2. INVESTIGATION
After enrolling in Department of World Englishes at Chukyo University, all the students have to take a required lecture class ‘Introduction to Studies of World Englishes’. They are also required to visit Singapore for three weeks in the summer or spring vacation of their first year and take English and culture classes at the SEAMEO Regional Language Center, organized by the South-East Asian Ministries. They learn about the New Englishes in the class lectures and actually experience them in Singapore. Their teachers explain that the target English for world Englishes students (WE students hereafter) is not British or American English but an educated Japanese English which possesses international intelligibility. In their second year of study, all WE students are required to choose any one of three ‘old varieties’ of English speaking countries – the United States, the United Kingdom, or Australia – and to stay there for three weeks and take the English and cultural classes at the affiliated university. The questionnaire was given to WE students in the spring of 2004. Spring is the most appropriate period for this kind of questionnaire because April is the first month when a new academic year starts in the Japanese educational system. The first year students are required to answer the questions without taking any class concerned with world Englishes, and the second or third year students are examined after one or two years learning about world Englishes respectively. It is possible to observe a change in their recognition of world Englishes which occurs after taking classes if such a change is made. I also wanted 352 Hiroshi Yoshikawa ª Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005 to know the differences between WE students and other students in this matter, so students who do not major in world Englishes were added to the group of informants. As a result, the total number of informants reached 483 students, consisting of 261 WE students (92 of the 1st year, 93 of the 2nd year, and 76 of the 3rd year) and 222 other students (100 English majors and 122 non English majors). 2