This paper poses three reservations concerning Universal Grammar (UG)-based second language acquisition (SLA) research. The reservations are; 1) the instantaneous acquisition model cannot be directly applicable to SLA; 2) the target-oriented view of learners' languages is inadequate; and 3) the learning principles responsible for parameter resetting are not clear. The discussions proceed by examining theoretical postulates of UG and their relevancy and applicability to SLA. It is claimed that the reservations arise mainly from the direct application of UG to SLA while ignoring the fruitful and significant findings made in our field in the last twenty years. The implications of these discussions to future SLA research are also presented, especially in relation to the necessity of development-oriented research, the multidimensional view of learners' languages, and the possible contribution of general cognitive faculties to adult SLA.

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Throughout the history of English language teaching, both input and output have been important topics for discussion among teachers and researchers. But relatively little research has been conducted on the actual correlation between the two. In the study reported here, the written input included in an English textbook for junior high schools in Japan was analyzed and then was correlated with the output from the students who had been taught with the textbook for one year. The nature of the input was specified in terms of the appearance order and the frequency of a selected set of sentence structures in the textbook. The output from the students was measured through a composition test. The findings show that the students' proficiency with those selected sentence structures correlated more highly with the frequency of those sentence structures than with their appearance order. Some implications for English language teaching at junior high school are suggested.

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The purpose of this study is to examine whether Universal Grammar and the Subset Principle are relevant to second language(L2) acquisition and furthermore whether three acquisitional stages claimed by Hirakawa(1990) can be observed. To do this, the present study focuses on the acquisition of English reflexives that requires two parameters to be set: the Governing Category Parameter and the Proper Antecedent Parameter. Subjects were 287 Japanese senior high school students learning English as a foreign language(EFL). They were required to point out the antecedents of English reflexives contained in 31 sentences. The results indicate that only the parameter setting is relevant and that the claim in Hirakawa(1990) is valid. The findings also suggest the need for negative evidence and contrastive language teaching to promote the successful L2 acquisition.

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This study examines what is the most appropriate number of words in the text for constructing the most effective M-C cloze test. The following tests were administered to college sophomores: CELT No.1 (Listening) and No.2 (Structure & Vocabulary) in 1990; 6 M-C cloze tests,2 of them with approximately 400-word texts, another 2 with approximately 500-word texts, and the other 2 with approximately 600-word texts from 1990 through 1991. Six surveys were conducted on the level of difficulty, the length of the text, and the testing time. Results indicate the following things : First, there is no outstanding preference for a certain number of words used in the text. Second, there was a moderate but not high correlation between an M-C cloze test,and CELT No.2. Third, there is almost no correlation between an M-C cloze test and a listening test. Fourth, the reliability of the M-C cloze test does not vary according to the number of words used in the text. What deserves special attention is that 3 out of 6 M-C cloze tests surpassed CELT No.2 in reliability. This study indicates that an M-C cloze test has greater potential as an effective means of measuring a language learner's overall language proficiency.

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To probe the legitimacy of decoding efficiency (speed and accuracy) as a predictor of English ability, the study examined the efficiency of English word decoding among Japanese students of high and low English proficiency. Using lexical decision tasks for English words, the study found that both word frequency and string length significantly affected processing speed and accuracy. However, there was neither a significant effect of the English proficiency level on efficiency, nor a strong correlations between the students' scores on an English ability test and efficiency. In the present study, efficiency in basic English word processing was not a good predictor of the English ability of Japanese university students who were majoring in English literature. The study suggests that efficiency in the decoding of basic English words is not a reliable indicator of English proficiency, though it might be required as one-of the determinants in order to comprehend English well.

