Aiming for Fluent Listening and Reading in EFL Courses
JALT Hokuriku Chapter Meeting Presentation Handout
Speaker: Charles Jannuzi, School of Global and Community Studies,
University of Fukui
Venue: Classroom 3 at Omicho Koryu Plaza
27 September 2026, from 14:00–16:00.
アクセス: Omicho Koryu Plaza 近江町交流プラザ
Introductory Extract:
Some Background
1. The Problem: From "School English" to "Juken English"
● Learned Helplessness: Years of teacher-centered yaku-doku
(translation-reading) condition Japanese EFL students to wait for L1
explanations or full Japanese translations rather than trying to
process continuous L2 input.
● School English (SE) as a Global Concept: A teacher-dominated,
cross-linguistic approach that treats the target language as an object
of formal analysis rather than a vehicle for communication.
● Juken Eigo as the Japanese Variant: An extreme mutation of School
English driven by exam prep pressure–exam gaming tactics.
● The Readability Chasm: If required, English entrance exams
typically demand a native Grade 13 reading level, while average SHS
graduates operate at CEFR A1–B1 (Grade 1–6 native literacy).
Yaku-doku becomes a slow decoding "cheat code" to survive exams,
bypassing genuine fluency at listening and reading. The goal is to
train to a level where guessing on the Center Test, for example,
results in scores above random guessing.
GET PDF OF THE PRESENTATION HERE
