Listening, Reading, and Writing Skills of Incoming Junior High School Students Who Learned English in Elementary School

Abstract

In an attempt to develop some can-do statements of EFL beginners that can serve as part of a comprehensive framework of reference for the English language, this study examined listening, reading, and writing skills of 101 incoming junior high school (JHS) students who learned English in elementary school (ES). The participants took a sample test of YLE (Cambridge Young Learners English Tests) Starters, which is used on a global basis. The results showed (a) that they can understand short dialogues on familiar subjects both in spoken and written forms, especially when assisted by nonverbal cues and redundancy of information, (b) that they seem to be tolerant of ambiguity, understanding messages that contain unfamiliar words or phrases, and (c) that they can copy spellings of basic words, although spelling them correctly without models can be challenging. Based on these findings, the researcher raises three issues that should be discussed for the purpose of establishing continuity between English language teaching in ES and the JHS counterpart: (1) how to strike a balance between encouraging non-verbal communication and cautioning against excessive dependency on it, (2) how to strike a balance between the development of some degree of ambiguity and the awareness of language forms, and (3) how reading and writing, which the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology insists should be excluded from ES English language activities, should be incorporated in a way that is appropriate for the cognitive levels of ES pupils.