The influence of interest on learning is well-established in educational psychology, but little interest research has been conducted in the field of second language (L2) learning. This study examined interest and an associated factor, prior knowledge, in relation to reading comprehension. Intermediate-level sophomore students in an English program at a private university in Japan (N = 23) rated their interest in and knowledge of 11 topics. Correlations between interest and prior knowledge were significant only for topics related to famous individuals. Participants read expository texts about selections from the topic list with high interest-high prior knowledge (HH), high interest-low prior knowledge (HL), and low interest-low prior knowledge (LL), then took multiple-choice comprehension tests. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) procedures revealed significant differences between scores for the HH text and those of the HL and LL texts. Implications of correlations and test score differences are discussed, and suggestions for future research are offered. 興味・関心が学習に影響を与えることは教育心理学において十分に立証されているにもかかわらず、第二言語(L2)の学習においては、興味・関心に関する研究は従来ほとんど行われてこなかった。本研究では、英文読解に関し、興味・関心およびそれに関連する要因である事前知識についての調査を行った。日本の私立大学の英語プログラムにおいて、中級レベルのクラスで学ぶ２年次の学生（23名）が、11のトピックに対して自分が持つ興味・関心の高さと知識の量の格付けを行った。興味・関心の高さと事前知識の量の間には、著名な人物に関するトピックの場合にのみ、有意の相関が見られた。学生たちは前述のトピックの中から、興味・関心が高く事前知識が多い(HH)、興味・関心が高く事前知識が少ない(HL)、興味・関心が低く事前知識が少ない(LL)トピックを選び、それらに関する説明文を読んだ後、選択問題形式の読解テストを受けた。テストの成績に対して分散分析 (ANOVA)を行った結果、HHの説明文に対する成績が、HLおよびLLの説明文に対する成績と有意に異なっていることが明らかになった。これらの相関およびテストの成績の相違が意味するものについて考察し、今後の研究への提言を述べる。

The primary purpose of this study is to identify words that are of special importance for reading newspapers. In the Newspaper Corpus of 579,849 running words, 588 word families are identified as Newspaper Words. These words account for 6.8% of the running words in the corpus. When combined, proper names and 2,521 families of the General Service List of English Words (GSL) and the NWL make up 92.5% of the running words in the corpus. This is lower than the 98% ideal coverage required for understanding a text successfully, but very high given the small vocabulary size. Thus, the NWL will give the best return for vocabulary learning to learners of English as a foreign language who wish to read newspapers as soon as possible. 本研究の目的は新聞を読むのに必要な語彙を特定することである。Newspaperコーパスに記載された579,849語の中から6.8％に上る588語をNewspaper Wordsとして選び出した。固有名詞、General Service List of English Wordsの2,521語、NWLの語彙を総計するとコーパスの92.5％になる。テキストを理解するのに必要とされている98％よりはやや低い数値であるが、NWL全体の総語数を考慮すれば非常に高い値であるということができる。したがってNWLは新聞英語を早く読めるようになりたいと望む英語学習者にとっては最も効率のよいものであるということができる。

As the importance of developing students’ communicative competence has been emphasized, activities in which students can have opportunities for speaking and communication have been widely employed in the Japanese English class. For learning or language acquisition to occur during communicative activities, students have to self-initiate their utterances (Shehadeh, 2001). This study, with Japanese high school students, examines whether self-initiation would occur effectively in three communicative activities involving only students. The results of this descriptive study revealed that successful self-initiated modified output did not occur frequently. Possible reasons for the findings, pedagogical implications and suggestions are proposed. 本研究では、高校生英語学習者がコミュニケーション活動において、自分の発話の中にtrouble source を見いだし、自分で修正使用しようとするself-initiated modified output をいかに効果的に行ったかが検証され、それらは期待されたほどの頻度では発生しなかったことが確認された。本論ではその原因、また、生徒のself-initiated modified outputの特徴について考察された。