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This paper examines the relationship between Japanese children's bilingual experience in the United States and the process of readjustment to schooling after their return to Japan. To clarify the language status in a bilingual environment, James Cummins' distinction between BICS(Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) and CALP (Cognitive /Academic Language Proficiency) was used for the two languages involved, i. e., home language (L1) to be maintained, and host language (L2) to be acquired. The subjects chosen were Japanese returnee children from the United States with at least oneyear experience in an American local school. Their parents were asked to respond to the questionnaire regarding maintenance of communication skills in L1 (BICS L1), maintenance of schooling in L1 (CALP L1), acquisition of communication skills in L2 (BICS L2), adjustment to schooling in L2 (CALP L2) in a host country, and the educational readjustment process in their home country. Correlational studies were conducted on the data collected for long-stayers and short-stayers respectively. The results suggest that : (1) there are no direct relationships between the maintenance of BICS L1 and /or CALP L1 and the readjustment process, (2) level of CALP L2 attained is a contributing factor to successful readjustment, and (3) a combination of CALP L2 and BICS L1 seems to be a multiple factor contributing to successful readjustment particularly for longstayers.

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The importance of the English language as a means of communication has been emphasized in recent years. Developing communicative competence has come to be taken for granted as the major aim in the English classroom. There seems to be general agreement that the principle purpose of language teaching is to let students acquire the ability to communicate effectively in English in real situations. However, teachers in upper secondary level English classrooms in Japan often find this aim too hard to attain, saying that even basic linguistic competence cannot be acquired with ease. However, communicative competence cannot exist independently of linguistic competence. The development of both these abilities must be linked together. How can communicative activities be integrated into Japanese senior high school classes? How can we give students opportunities to really use English? As a first step toward communicative competence, this paper puts forward some theoretical guidelines and offers some examples of classroom activities based on task-oriented activities.

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In this international age, the ability to speak English is more important than ever. Driven by the necessity of teaching speaking in large classes, I examined the mechanism of speaking and compared the advantages and disadvantages of both speaking and writing in learning languages, noticing the possibility of using writing as a substitute activity for speaking. This paper introduces the idea of using writing to assist in the teaching of speaking and includes an outline of the lesson curriculum of an experimental study and its results, which lead us to believe that writing can be used to help students improve their speaking ability.

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Focusing on comprehension questions, this study seeks a teaching strategy which will generate inferencing in the reading comprehension process of learners, so that they can understand the coherent as well as the cohesive relationship of the sentences in a text. The study also attempts to explore an alternative to the traditional grammar-translation method frequently used in teaching reading comprehension. The study was conducted in two classes at a public junior high school. For the control group, the grammar-translation method was used as a whole-class activity. For the experimental group, inferential questions were given as a group activity. In order to check the extent to which students understood the text, a comprehension check test was administered. The contents were: (A) fill-in-the-blanks, (B) rearrangement of Japanese statements, (C) true or false, (D) dividing the story into four parts, (E) understanding the characters' feelings, and (F) Japanese translation. The inferential questions group did better than the grammar-translation group in the "understanding the characters' feelings" section of the comprehension check test, while there was no statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups with regard to Japanese translation. These results indicate that it is not necessary to pay much attention to word-by-word or sentence-by-sentence translation in the reading comprehension process.

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Scientific research of English language education presupposes efforts to define terms as precisely as possible. The development of a thesaurus is one of the efforts for normalizing or controlling the language used in this field. In addition, recent technical innovations have made the store of a huge amount of research data possible through computers. Efficient retrieval of this information needs a controlling of the terminology employed in the subject field. Therefore it is necessary to construct a thesaurus which represents the keywords in the field and also shows how these keywords are related to each other. The purpose of this paper is to present a draft form of a thesaurus on English language education, to explain its construction process and to discuss several problems to be resolved.

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It is quite clear that English is the most widespread linguistic medium for international communication. In fact, it is even used by a large number of non-native speakers for some of their communication needs. However, language and culture are inextricably tied together. Therefore, it would be easy to suppose that the use of English between people of different cultures will often result in misunderstanding or sometimes total communication breakdown. Communication involves not only verbal messages but also nonverbal ones such as gestures, posture, clothing, eye contact, and so on. Though nonverbal communication is a noteworthy subject, it is of no immediate concern here. In this paper, first, some examples of verbal problems caused when English is used interculturally are cited, and the causes of those problems are analyzed. Secondly, guidelines for coping with such problems within the Japanese education system are considered and proposed, and lastly, the importance of understanding other cultures is emphasized.

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