Emiko Kaneko

Survey of workplace english needs among computer science graduates

This paper reports the results of a November 2008 survey sent to 899 Japanese college graduates of computer science and computer engineering courses regarding their use of English in the workplace since graduating from the university. The results, based on a 17.4 % response rate, indicate that the most frequent English-language tasks for computer specialists in the professional workplace in Japan are the reading of manuals and instructions (for installation, etc.), and the writing of email, faxes, and business letters. English-language speaking and listening tasks are reported by respondents to be not as common in the workplace as English-language writing and reading tasks. Findings suggest that academic institutions training engineers in non-English-language environments should avoid an institutional bias toward English for research purposes by balancing curricula between future professional and workplace needs of the majority of graduates and the needs of faculty for trained graduate students within the academy.

A Multi-model SVR Approach to Estimating the CEFR Proficiency Level of Grammar Item Features

Analysis of publicly available language learning corpora can be useful for extracting characteristic features of learners from different proficiency levels. This can then be used to support language learning research and the creation of educational resources. In this paper, we classify the words and parts of speech of transcripts from different speaking proficiency levels found in the NICT-JLE corpus. The characteristic features of learners who have the equivalent spoken proficiency of CEFR levels A1 through to B2 were extracted by analyzing the data with the support vector machine method. In particular, we apply feature selection to find a set of characteristic features that achieve optimal classification performance, which can be used to predict spoken learner proficiency.

Classification of speaking proficiency level by machine learning and feature selection

Analysis of publicly available language learning corpora can be useful for extracting characteristic features of learners from different proficiency levels. This can then be used to support language learning research and the creation of educational resources. In this paper, we classify the words and parts of speech of transcripts from different speaking proficiency levels found in the NICT-JLE corpus. The characteristic features of learners who have the equivalent spoken proficiency of CEFR levels A1 through to B2 were extracted by analyzing the data with the support vector machine method. In particular, we apply feature selection to find a set of characteristic features that achieve optimal classification performance, which can be used to predict spoken learner proficiency.

Oral presentation at international engineering conferences: Effects of the local on the global

Based on preliminary observation of international engineering conference presentations in East Asia and Europe, a comparative, two-stage investigation of the effect of delivery style on audience comprehension was undertaken. The current paper reports on the first stage, which involves measuring presenters 1) bodily degree of orientation to audience and 2) proportion of spoken words that are additional to the printed slide text of the presentation. Data were gathered at two East Asian international engineering research conferences, and at two European venues of similar conferences. Findings indicate that there is no significant difference in body orientation to audience in any of the venues, but that European conferences produced more text per slide on average than the East Asian conferences. Words spoken extraneous to the slide text varied more between conferences on the same continent than the difference in averages for this value between continents. Results suggest that body orientation to audience is uniform, but considerable variation occurs among conferences and among presenters in regard to speech that is extraneous to the slide text.

A report on an initial study of motivation for learning English: A case study of future information and communication technology professionals

This paper reports the results of a survey regarding motivation for learning English as a foreign language. The subjects are 64 Japanese university students majoring in computer science and engineering. Research on motivation for learning second/foreign languages, first initiated in the 1970s, has been attracting attention especially since the 1990s. The results indicate that these students, whose English proficiency is rather low, have strong instrumental motivation to learn English. More specifically, they are aware of its importance, like English in general and have a strong desire to be fluent in it. In spite of their positive disposition toward English, they do not make any serious efforts to learn it, meaning that they are still at an early stage of the development of motivation. It is also revealed that they suffer from strong anxiety in using it orally. This research suggests the need to reinvestigate learner motivation in the context of World Englishes.