Research on guessing word meanings from context has been done since 1995 chiefly to explore the effect of unknown to known word ratios on successful guessing. This paper examines the correlation between successful guessing and the scores in term examinations and mock examinations. This study also examines differences according to grades, unknown word ratios, and types of contextual clues. The results showed that the correlation between successful, guessing and midterm and term examination scores was generally low regardless of grades, ratios, or types of contextual clues though there was one case where the correlation for all the participants was about 0.50 in each grade. The correlation between successful guessing and mock examination scores was generally higher than that between successful guessing and midterm and term examination scores though it was also the case generally for midterm and term examinations.

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The purpose of this study was to develop a CD-ROM for improving the listening skills of English learners comparatively easily at a low cost, making use of the presentation program called PowerPoint. A multimedia type CALL is considered to be very effective in learning English, because it enables students to learn target items individually at their own pace simulating real target situations on the screen. Students can also use it beyond the normal English classroom setting. Most of the current CD-ROMs on the market, however, are fairy expensive and very little research into their effectiveness has been done so far. We, therefore, decided to develop a CD-ROM by ourselves, because the effectiveness on English learning would be beyond measure if English teachers themselves, who know the language learners' abilities and interests, could develop CD-ROMs. We concluded that it was possible for English teachers to develop CD-ROMs with PowerPoint, not taking a great deal of time, energy or expense.

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between English language attainment and attitudes towards English between Hong Kong's students and Japanese college students. The subjects were the Hong Kong's students who are studying Japanese in Japan at Shukutoku Japanese Language School to prepare for entering Japanese colleges and Japanese sophomore students. In order to analyze the relationship between them the students were measured by three kinds of assessment: a short version of TOEFL a composition in English with a given title, a series of questions concerning the experience of their past English education and a series of statements on the study and use of English. The results showed that the Japanese college students marked higher points than the Hong Kong's students in the grammatical field whereas in listening and reading, the Hong Kong's students were superior to the Japanese students. This fact has much to do with the high motivation of the Hong Kongs students while some of the Japanese students study English without special purposes. At the same time, the Hong Kong's students started studying English not later than 6 years old, and used to have 5 classes a week from primary to secondary school with teachers using English more often than their native language. In Japan, the students began learning English at the age of 12 and had 3 to 4 classes a week at junior high school with teachers using Japanese more often than English. Moreover, the grammatical accuracy of the Japanese students was superior to that of the Hong Kong's students, which shows the success of teaching accurate grammar throughout junior high and high schools in Japan. However, because the Hong Kong's students described more complicated things than the Japanese; students in composition and did better in listening and reading comprehension in TOEFL it is required that the Japanese students need more chances to use English in many practical ways.

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Through Katagiri (2000a, 2000c), using the test items of Mochizuki's (1998) Vocabulary Size Test and Item Response Theory (IRT), the new vocabulary teats based on word difficulty order with only 32 items which can be conducted in less than 10 minutes had been developed for quick and rough estimates of examinees' general English ability, and the new vocabulary tests which had three theoretical parallel Forms The purposes of this paper were (1) to examine the concurrent validity and the reliability of each Form of the new vocabulary tests as quick-and-rough-estimating English tests, (2) to examine whether the three Forms are actually parallel with one another, and (3) to present the readers (English teachers and language educational researchers) with the completed three Forms of the ten-minute Vocabulary tests for quick and rough estimates of general English ability of Japanese EFL learners (especially targeting senior high school students). 234 senior high school students took the three Forms of the new vocabulary tests and -Kawaiju-mogishiken (KJMS). Significant middle-high correlations were confirmed between each Form and KJMS; a high IRT reliability was affirmed on each Form. High correlations were confirmed among the three Forms; the same means of the test scores on Forms I and II were obtained, though Form III had a problem with the mean. It was concluded that (1) the concurrent validity and the reliability of each Form were confirmed as the tests for quick and rough estimates of general English abilities, (2) Forms I and II were actually parallel tests but Form III might have a problem in the difficulty (the mean of the test scores). Only Form III should be still pending; another experiment is necessary for reexamining whether Form III has the same difficulty as Forms I and Form II.

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The purpose of this study is to examine the long-term effects of revision oh essays of Japanese EFL learners as follow-up of Oikawa and Takayama (2000). Thirty-eight senior high school students are required to write English essays within 10 minutes in class over a nineteen-week period. They submit their essays each time and one week later the essays are given back with grammatical errors underlined. The students are divided into two groups, defending on whether or not they are required to rewrite the essays, as shown below. Group A: required to rewrite the essay Group B: no need to rewrite the essay, but required to write a new essay The pre- and post-tests are evaluated holistically by two EFL writing teachers and analyzed with the following criteria: (1) text length and (2) mean T-uhit length for fluency measures and (3) numbers of error-free T-units, (4) mean error-free T-unit length, (5) error-free T-units / T-units ratio and (6) grammatical error percentage for accuracy measures. As for (3), (4), (5), (6), additional criteria, where local errors are counted out, are used. A questionnaire is used to find the students' attitudes toward the revising practices. The results indicate the grammatical error percentages of both groups get smaller after the long-term writing practices whether or not the essays are revised. Compared with Group B, however, Group A has smaller grammatical error percentage. When local errors are counted out, only Group A shows no significant change in the grammatical error percentages. It may be presumed Group A has come to pay more attention to local errors after the revising practices. Group A also shows the increase in mean T-unit length, suggesting that revising practices may contribute to writing more structurally-complex sentences. The students' attitudes toward the revising practices are found out to be positive.

