Program One

Entry-Level Program of AEP

Program 1 is the entry-level program of the AEP. TOEFL scores range up to 439. It is expected that students will spend from one to three semesters in Program 1, but most students spend only one or two semesters in Program 1.

In Program 1, the focus is on helping students develop fluency in comprehending and producing English. Students become increasingly uninhibited in their use of oral and written English, their production increases, and they become more proficient at using English effectively in a wide range of contexts.


Learning by Doing

All work in the AEP is based on the belief that students learn by doing and that learning opportunities are increased by maximizing interaction of all kinds. This means both oral and written interactions and both conversational and academic uses of English. Assignments range from intensive work on discrete skills and vocabulary development to extensive, integrated activities, such as project work. Students progress from dependence to interdependence to independence.

As students focus on fluent comprehension and expression of ideas in English, accuracy naturally increases. In reading, the initial focus is on extensive reading to develop speed and fluency, but there is also a large amount of attention to intensive, accuracy-focused activities to build automatic recognition of words and sentence meanings. In writing, students are encouraged to produce responses to stories and articles, with an emphasis on fluent production. However, a focus on accuracy (e.g., grammar study) also occurs in the latter stages of the writing process by which students proofread and edit texts that they have generated themselves.


Taught in English by Bilingual Instructors

Bilingual instructors teach many Program 1 courses in order to respond most effectively and efficiently to the needs of students who as yet have only limited English proficiency. If students have concerns that they can only express in Japanese, our bilingual instructors will be able to understand them. However, it should be emphasized that all AEP courses, even those in Program 1, are taught primarily in English, not in Japanese.


Classes

Like every level of the AEP, Program 1 has five classes:

  • Listening/Speaking (3 hours per week), which emphasizes both conversational and academic oral/aural English use;
  • Vocabulary/Reading Fluency (6 hours per week), in which students are helped to read quickly large amounts of English material and to develop automatic recognition of the most frequently occurring words in English;
  • Reading-Based Writing (6 hours per week), in which students write personal reactions to stories and articles and begin to write more academic analyses of English texts;
  • Content (6 hours per week), in which students study an academic subject at a linguistically appropriate level in order to develop background knowledge of an academic area and to begin to learn the ways of thinking about ideas and discussing them that characterize academic language use; and
  • TOEFL/Grammar (3 hours per week), in which students focus on strategies for success at the test and on discrete points of English grammar.