Commerce High School Students’ Interests in and Attitudes Towards English

Page No.: 
120
Writer(s): 
J. Tyler Kinkade, Komazawa University

Reference Data:

Kinkade, J. T. (2016). Commerce high school students’ interests in and attitudes towards English. In P. Clements, A. Krause, & H. Brown (Eds.), Focus on the learner. Tokyo: JALT.

Commerce high school students’ English learning attitudes and interests are understudied in comparison to their peers in academic university-bound schools. This study compares commerce and academic high school students’ interests in and attitudes towards English learning by means of a 4-item questionnaire administered to 553 students from 3 similarly ranked public high schools in western Japan. Chi-square tests and effect size were utilized to test for significant differences between school types and grade levels. The results indicated that English learning was significantly less important to 1st- and 2nd-year commerce students compared to their academic peers. University entrance exams had a significantly weaker effect on commerce students as a reason to study English. The commerce students were more interested in studying commerce-related topics in English classes than were academic students. The findings suggest the need for differentiated instruction that addresses commerce students’ interests.

大学進学コースの普通科高校生に関するものに比べると商業科高校生の英語学習態度や興味に関する研究は少ない。本研究では、西日本で同等の偏差値の公立高校3校の553人の生徒に4項​​目の質問票を用いて商業科と普通科高校生の英語学習態度や興味を比較する。学校の種類や学年間の有意差を試験するために、カイ二乗検定と効果量が利用された。結果、商業科の高校1、2年生にとって、普通科の高校生よりも英語学習の重要度が大幅に低いことが示された。商業科の高校生の英語を勉強する理由として「大学・専門学校等入試のため」だけが有意に弱い効果量を示した。商業科高校生は、普通科高校生よりも英語の授業における商業関連のテーマを学習することにより興味を持っていた。調査結果は、商業科高校生の興味に対応する区別化教授法の必要性を示唆している。

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