NAKANISHI Daisuke    Department   Hiroshima shudo University  The Faculty of Health Sciences    Position   Professor
Date	2023/03/14
Presentation Theme	Rethinking Tertiary-Level EFL Learners’ Needs and Self- Evaluation of Their Proficiency for a COVID-19 Endemic World
Conference	57th RELC International Conference
Conference Type	International
Presentation Type	Speech (General)
Contribution Type	Collaborative
Venue	Singapore
Publisher and common publisher	Tanaka, H., Urano, K., Ozawa, S., & Nakanishi, D.
Details	Investigating learning needs is an essential stage in any language program development and evaluation process. This study aims to examine Japanese tertiary-level EFL learners' needs and self-evaluation of their English proficiency in order to inform researchers and practitioners as well as teachers at their schools of the current learners' reality in a COVID-19 endemic world. In the preliminary study, 241 participants (119 first- year and 122 second-year English and its Culture major students) completed an online questionnaire survey, which asked about their current self-evaluated proficiency, their learning needs at the time of graduation, and their life-long learning needs according to the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) descriptors in five skills; listening, speaking, interacting, reading, and writing. Their English proficiency measured by an English proficiency test, TOEIC, varied from 180 to 885 with an average of 475.25 (SD = 128.05). The participants also answered an open-ended question regarding their skill needs at the time of graduation. Their self-evaluation levels were compared with their scores of the English proficiency test. Tentative results showed that the participants tended to judge their current proficiency level higher than reality and to expect to achieve more than they could probably do at the time of graduation. The results of an open- ended question implied that there were certain needs for real-time communication with other English speakers, which possibly reflected the participants' lowest evaluation in their current interacting skills among the five skills. This paper will report on the results of the main study with additional participants from a different major (i.e., Business Administration) from the same university as well as participants from a different university to examine the extent to which the results of the preliminary study can be generalized.