Extensive Reading (ER) has been introduced into college/university English education as a useful English remedial education (ERE) method. In ER learning, the student encouraged to read as many books as possible. This is because the more he/she reads, the more his/her reading ability is thought to improve. This emphasis on "quantity", however, overlooks a serious problem: "quantity" does not necessarily guarantee an improvement of "quality" (student reading competence). Even if the student reads as many books as possible, he/she still remains confined to the level in which he/she often arbitrarily misreads the text. This results from the student's failure to grasp the sentence structure of each expression correctly. The student needs to improve his/her poor knowledge of sentence structures. When he/she can "decode" the sentences correctly, then it is expected that "quantity" guarantees an improvement in "quality".

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The purposes of this research are to report a remedial English course to all freshmen (n=818) at a university and to investigate the relationship between goal-setting, performance-attribution, and self-efficacy qualitatively. The course was designed to enhance self-regulated learning employing self-regulated learning cycles. As to goal-setting, higher goals implied higher self-efficacy as a result of more accurate self-evaluation and monitoring. The lower goals students set, the lower self-efficacy they might have.

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In a previous paper (Ishihara, et al., 2008), the authors reported that they created computer-assisted instruction software for assisting unsuccessful learners of English as a foreign language. The aim of this software is to improve learners' lexical working memory and automatic processing of orally presented words, their meanings and spellings. We, in the development of this software, focus on its effect on participants' phonological recognition. We discuss the results of the training with 34 university students who used the software for approximately 15 minutes in a weekly English class for 18 weeks. The effect was measured by analyzing the game histories, or recognition tasks, and dictation tests, or reproduction tasks. The participants' performance improved overall: in particular, 21 participants who took part in 90 percent or more of 11 training sessions showed significant improvement in both recognition and reproduction tasks.

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This paper reports on the practice and the results of writing skill training of sophomore students. In American tertiary education where freshman training is progressive, students receive considerable support. In their sophomore year, however, much more is expected from them as they must bear the demands of independence and decision making. Many fail to cope with these new pressures, as evidenced by the increase in dropout rates. This study was carried out with the assumption that it is highly probable that a similar situation occurs in Japanese higher education, particularly in writing centers educating sophomore students. From self-evaluations of students who participated in this study, three important factors affecting the learning process were obtained. Also, there was a high realization of the importance of the students' study materials, an understanding of the significance of evaluating written works, and a realization of the significance of showing willingness to discuss and exchange opinions. Likewise, the challenges for developing a curriculum became apparent. The main three factors clarified were the time of execution of the training, the method of guidance, and the period of execution.

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At Japanese colleges and universities, we need to provide make-up or review classes of junior high and high school materials to support the scholastic ability of some of our students. Such education is often called "li-me-di-aru education," which is katakana English of "remedial." However, some professors are suspicious of what "li-me-di-aru education" implies because of the negative connotation of the word "remedial." Furthermore, they are uneasy with the ambiguity in meaning of such a katakana English word in the field of education. The purpose of this study is to investigate the appropriateness of the term "li-me-di-aru education" in Japanese education. After reviewing the pertinent literature, and from surveys and interviews with Japanese college professors, it became clear that the word "remedial" is neither relevant nor a fixed or established term in Japan. Hence, it is an apparent and must-do task to seek a new and better term in Japanese to refer to these types of classes, a term which holds no negative connotation. In this paper, four alternative terms for "li-me-di-aru education" are suggested.

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This study investigates the subsequent effect of English Learning in the Elementary School (ELES) on both the skill domain and the motivational domain. One hundred and forty five students in grades seven and eight participated in this study. Seventy two of them received English language instruction once a week in the elementary schools in tokku (special educational district), while the remaining 73 had not experienced any English language instruction before they entered junior high school. Research questions addressed in the study are: RQ 1: To what degree do ELES students and non-ELES students differ in terms of their English listening, speaking, reading, vocabulary, and grammar skills? RQ 2: To what degree do ELES students and non-ELES students differ on motivational variables? RQ 3: To what degree do the differences converge or diverge between grades seven and eight? A preliminary analysis revealed that the experimental group outperformed the non-experimental group to a statistically significant degree in listening skills and speaking skills measured in terms of the interview.

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