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Authorized Junior High School English Textbooks in Japan: From the Viewpoint of Vocabulary and Readability Kenji Kitao （ Doshisha University ） Shosaku.

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Presentation on theme: "Authorized Junior High School English Textbooks in Japan: From the Viewpoint of Vocabulary and Readability Kenji Kitao （ Doshisha University ） Shosaku."— Presentation transcript:

1 Authorized Junior High School English Textbooks in Japan: From the Viewpoint of Vocabulary and Readability Kenji Kitao （ Doshisha University ） Shosaku Tanaka （ Ritsumeikan University ）

2 Background English is first taught in junior high schools. Basics of English are taught for three years. Almost all Japanese students take English. Based on the Course of Study Authorized textbooks based on the course of study quantity difficulty level of English vocabulary

3 Goal Analyzing English in junior high school textbooks （ 7 series between 2002 and 2005 ） Readability Vocabulary and difficulty levels

4 Research Questions Tokens (quantity) and types (variety) Common words among textbooks Readability and grade levels Vocabulary levels and grade levels

5 Methods 21 government authorized textbooks (7 series) used between 2002 and 2005 Corpora made by ELPA Main texts and vocabulary lists on the inside covers Excluding lessons with only exercises numbers ： lemmatized words no

6 Tool Readability Tests Document Readability And Improve It http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp Tagging/lemmatization TreeTagger http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/projekte/corplex/TreeTagger/ Other Perl programs made by presenters

7 Result ： Token (all words) grademean SDMinMax 7th1134 145.39851330 8th2020 429.315682741 9th2349 376.117522896 5504 words for 3 years →3 years ≒ 100 weeks ⇒ 55 words per week Very few words

8 Result ： Types grademean SDMinMax 7th310 17.9271321 8th491 52.6429571 9th557 56.3454628 875 words →9 words per week very few

9 Result ： Common words Only 252 words are used in 7 series. grade Common words 7th69 8th92 9th91 Used in 7 textbooks Used in 14 textbooks Used in 21 textbooks List of common words

10 Result ： Average syllables grademean SDMinMax 7th1.36 0.041.301.42 8th1.39 0.041.331.46 9th1.39 0.031.361.43 many short words almost no difference between grades Average syllables=all syllables/all words

11 Results ： Average length of sentences grademean SDMinMax 7th4.02 0.323.354.29 8th5.76 0.355.356.15 9th6.70 0.775.798.02 Average length of words is 5.57 words. Longer for upper grades very short for 7th grade （ many passages are dialogues ） Average length of sentences =all words/all sentences

12 Results ： Readability grademean SDMinMax 7th2.00 0.501.272.78 8th3.05 0.552.173.98 9th3.45 0.452.974.24 Flesch readability Higher for upper grade very low, particularly for 7th grade （ grade 1-4 for native speakers ） Average #syllables Average #sentences

13 Vocabulary Lists (levels) Vocabulary Lists Nos. of words Levels JACET4000 (J4)40644 JACET8000 (J8)82508 ALC SVL 12000 (SVL)1200012 Hokkaido Univ. List (HU)74545 General Service List (GSL)22841 Academic Word List (AWL)57060 Vocabulary list General vocabulary Academic vocabulary

14 Data and Method Rank correlation coefficient Goodman-Kruskal γ （ γ ∈ [-1,1] ） Data Common words used in textbooks, except proper nouns, number characters, and compound nouns Unit of count token type γ 10 PositivelyCorr.NegativelyCorr. Non-corr.

15 Result ： Grade and Vocabulary Level Correlation between grade and vocabulary level Almost none ListJ4J8SVLHUGSLAWL token -.001-.012.092-.026.062-.194 type.064.041.138.099.019-.249 0 γ -.2-.1.1 AWLHU J4 J8 GSL SVL 【 token 】 Vocabulary on those lists are different from vocabulary taught in junior high. ⇒ Which list is the best?

16 Conclusion Statistical survey of Junior High School Textbooks For upper grades More words and more new words (still very few) Higher readability （ still very easy ） Sentence length is longer. The difference between 7th and 8th grades is large. No vocabulary list is suitable for junior high school English lessons.

17 Reference THE COURSE OF STUDY FOR LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL FOREIGN LANGUAGES (2003). http://www.mext.go.jp/english/shotou/030301.ht m http://www.mext.go.jp/english/shotou/030301.ht m Teaching English in Japan TEFL IN JAPAN--- JALT 10th Anniversary Collected Papers (1985 JAT) (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 265 741)265 741

18 Appendix

19 Textbooks Used between 2002 and 2005 COLUMBUS 21 （ Mitsumura Tosho ） NEW CROWN （ Sanseido ） NEW HORIZON （ Tokyo Shoseki ） ONE WORLD （ Kyoiku Shuppan ） SUNSHINE （ Kairyudo ） TOTAL ACTIVE COMMUNICATION （ Shubunkan ） TOTAL ENGLISH （ Gakko Tosho ）

20 Result ： Nos. of Sentences grademean SDMinMax 7th283 39.0241335 8th350 66.5270457 9th352 53.0274430 985 sentences for 3 years 10 sentences per week Very few

21 Result ： Average Number of Letters grademean SDMinMax 7th3.86 0.123.684.02 8th4.06 0.103.914.21 9th4.11 0.064.054.18 Average 4.04 letters Many short words Longer words for upper grade Average number of letters =total number of letters/total number of words

22 Goodman-Kruskal γ S : #concordant pairs D :#discordant pairs word w1 → word w2 → Appearing Grade Level in the word list y1>y2y1=y2y1<y2 x1>x2 x1=x2 x1<x2 Blue cell … concordant Red cell … discordant 【 Concordant/Disconcordant 】

23 Flesch-Kincaid Grade level=.39*ASL+11.80*ASW-15.59 ASL:average length of sentences （ nos. of words/sentence ） ASW: average number of syllables

24 Kenji Kitao kkitao@e-learning-server.com http://kkitao.e-learning-server.com/index.shtml Shosaku Tanaka sho@lt.ritsumei.ac.jp http://www.cl.ritsumei.ac.jp/

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