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A number of studies were reported which strongly suggested" that systematic development could be found in a number of syntactic domains, and several early studies showed the acquisition of negative structures in English L2 occurred in well defined stages. This paper explores if the students' errors in negation come from the general acquisition sequences of negatives that we can see both in L1 and L2 learners in the previous researches or whether they are influenced by the order of appearance of negatives in their textbook. Giving the subjects (JH1: 107, JH2: 122, JH3: 114) sentence-filling tasks eliciting various kinds of negative morphemes, accuracy rates of two pools of problems, Anaphoric "No" Answers Formation Problems and Negative Form Formation Problems, are compared. Analyzing the data, the following facts were found: 1) Generally; accuracy rates improved as the grade goes up except for some of those that are affected by the frequency of the appearance in the textbook or overgeneralization of the morpheme that the students currently learn. 2) Any conspicuous sign of a general acquisition of negation that L2 learners of English show in the previous research was not found. 3) Japanese novice L2 learners of English do not seem to be affected by the negative forms of copulas which allow negatives after copulas. Bather, they seem to be influenced by the negative formation of auxiliary 'have/ has.' 4) The frequency of the morpheme gives tremendous influence on their acquisition of it. We have to supplement these morphemes that the textbook do not use so often in our oral communication or by the use of eide reader.

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This paper attempts to focus on the analysis of EFL reading comprehension by the results of the in-class experiments based on Cognitive Linguistics, which has the basis of several concepts from psychology and cognitive psychology in particular. One of the concepts articulated here is the gestalt school of thought 'the whole is more than the sum of its parts,' the philosophy of which has been accepted and adapted by Cognitive Linguistics. In this paper two main fields of Cognitive Linguistics-Categorization and Metaphor-are dealt with in this study to throw some light on EFL reading comprehension. The experimented aspects of each domain Used to examine EFL characteristics of reading are background frames which have tried to look at each member in a category from the viewpoint of the 'perceived whole,' and metaphors such as conventionalized ones (they are often based on body-parts associated with a certain linguistic form) as well as interpersonal ones (they are based on the semantic relationship of projection in the expression of modality). The results of the two experiments concerning frames and metaphors in the study show that EFL readers need to realize the category's communicative usefulness as well as the background frames not only on our universal experiences but on other cultures, and it is also significant for EFL readers, while reading, to comprehend the English metaphorical expressions by which they have sometimes experienced difficulty in getting to the right comprehension.

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Some students eagerly participate in class. However, others are unwilling to speak up in class. Students in some classes tend to engage in classroom discussion, but students in other classes seem to avoid speaking up in class. Why does the difference occur? This study was conducted to compare the participation level of native and normative students of English and analyze teacher feedback. The subjects came from two mixed graduate classrooms in an American University. The results of observation showed that student participation could be influenced by factors such as classroom structure, the discussion topic, and teacher feedback. Based on findings in participation level of native and nonnative speakers of English, the author gives some suggestions to increase nonnative speakers' participation in college classroom.

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The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships between Japanese college EFL students' L1 (Japanese) and L2 (English) composing from four different angles, written texts, writing competence, composing processes, and attitudes toward writing. Thirty Japanese college EFL students participated in the study. They wrote an argumentative essay in L1 and responded to a retrospective composing process questionnaire designed to examine their writing behaviors in L1 They also produced an argumentative essay in L2 and answered an L2 composing process questionnaire. In addition, the students filled-in writing attitude questionnaires which examined their attitudes towards writing in L1 and L2 respectively. The results of the data analysis revealed notable L1-L2 connections in all four aspects. For example, the students preferred the General-Specific pattern in their essays both in Japanese and English and produced compositions with similar quality in the two languages. They demonstrated similar "prewritingf and "post-writing" behaviors in L1 and L2. Furthermore, they recognized the value of writing activities in general but showed a lack of confidence in their writing abilities in English and Japanese. The results also showed some differences between the students' L1 and L2 writing. That is, the students demonstrated greater concern for various textual features, especially grammatical correctness, while composing in English than in Japanese. They assumed negative attitudes towards English writing done in class, finding it more difficult and less interesting than Japanese writing. The presert study suggests a need to explore a more a nch resource fix instruction in an EFL writing context, especially in Japan, where natural input available for English acquisition is considerably limited.

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