This article examines the effect on the grades assigned to test takers either directly through the use of raters’ raw scores, or through the use of measures obtained through multifaceted Rasch measurement (MFRM). Using data from the Hong Kong 2005 public examination of writing, the current study examines how test takers’ grades differ by comparing the results of grades from “lenient” raters against those of “severe” raters on the two systems for assigning grades–raw band scores and MFRM-derived scores. Examination of the results of a pair of raters indicates that the use of raw scores may produce widely different results from those obtained via MFRM, with test takers potentially disadvantaged by being rated by a severe rather than a lenient rater. In the Hong Kong English language public examination system from 2007 onwards, band scales will be used extensively, as indeed they already are in many Asian countries. The article therefore concludes with a call for consideration to be given to how test takers’ final grades may be derived from raw scores. 本研究は香港における公的試験のライティング・テストの採点に関する実証研究である。採点者の得点をそのまま使った場合と、多相ラッシュ・モデリング（ＭＦＲＭ）の得点を使った場合、成績の上でどのような違いがあるのかを調査したものである。香港で2005年度に実施された試験をデータとして使った。分析の結果、採点者の得点をそのまま使った場合には、より厳しい採点者によって受験者が不利を蒙る傾向があることがわかった。採点者の得点を使って最終成績をつける場合にはどうすればよいのかを論じて結論とした。

Since 1989, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) has attempted to promote higher achievement in English communicative skills among secondary school students by urging teachers to use communicative activities.MEXT has also undertaken to achieve this goal by executing a 5-year Action Plan.This exploratorystudy investigates Japanese teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding communicative language teaching (CLT) in their classrooms through a survey of 21 secondary school teachers. The results show that in order to employ CLT in their classrooms, teachers feel that a change in classroom conditions is a prerequisite. The results also show that CLT is beginning to be employed at the local level. In order to delineate ways to help this small local change lead to real English education reform in Japan, a comprehensive investigation of the beliefs of a larger number of language teachers is necessary. 1989年より、文部科学省（当時文部省）は、中学生・高校生の英語によるコミュニケーション能力を高めようと、外国語科授業でのコミュニケーション活動の採用を促してきた。さらに同省は、2003年から５年間の「英語が使える日本人」の育成のための行動計画の実施により、その方針の具体的な実現をねらっている。本探索的研究では、中学及び高等学校の英語教員２１人にアンケートを実施し、コミュニカティヴ･アプローチ（CLT）を授業に採用することについてどのような信条を持ち、どのように実践しているかについて調査した。その結果、被験者の多くはCLTを採用するために教室の教育環境を変えてほしいと願っていることが判明した。また、CLT は一部の学校で利用され始めていることがわかった。この傾向をさらに確かなものにするためにも、より多くの英語教員を対象にした包括的調査が必要である。

Recently, there has been growing interest in content-based instruction (CBI) in foreign language education, particularly in English as a foreign language (EFL) education. However, there are a number of challenges for successful implementation of CBI in EFL contexts, and its implementation therefore needs to be carried out with careful consideration and preparation. Based on a review of previous studies as well as the author’s observation of various CBI classes in EFL contexts in East Asia, this paper identifies factors that influence the effectiveness of CBI including: (a) program setting and curriculum, (b) characteristics of teachers, (c) characteristics of learners, and (d) resource availability. The paper concludes with a series of suggestions for the successful implementation of CBI in EFL contexts, with particular emphasis on the implementation of CBI in East Asia. 近年、外国語としての英語教育環境下（EFL） で、コンテント・ベース教授法 （CBI）に対する関心が高まっている。しかし、EFLにCBIを導入するには解決すべき課題も多く、効果的な導入には、慎重な検討と周到な準備が不可欠である。本論文では、CBI に関する先行研究や、筆者自身の東アジア 諸国での多種にわたるCBI導入ケースの観察に基づき、以下の４点をCBIの効果を左右する要因として指摘する。すなわち、（a）プログラムの施行状況とカリキュラム、（b）教員の特徴、（c）学習者の特徴、（d）資源サポートのありかたである。これらを詳細に分析し、主に東アジア地域に焦点を絞りながら、CBIを効果的に導入するにはどうしたらよいかについて具体的な提案を行う。

