Proceedings of the IISES Annual Conference, Sevilla, Spain

THE SITUATION OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN THE FACULTY OF HUMAN SCIENCES IN A JAPANESE UNIVERSITY

GAVIN LYNCH

Abstract:

This study investigates the situation of English language education in a Japanese university in Ishikawa, Japan, and is part of a larger research carried out over a number of years. The data gathered, reported, and analyzed in this paper includes a comparison of two academic years of data, showing results by/for different teachers’ classes. The question of educational value for money, fair spread of teacher resources, and positive or negative discrimination is tackled. Findings show there tends to be both positive and negative discrimination within class levels, where students who initially score well on placement tests are assigned “better” teachers, while lower level students tend to be assigned lower performing teachers, resulting in a “low skill trap”, despite all students paying the same fees.

Keywords: equal educational opportunities, low skill trap, English language education

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2018.035.031

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