Interdisciplinary Analyses of Lifestyle-related Factors, Social Capital, and Proficiency in English as a Foreign Language Among Students at a University in Japan

DOI IR Open Access

Description

This study examines observable tendencies and statistical associations between lifestyle-related factors and components of social capital, on the one hand, and variables for English language proficiency on the other. A survey was carried out at Doshisha University in July 2017 to collect the pertinent data from the students taking English language courses. The results illuminated that following variables, e.g., were associated with variables representing English language proficiency: (1) preference for music over sports, (2) classification of average weekly minutes spent studying English outside classrooms, (3) whether or not the respondent has family members, relatives, or friends who are good at English, (4) whether or not the respondent thinks that he/she has many friends, (5) whether or not the respondent has friends from other countries with whom English is used to communicate mutually, and (6) the number of days having been abroad. Not only the presence of similarities between language and music, but also the positive effects of specific social capital as manifested in the above-mentioned variables (3), (4), and (5) that promote the exposure to and the use of English language have been suggested, though positive effects of general social capital were not validated in this study. Other lifestyle-related factors of importance that had to be omitted from this paper shall be addressed in future studies.

Journal

  • JAILA Journal

    JAILA Journal 4 (0), 38-49, 2018

    The Japan Association of International Liberal Arts

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