外国語活動に対する児童のコミュニケーション態度の変化 : 日本の一小学校でのケーススタディ

抄録

This study focuses on attitude change in Japanese pupils' communicative attitudes at one elementary school in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. The writer surveyed the 5th and 6th grade pupils' communicative attitudes and other attitudes from the end of the 2007 to the end of the 2009 school years. The data were collected three times to examine pupils' attitude changes over three years, depending on their genders and grade. The study found that pupils' communicative attitudes tended to decrease as the number of English classes increased. As their communicative attitudes also had a tendency to decrease slightly according to age, it seemed that pupils could not foster positive attitudes toward communication. Concerning gender, girls had more positive attitudes toward communication, while those of boys decreased more in three years. This study also tried to find a relationship among their communicative attitudes and other variables, and the result showed that pupils' communicative attitudes were affected by their attitudes toward learning. The study concluded that if pupils have confidence and belief in learning and an interest in foreign languages, they can maintain positive attitudes toward communication with others who have different ideas or different cultural backgrounds.