How Much Exposure to the Language Is Necessary to Improve KOSEN Students′ English Skills?

Abstract

Students of KOSEN, Colleges of Technology, have long suffered from low English proficiency, which is below the level expected of newly graduated engineers to efficiently work in a global society. For years, students′ exposure to English seemed to be insufficient and the minimum exposure time that will lead to any improvement was unknown. In this paper, the authors estimated the necessary length of exposure by analyzing the total time when the students were exposed to English without any Japanese interference and related it with the students′ TOEIC scores. It was found that a minimum of 170 hours was necessary to score around 450 points, while at least 300 hours was needed to score around 600 points in the TOEIC test.