The major goals of this study are to examine junior high school students’ awareness of fluency and
impromptu skill in terms of speaking in English as a Foreign Language (hereafter, EFL) and to consider what to
do, by way of future research and creation of daily lessons, in order to raise awareness and to develop their
practical speaking abilities. Recent Japanese EFL education (see MEXT 2017a-e) emphasizes that developing
learners’ fluency and impromptu skill is particularly important. This is because traditional Japanese EFL
education has focused on acquisition of grammar, drawing learners’ attention to individual forms rather than to
meaning. Problematic outcomes of such an approach are tendencies for learners to comprehend texts/utterances
in a heavy bottom-up manner and to refrain from speaking/writing without confirming that what they are about to
say/write is grammatically correct. In this study, 419 junior high school students in 1st to 3rd grades responded
to a short paper-and-pencil questionnaire that examined their awareness of fluency and impromptu skill in EFL
speaking. Results of analyses showed a significant difference in awareness of impromptu skill between 1st and
2nd grades and between 1st and 3rd grades, whereas no significant differences were found in awareness of fluency
between these three grades. Moreover, results of analyses showed no correlation between 1st graders’ mid-term/
final exam scores and their awareness of fluency/impromptu skill, but showed a correlation between 2nd graders’
final exam scores and their awareness of fluency and between 2nd graders’ final exam scores and their awareness
of impromptu skill. Based on this and other information obtained in the study, we consider issues for future
research and creation of classroom activities that develop fluency and impromptu skill in Japanese EFL education
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