Paper Title
The Correlation Between Englich Proficiency and Logical Thinking; an Examination Based on the Error Analysis
Abstract
The development of logical thinking skills is one of the most pressing issues in Japanese education, and in 2014,
the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) included a curriculum to develop logical
thinking skills in its "Government Course Guideline" for English education. We have been investigating the correlation
between logical thinking and the English proficiency through 1) asking the participants to do a) an English proficiency test
that measures conventional vocabulary and grammar skills and b) a logical thinking test measured by English questions, and
2) conducing qualitative and quantitative research on characteristic false answers and the reasons for those typical wrong
answers. We have observed that English proficiency and logical thinking skills were correlated for junior and senior high
school students, although there was a ceiling effect for university students. (r=0.6~0.8) In addition, among the four domains
of logical thinking attitude proposed in Bloom's Taxonomy (analytical ability, evaluation ability, reasoning ability, and
expressive ability), analytical ability was correlated with English ability, evaluation and expressive ability with both logical
thinking ability and English ability, and reasoning ability with logical thinking ability, respectively. Therefore, we propose
that measuring reasoning ability is an effective way to measure logical thinking ability, and that analytical, evaluative, and
expressive skills should be emphasized in order to develop logical thinking ability through learning English.
Keywords - English Proficiency, Logical Thinking