INTRODUCTION OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION TEST TO ENGLISH EXAMINATION HELD BY NATIONAL CENTER FOR UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE EXAMINATIONS

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Japanese High school graduates and seniors take so called "Center Exam." to enter national universities and some private universities. This year about 574,000 examinees took this examination. And 92% of them (530,000) had English (cf.German=197, French=212). Ww can easily imagine the effect of this exam to high school English teaching. The exam is a multiple-choice paper test and well-proportioned one. However, no listening and speaking tests are included in the exam.Japanese students are often criticized for their poor command of foreign language (English) especially in speaking and listening. Newly revised national curriculum for high school launched (1989) communication-oriented foreign language (English) education. And new subjects, " Oral Communiction A/B/C " are introduced as required. Several English education associ. have petitioned the National Center for the introduction of listening test to the exam. We understand the introduction of listening test to the exam is very necess … More ary, but we have to solve problems (linguistically, technically, administratively) before carrying it out. This research has examined and clarified the following : 1.The aim and characteristics of foreign language (English) examination of National Center for University Entrance Examinations (the Center Exam). 2.Petitions by associs.(including proposal of advisory committee of Ministry of Educ.). 3.New English subjects ; Oral Communication A/B/C and listening test. 4.Examinations such as STEP,TOEFL,TOEIC,United Nations. 5.Comparison of the Center English Exam, Abitur Exam, Intl. Baccalaureate Exam and Equivalency Exam. 6.R esults of the experiments : the Center English Exam is given at the same time in about 9,200 rooms. The conditions of the rooms vary from small class rooms to large lecture theaters, and auditoriums. In the first experiment we gave TOEFL type listening test 3 times in the theater and each time asked the students to change their seats (left, center, right and front, middle, back) and we examined the relation between their achievement and the place of seat. In the second experiment we checked the effect of the repetition of the questions. In the third experiment we gave three types of test to 100 students, first in the small room and second in the large room. We also examined by changing the device ; sound via speakers, sound via earphone of each examinee's CD cassette. Less