Difficulties in reading English words: How do Japanese learners perform on a test of phonological deficit?

Abstract

The motivation for this research is the observation of frequent read-aloud miscues among Japanese university students, and the slow rate of reading on simplified graded readers by many post-secondary learners. We investigate what components of the second-language reading complex may remain undeveloped. Word recognition in different languages employs different phonological processes, so inadequately developed skill in the foreign language processes may lead to poor decoding. This situation requires formal assessment. However, practical tests of wordrecognition skill for second-language learners are not well developed. Therefore, we adapted a test from Wydell and Kondo, replicating their methodology to test the phonological skill of a Japanese-English bilingual diagnosed with dyslexia. We do not assume dyslexia among Japanese English learners. Rather, the use of this test format aims to elucidate the state of phonological skill of word-recognition ability in ordinary learners. The subjects were university students at discrete proficiency levels. The results show that this skill can be remarkably underdeveloped. The average skill of subjects with lower proficiency was similar to the objective standard of Wydell and Kondo’s English-reading disabled subject. Higher-proficiency subjects performed much better. The results do not imply dyslexia, although some lower-proficiency students may, in fact, be English-dyslexic. Instead, they focus attention on the lack of appropriate reading skills development in English education in Japan, and its possible effect on overall proficiency. This situation principally indicates a need for prolonged phonics training and more extensive L2 reading.