English communication skills for prospective English teachers in Japan

The objectives of this study are twofold: (1) to promote necessary English oral skills; and (2) to provide prospective English teachers with a necessary roadmap towards achieving competency in English oral communication skills. Prospective English teachers at 11 Japanese universities participated, and we tested our text materials in terms of the degree of motivation, and of the progress on their English oral communication skills. Based upon the obtained results, our text materials helped our participants improve their motivation towards English study and their English oral communication skills. Various modifications that have to be made to the text materials for our next project were also found, however.