This study investigates how two types of self-persuasion, instructional and motivational cues, affect learners’ speaking self-efficacy from quantitative aspects. Self-persuasion is a self-directed type of encouragement spoken to oneself, as compared to Bandura’s (1977, 1997) traditional self-efficacy information source, verbal persuasion, which is derived from feedback or encouragement from significant others. The result of this study shows that instructional and motivational cues can be differentiated in nature and that instructional cues work more effectively to help students enhance their speaking self-efficacy, especially in in-class settings. Considering the results, pedagogical methods for increasing Japanese students’ speaking self-efficacy are discussed.

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This study is aimed at how well speaking anxiety can be reduced through skit study in English. A Skit is a short play performed by two students, who are expected to learn basic English speaking skills by acting out their skit in front of other students in this class. In this study a questionnaire about English speaking anxiety was administered before and after a series of skit study activities. They also provided opinions on what they learned and felt after students’ skit performance. As a result of the data analysis, students’ English speaking anxiety decreased and their English learning was enhanced through skit activities.

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The New Course of Study emphasizes the importance of teaching English debate in the subject “logic and expression”, which Japanese high school students take with the aim of developing the ability to express themselves in English. However, few English teachers are familiar with debate education, and little is known about how to incorporate it into classes. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore debate education in “logic and expression” classes based on the results of the investigation targeting 183 high school students. This study investigated the students’ experiences, perception and knowledge of debate, as well as their interest in it. The results revealed: (a) before entering high school, 134 students had experience of Japanese debate while 25 students had experience of English debate; (b) 175 students considered English debate as difficult or a little difficult; (c) 148 students had no or little knowledge of the flow of an English debate match; (d) at least 70% of the students did not know the meaning of basic debate terms; and (e) 24 students did not want to try English debate. These findings underline the significance of reduction anxiety for English debate by providing students with opportunities to experience English debate.

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