TOEFL IBT SCORES OF JAPANESE NATIVE SPEAKERS VARIATIONS
TOEFL IBT SCORES OF JAPANESE NATIVE SPEAKERS: VARIATIONS DEPENDING ON TEST TAKER CHARACTERISTICS KAZUHIRO IMANISHI (今西一太) HIROSHIMA UNIVERSITY (廣島大學) / HIROSHIMA JOGAKUIN SCHOOL (廣島女 學院)
ORGANIZATION OF THE SPEECH 1. Background: Japanese English teaching system (customs) 2. TOEFL i. BT scores of Japanese native speakers 3. Appendix: how to improve students’ speaking and writing skills
1. BACKGROUND: COMMON ENGLISH EDUCATION IN JAPAN / THE TOEFL IBT TEST • English teaching at common Japanese high schools: 1. Highly optimized for college entrance exams 2. Few hours of speaking and no essay writing 3. Focus on grammatical accuracy (grammar questions) and Englishto-Japanese translation (4. Most people study English most in high school)
1. JAPANESE COLLEGE ENTRANCE EXAMS Name Made by Grammar 1 st exam “Center” exam National institute 8 -10% 2 nd exam “Individual” exam Each university 5 -20% Reading Listening Speaking Writing 70 -80% 0 -20% 0% 0% 70 -90% 0 -20% 0% 0 -30%
1. FEW SPEAKING HOURS • Speaking class at Japanese high schools: 0 -2 hours a week. • Many “speaking” classes are actually listening classes where no students ever speak English at all. • Possible reasons for this: 1. Many teachers have never taught speaking classes. 2. Students want something “useful” for entrance exams. 3. There are too many students in one class (N=30 -50) to teach speaking effectively.
1. NO ESSAY WRITING • Writing tasks are usually Japanese-to-English translation. • Most schools do not assign essay writing (though there are some exceptions). • Students have no chance to type English (submitting assignments via e-mail is not allowed). • Some universities require students to write essays in the entrance exams; in this case, students practice writing essays themselves, ask teachers for advice personally, or go to cram school.
1. FOCUS ON GRAMMATICAL ACCURACY AND TRANSLATION • Heavy weight is put on grammar questions on mid-terms and finals. • English composition is measured mainly by grammatical accuracy. • There is (almost) no essay writing; instead, there are plenty of translation tasks (English to Japanese / Japanese to English). Grammatical accuracy is required in these tasks. In extreme cases, students are required to write exactly the same as the model answer, which means that alternative ways of expressing the same thing are not allowed.
1. TOEFL IBT (TEST OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE, INTERNET BASED TESTING) • English proficiency test for those whose native language is not English to prove that they have enough English skills to study at university in an English-speaking country. • It measures four types of skills, reading, listening, speaking, and writing. • Each skill has the maximum score of 30; the full score is 120 altogether. • Academic contents are taken from college-level textbooks. • In the speaking section, test takers are required to speak to a microphone within certain time limit (45 seconds or 60 seconds). The speech is recorded and later evaluated by several raters.
Now, let’s move on to the TOEFL i. BT score data of Japanese people!
2. OFFICIAL SCORE DATA BY ETS: AVERAGE TOEFL IBT SCORES CLASSIFIED BY NATIVE LANGUAGE Native Reading Listening • Average score of Japanese test-takers: Speaking language Writing Total Japanese 18 18 17 18 71 Chinese 21 19 19 20 79 Information from: http: //www. ets. org/s/toefl/pdf/94227_unlweb. pdf (Date of retrieval: October 10, 2018) Reading Listening Speaking Writing Total Full score 30 30 120
3. AVERAGE SCORE DATA BY AGOS JAPAN (A LANGUAGE SCHOOL IN TOKYO, JAPAN) Reading Listening Speaking Writing Total 18. 25 15. 54 14. 13 15. 05 62. 97 • N=3, 388. Data from http: //www. agos. co. jp/about/press/20151119. html (Date of retrieval: October 10, 2018) • Data of the test-takers’ first-time TOEFL i. BT test. • 70% of the test-takers in the data are adults who aim at studying at university abroad. • Compared to the official data, listening, speaking, and writing scores are lower, which might mean Japanese test takers may be improving these scores by taking the test repeatedly.
3. AVERAGE SCORE DATA BY AGOS JAPAN (A LANGUAGE SCHOOL IN TOKYO, JAPAN) • The original data are shown based on the TOEIC scores of the test-takers:
3. OTHER COMPARISON CHARTS BETWEEN TOEIC AND TOEFL IBT • The reliable data by Agos Japan show that TOEFL i. BT might be considered too easy in other online comparison charts such as: • 1: https: //www. conversation. jp/faqenglish/TOEIC-TOEFL. html • 2: http: //www. ryugaku. jsschool. com/img/meyasu. pdf (Date of retrieval: October 10, 2018)
4. DATA AT JOGAKUIN HIGH SCHOOL IN HIROSHIMA, JAPAN • Hiroshima Jogakuin Junior and Senior High School (廣島女學院中學高等學 校) • Founded in 1886. • One of the top schools in Hiroshima city. • Assigned the “Super Global High School” by MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) and started TOEFL classes, which I have been teaching up to now, in 2015
4. DATA: 1 ST GRADERS WITH “JAPANESE” BACKGROUND, FIRST-TIME TEST TAKING IN 2015 • Students with no special background, such as living abroad. • 11 students out of 15 got the highest score in the speaking section. • Speaking/writing scores are higher.
