A Consideration on the Effect of Studying English in Elementary School in Japan

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate any effects of the experience of English in elementaiy school on the students' English phonological production abilities. The data was collected from 149 seventh graders in a junior high school after they had completed eight months of English classes. 93 students came from the attached elementary school where they had English classes one period per week for the year preceding entering junior high school. The remaining 56 subjects came from other elementary schools and have various backgrounds of English study. All subjects were required to read a short passage they had already studied in their class textbook and their utterances were recorded. Three raters evaluated the phonological production abilities holistically on a 5 point scale. Comparisons verified that there was no significant difference in the students' pronunciation abilities due to differences in English experience in elementary school.