論文ARTICLEFor Japanese learners of English, it is appropriate to spend time and energy establishing the foundation of English linguistic structure when considering that the linguistic distance between English and Japanese is the farthest apart. In this respect, it is relevant that grammar instruction remains centralized in Japan’s classroom settings, even amidst increasingly prevalent tendencies toward communicative learning through presentations and discussions. In fact, students generally spend a lot of time listening to grammatical explanations or solving grammatical questions. Meanwhile, it is a matter of question whether their metalinguistic knowledge is efficiently transferred into English production. Focusing on English’s syntactical features, which are distinctly different from those of Japanese, this study examined the correlations between metalinguistic knowledge (measured using three types of syntactic question types) and writing performance (evaluated using three aspects: accuracy, sentence variation, and clarity of expression). The results showed low-to-medium correlations among these factors. This indicated the need to strengthen a link between metalinguistic knowledge and writing skills. It is hoped that English education in Japan will undergo renovation to build a bridge between students’ school-level metalinguistic knowledge, and the practical English they will use in future professions
