Recognition of world Englishes: changes in Chukyo University students’ attitudes

  In Japan, recognition of the concept of ‘world Englishes’ has gradually penetrated the thinking of college English teachers, but American Standard English or British Standard English is still the only model that Japanese high school students have to learn. Therefore, students enrolled in the Department of World Englishes of Chukyo University perhaps have heard the term ‘world Englishes,’ but it cannot be said that most of them understand what the concept of ‘world Englishes’ is. All the students of the Department of World Englishes have to take the required lecture class ‘Introduction to Studies of World Englishes’ and the seminar class ‘Singapore Seminar’ for which they actually visit Singapore and take English and culture classes in their first year. A questionnaire was administrated to first‐year students before and after taking these classes. This paper will analyze and compare the results of the questionnaire.