The aim of this paper was to clarify the characteristics of the evaluation of high school students’ free compositions by high school teachers and university students who are teacher-candidates. This was done by analyzing a comparison of the results of analytic and holistic rating scales. In addition, information about their consciousness regarding the evaluation and instruction of free compositions was obtained with the help of a questionnaire. The pedagogical implications were explored with the help of the analyses and the questionnaire. In recent years, free compositions in English (for example, explaining a particular situation and arguing for or against a statement) have been increasingly required in university entrance examinations in Japan. Such kinds of activities are also required in situations of actual communication. Moreover, the renewed course of study (Ministry of Education, 1999) has been conducted in high schools since the academic year of 2003. The overall objective of the course of study is to develop students’ practical communication abilities such as expressing their own ideas through written English. To satisfy these requirements, the chances of instructing students on free compositions in high school classrooms will be increased. In such a situation, it is important to obtain information on how teachers and teacher-candidates instruct and evaluate students’ free compositions. The survey consisted of several analyses of the teachers’ and teacher-candidates’ evaluation data, and a questionnaire concerning their consciousness of the evaluation and instruction of free compositions. The raters who evaluated high school students’ free compositions were 10 high school teachers from a national high school and two public high schools and 6 university students who belonged to a teacher-training course in a national university and had experience with practical teaching. First, the raters evaluated 40 compositions written by 20 high school students who belonged to the first and the second grade of a national high school in the Chugoku region in Japan (all the 20 students wrote two kinds of compositions). The evaluations were carried out using holistic rating scales and two kinds of analytic rating scales. In this survey, two subscales given by Ishida and Mori (1985), that is, the objective holistic rating scale (How good do you think the composition is?) and the subjective holistic rating scale (How do you personally like the composition?) were adopted as holistic rating scales. At the same time, two kinds of rating scales, that is, Jacobs, Zinkgraf, Wormuth, Hartfiel, and Hughey’s (1981) ESL Composition Profile and National Institute for Educational Policy Research’s (2002) kantenbetsu-hyoka (it means an analytic rating), were adopted as analytic rating scales. The following two points were discussed on the basis of a comparison of the result of the evaluation of the holistic and analytic rating scales using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficients, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients: 1) To clarify the characteristics of the evaluations performed by the teachers and teacher-candidates, and 2) To examine the reliability and the validity of the kantenbetsu-hyoka scale. From the results, it appeared that the teachers’ evaluations were consistent within and beyond the rating scales, while those performed by the university students who were teacher-candidates were slightly inconsistent within and beyond the rating scales. At the same time, it also appeared that the validity of the kantenbetsu-hyoka scale was not higher than that of the other scales. Second, an open-ended questionnaire, which included two parameters, was given to the same raters. The first question was what they regarded as being of greatest importance while instructing students on free compositions, and the second was what they regarded as being of greatest importance when they evaluated them. The following point was discussed on the basis of the questionnaire: 3) To obtain information on the consciousness of teachers and teacher-candidates concerning the evaluation of and instruction on free compositions. From the results of the questionnaire, it appeared that teachers were more sensitive to the conditions of high school students than the university students who were teacher-candidates. These results led to the pedagogical implications as follows: 1) The validity of the kantenbetsu-hyoka scale was not higher than the other scales; therefore, it would be better to use it in combination with other scales, 2) It would be better for teachers to carefully consider each parameter of the analytic rating scales, in order to make good use of the merits of the scale, and 3) It would be better for university students who are teacher-candidates to have more opportunities of evaluating high school students’ compositions and of instructing them on writing compositions, before they become teachers. 本研究では、複数の評価尺度を組み合わせることで、教員と大学生による高校生の自由英作文評価の実態が調査された。総合的評価尺度として「客観的総合評価」と「主観的総合評価」が、分析的評価尺度としてESL Composition Profileと「観点別評価」が使用された。調査では、10名の教員と6名の大学生が、20名の高校生によって書かれた40編の自由英作文を評価した。評価結果を記述統計量、信頼性係数、相関係数から分析することで、教員の評価は大学生の評価よりも一貫性が高いことが示された。また「観点別評価」の信頼性と妥当性も議論され、妥当性がやや低かったことが示された。同時に、自由記述の質問紙による指導と評価の意識調査も行われ、教員は大学生よりも指導現場に根ざした意識を有していることが確認された。これらの結果に対する考察が行われ、そこから教員と大学生の双方に対する教育的示唆が示された。