What English Learners CAN and CANNOT Do: Using Text Mining Analysis of Survey Data From Students in Their Last Year of High School

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate how to better instruct EFL learners on speaking. Sixty-eight Japanese high school students participated in a set of skill-integrated activities, including a selfevaluation questionnaire. The purpose of this was to foster speaking skills, as encouraged by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in Japan. Their responses were analyzed by text mining. As a result, there was a tendency for students to struggle with putting English vocabulary together to produce more coherent expressions. Moreover, students were able to better understand what they could or could not communicate in English when challenged to express certain ideas either orally or in writing. It was also revealed that students improved their English skills when working together in pairs. These partnerships unexpectedly showed that the students improved their language skills by evaluating and learning from the work of others.