requires not only the knowledge of learners needs and purposes for learning English, but also an understanding of their previous English classes, and how to select and sequence content based on learner needs. I have only selected particularly salient features that must be accounted for in this context although there countless factors that should be taken into account when designing a course and curriculum in this context. Government initiatives, cultural beliefs about foreign languages, material selection and the question of authenticity, and methods of feedback lie amongst these factors. While I have pointed to what I believe can be effective methods of approaching these particular contextual factors based on existing literature, its important to be conscious of that particular combinations of needs and contextual factors will result in different effectiveness of methods.

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Works Cited Five Proposals and Specific Measures for Developing Proficiency in English for International Communication. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology - Japan, 2011. Web. 18 Feb. 2013. Fujiwara, Barbara. Planning an Advanced Listening Comprehension Elective for Japanese College Students. 1996. Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA). Web. 20 Feb. 2013. Gilmore, Alex. Using Online Corpora to Develop Students Writing Skills. ELT Journal 63.4 (2009): 363-72. Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA). Web. 20 Feb. 2013. Hato, Yumi. "Problems in Top-Down Goal Setting in Second Language Education: A Case Study of the "Action Plan to Cultivate 'Japanese with English Abilities'"." JALT Journal 27.1 (2005): 33-52. Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA).Web. 1 Mar. 2013. Higher Education in Japan. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology - Japan, 2011. Web. 18 Feb 2013. Nishino, Takako, and Michinobu Watanabe. "Communication-Oriented Policies Versus Classroom Realities in Japan." TESOL Quarterly 42.1 (2008): 133-8. Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA). Web. 1 Mar. 2013. Strong, Gregory. Curriculum Design: Furniture for a College EFL Program. In M. Carroll (Ed.) Developing a New Curriculum for Adult Learners, Teacher Development Series. Teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages: Alexandria, Virginia, pp. 153-176, 2007.

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Appendix A: Pre-course Survey Link to survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1PKmRX8yBzyXFNcbxtNQbtz16bKGzfGTe8Xc0BnRUGr Y/viewform

Appendix B: Mid-course Reflection Please take a few moments to reflect on your experience in English 101 so far. Your responses will only be seen by the instructor, so feel free to express your thoughts, both positive and negative. Write 1-2 pages that answer the following questions: 1. What have been your favorite/least favorite activities weve done in class? 2. Which unit have you enjoyed learning about most? Why? 3. Think about the reasons that you took this course and the goals you set for yourself. Do you feel like youre on your way to meeting these goals? Why or why not? 4. What changes will you make to improve your English and reach your goals? 5. What changes in the course would help you enjoy the class more and learn more effectively?

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