4. DATA: 1 ST GRADERS WITH “JAPANESE” BACKGROUND, FIRST-TIME TEST TAKING IN 2016 • Reading scores are better than those of the previous year. • Speaking/writing scores are better than reading/listening scores, which is the same tendency as in the previous year. • Total score is almost the same as that of the previous year.
4. DATA: 2 ND GRADERS WITH “JAPANESE” BACKGROUND, SECOND-TIME TEST IN 2016 • Data in 2016 of those who continued to study for TOEFL from 2015 to 2016. • Reading, listening, and writing scores, especially reading scores, improved. • Scores of all the four skills are balanced.
4. DATA: STUDENTS WITH “FOREIGN” BACKGROUND, FIRST TIME TEST TAKING IN 2016 OR 2017 • 2 nd/3 rd graders at junior high or 1 st graders at senior high who spent more than six months abroad when they were younger. • Reading scores vary (5 -26) while writing scores do not (19 -25). • Reading scores may depend on how many books they read themselves at home.
CONCLUSION AND POSSIBLE ANALYSES • Data by Agos Japan show that TOEFL i. BT test is more difficult than commonly believed (compared to TOEIC). • Comparing the data by ETS and Agos Japan, it is possible to claim that adult test takers are improving their listening, speaking, and writing skills by taking the test repeatedly, while the reading score cannot be improved that way. • High school first graders (with Japanese background) get better scores in the output sections, especially in the speaking section.
CONCLUSION AND POSSIBLE ANALYSES (CONTINUED) • Second graders (Japanese) who continued to study for TOEFL for two years and took the test for the second time improved their reading and listening skills (especially their reading skills). This improvement in the reading part may be due to Japanese high school education system, which focuses on improving students’ reading skills. • High school students with “foreign” background got higher scores than those with “Japanese” background. There is not so much variation in their writing scores, but their reading scores vary a lot. This may mean that their writing skills were improved by school education, but reading skills require individual efforts. • There is a tendency that the more you take the test, the more balanced you scores get.
That’s all for my date analyses, thank you!
APPENDIX 1. HOW TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS: JOGAKUIN TOEFL IBT CLASS IN 2015 • Class: one hour a week • Students: 1 st graders at high school ; all of them are Japanese native speakers with no special background (such as living abroad for some time) • Purpose: improve their English skills and TOEFL score. • Strategy: We had only one hour a week for the TOEFL class, so I focused on having them get used to TOEFL output (especially speaking) tasks.
APPENDIX 1. AN EXAMPLE OF SPEAKING PRACTICE 1. Have the students stand up and line up in the middle of the classroom, making two lines. 2. Have them find a partner in the other line. 3. Give them a TOEFL type speaking question, such as “describe your most important possession. Why is it so valuable? ” 4. 15 seconds of brainstorm, and then have students in one line speak to their partners for 45 seconds. 5. The listeners ask questions to the speaker.
APPENDIX 1. METHOD OF SPEAKING PRACTICE (CONTINUED) 6. Have them switch the roles, speak for 45 seconds, and ask questions. 7. Move over to another partner and repeat the same thing with the same question (second time). 8. For the third time, time limit is shortened to 30 seconds, so that students have to speak faster and more fluently. Regular English classes at school excessively focused on grammatical accuracy, so I intentionally tried to excessively focus on improving students’ fluency.
APPENDIX 1. ADVANTAGES OF THE METHOD 1. Even if students cannot express their opinion in the first try, they can ask questions to their classmates and the teacher afterwards as to how to express something in English and try the same thing again, improving their fluency. 2. With the shorter time limit of 30 seconds, students need to try to speak more quickly and more fluently. 3. Quiet students can also have the same amount of speech time as active students.
APPENDIX 2. HOW TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS: WRITING ASSIGNMENT IN MY PRIVATE SCHOOL • Students must submit one essay every week via e-mail, so that students can practice typing English. • The essay are proofread by a native speaker and get corrections; after that, a Japanese proofreader gives comments as to the structure and contents of the essays. • The students receive “common mistakes in essay writing” handout, so that they can avoid mistakes which happen repeatedly among Japanese learners of English.
APPENDIX 2. COMMON WRITING MISTAKES 1 • Below are 8 points listed in the “common mistakes in essay writing” handout. 1. Because clauses without its main clause, e. g. I want to go to Tokyo. Because it is an interesting city. I suppose this is L 1 influence from Japanese, where they usually have independent because sentences. 2. Using Japanese punctuation, e. g. The movie is called 「Harry Potter」. 3. No space after punctuation marks, e. g. I like to play tennis. It is my favorite sport, and I play it every day. . (This is again L 1 influence from Japanese, in which there is no space after punctuation marks. )
APPENDIX 2. COMMON WRITING MISTAKES 2 4. Using full-width letters, e. g. Ⅰ play it. 5. Changing the line at the end of every sentence, e. g. I want to go to Tokyo. Because it is an interesting city. I want to see famous people there.
APPENDIX 2. COMMON WRITING MISTAKES 3 6. No “introduction, body, conclusion” structure. 7. No topic sentence in the body part. 8. Making only one block of sentences (no paragraph)
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