Authorized Junior High School English Textbooks in Japan

Authorized Junior High School English Textbooks in Japan: From the Viewpoint of Vocabulary and Readability Kenji Kitao （Doshisha University） Shosaku Tanaka （Ritsumeikan University）

Background n n n English is first taught in junior high schools. Basics of English are taught for three years. Almost all Japanese students take English. Based on the Course of Study Authorized textbooks based on the course of study n n n quantity difficulty level of English vocabulary

Goal n Analyzing English in junior high school textbooks （7 series between 2002 and 2005） n n Readability Vocabulary and difficulty levels

Research Questions n n Tokens (quantity) and types (variety) Common words among textbooks Readability and grade levels Vocabulary levels and grade levels

Methods n n 21 government authorized textbooks (7 series) used between 2002 and 2005 Corpora made by ELPA n n n Main texts and vocabulary lists on the inside covers Excluding lessons with only exercises numbers：lemmatized words n no

Tool n Readability Tests Document Readability And Improve It http: //www. online-utility. org/english/readability_test_and_improve. jsp n Tagging/lemmatization Tree. Tagger http: //www. ims. uni-stuttgart. de/projekte/corplex/Tree. Tagger/ Other Perl programs made by presenters n

Result：Token (all words) grade mean 7 th 1134 8 th 2020 9 th 2349 SD Min Max 145. 3 985 1330 429. 3 1568 2741 376. 1 1752 2896 5504 words for 3 years → 3 years≒ 100 weeks⇒ 55 words per week Very few words

Result：Types grade mean 7 th 310 8 th 491 9 th 557 SD Min Max 17. 9 271 321 52. 6 429 571 56. 3 454 628 875 words → 9 words per week very few

Result：Common words grade 7 th 8 th 9 th Common words 69 92 91 Used in 7 textbooks Used in 14 textbooks Used in 21 textbooks Only 252 words are used in 7 series. List of common words

Result：Average syllables=all syllables/all words grade mean 7 th 1. 36 8 th 1. 39 9 th 1. 39 SD Min Max 0. 04 1. 30 1. 42 0. 04 1. 33 1. 46 0. 03 1. 36 1. 43 many short words almost no difference between grades

Results： Average length of sentences =all words/all sentences grade 7 th 8 th 9 th mean 4. 02 5. 76 6. 70 SD Min Max 0. 32 3. 35 4. 29 0. 35 5. 35 6. 15 0. 77 5. 79 8. 02 Average length of words is 5. 57 words. Longer for upper grades very short for 7 th grade （many passages are dialogues）

Results：Readability Flesch readability grade mean 7 th 2. 00 8 th 3. 05 9 th 3. 45 SD Average #syllables Average #sentences Min Max 0. 50 1. 27 2. 78 0. 55 2. 17 3. 98 0. 45 2. 97 4. 24 Higher for upper grade very low, particularly for 7 th grade （grade 1 -4 for native speakers）

Vocabulary Lists (levels) Vocabulary list Vocabulary Lists General vocabulary Academic vocabulary Nos. of words Levels JACET 4000 (J 4) 4064 4 JACET 8000 (J 8) 8250 8 12000 12 Hokkaido Univ. List (HU) 7454 5 General Service List (GSL) 2284 1 Academic Word List (AWL) 570 60 ALC SVL 12000 (SVL)

Data and Method n Rank correlation coefficient Goodman-Kruskal γ（γ∈[-1, 1]） Positively Corr. Data Non-corr. Negatively Corr. n -1 0 1 γ Common words used in textbooks, except proper nouns, number characters, and compound nouns n Unit of count n n token type

Result： Grade and Vocabulary Level List J 4 J 8 SVL HU GSL AWL token -. 001 -. 012. 092 -. 026. 062 -. 194 type . 064. 041. 138. 099. 019 -. 249 ⇒ • Correlation between grade and vocabulary level Almost none Vocabulary on those lists are different from vocabulary taught in junior high. Which list is the best? J 4 HU J 8 AWL -. 1 0 ▼ -. 2 ▼ ▼ 【token】 GSL SVL . 1 γ

Conclusion n Statistical survey of Junior High School Textbooks For upper grades n n More words and more new words (still very few) Higher readability （still very easy） n n n Sentence length is longer. The difference between 7 th and 8 th grades is large. No vocabulary list is suitable for junior high school English lessons.

Reference n n THE COURSE OF STUDY FOR LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL FOREIGN LANGUAGES (2003). http: //www. mext. go. jp/english/shotou/030301. htm Teaching English in Japan TEFL IN JAPAN--JALT 10 th Anniversary Collected Papers (1985 JAT) (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 265 741)

Appendix

Textbooks n Used between 2002 and 2005 n n n n COLUMBUS 21（Mitsumura Tosho） NEW CROWN（Sanseido） NEW HORIZON（Tokyo Shoseki） ONE WORLD（Kyoiku Shuppan） SUNSHINE（Kairyudo） TOTAL ACTIVE COMMUNICATION（Shubunkan） TOTAL ENGLISH（Gakko Tosho）

Result：Nos. of Sentences grade mean 7 th 283 8 th 350 9 th 352 SD Min Max 39. 0 241 335 66. 5 270 457 53. 0 274 430 985 sentences for 3 years 10 sentences per week Very few

Result：Average Number of Letters Average number of letters =total number of letters/total number of words grade mean 7 th 3. 86 8 th 4. 06 9 th 4. 11 SD Min Max 0. 12 3. 68 4. 02 0. 10 3. 91 4. 21 0. 06 4. 05 4. 18 Average 4. 04 letters Many short words Longer words for upper grade

Goodman-Kruskal γ S : #concordant pairs D : #discordant pairs 【Concordant/Disconcordant】 Appearing Grade Level in the word list word w 1 → <x 1, y 1> word w 2 → <x 2, y 2> y 1>y 2 x 1>x 2 x 1=x 2 x 1<x 2 y 1=y 2 y 1<y 2 Blue cell… concordant Red cell… discordant

Flesch-Kincaid Grade level=. 39*ASL+11. 80*ASW-15. 59 ASL: average length of sentences （nos. of words/sentence） ASW: average number of syllables

n Kenji Kitao n n n kkitao@e-learning-server. com http: //kkitao. e-learning-server. com/index. shtml Shosaku Tanaka n n sho@lt. ritsumei. ac. jp http: //www. cl. ritsumei. ac. jp/