日本大学生産工学部　研究報告B（文系）第51巻

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─ 39 ─For example, the presentation skills and vocabulary taught in Session 2 of the spring semester can be used in English Cafe throughout the rest of the academic year. Moreover, many of the activities in the program are a complement to the material covered in some of their English courses.In addition to linguistic skills, another important goal of English Cafe is to familiarize students with other cultures. To that end, festivities such as Christmas and Halloween are ob-served with parties where students are introduced to food, games, and information about the festivals. Also, international students who attend English Cafe are actively encouraged to share information about their home countries. Regional differ-ences within Japan are a recurring topic for participants from outside the Tokyo area as well.English Cafe also affords students the opportunity to learn about study abroad and international internships from their peers who provide rst-hand accounts of their experiences. These encounters are invaluable for both the presenters, as they make conscious meaning of and give structure to their in-ternational experiences, and their audience, whose horizons are broadened and who are encouraged to consider creating such experiences for themselves through stints overseas.While there is no explicit language instruction in the En-glish Cafe program, the facilitators do take advantage of teachable moments to reinforce linguistic knowledge. For stu-dents specically interested in reviewing for standardized ex-aminations such as the EIKEN or TOEIC tests, grammar re-view games have proved to be an enjoyable and instructive activity that also encourages communication and cooperation.3. ParticipationAs Tables 3 and 4 show, on average, 11 students attend the program every week. While all of the university departments are represented, most attendees are rst-year students, with sophomores comprising the second largest group. The majori-ty of the students are from Japan, but at least ve international students are regular participants. A core group of six partici-pants attended regularly, while others joined the program when they could.The highest number of participants was 27, in Session 1 of the spring semester. Normally, English Cafe meeting times coincided with those of English Speaking Society (ESS), but because the latter group was not meeting on this day, many ESS members were able to join English Cafe on that particu-lar day. Scheduling conicts will be addressed in the Discus-sion section of this report.In 2017, attendance was higher in the spring semester than in the fall. This may be related to the shorter autumn days or to changes in student schedules. Efforts should be made to prevent this from recurring in the coming academic year.Table 3 English Cafe Participant Numbers — Spring Semester 2017English Cafe Participants — Spring Semester 2017DateParticipants1st Year2nd Year3rd Year4thYearGraduateMay1527204201May 221263300May 2915104010June 51653611June 12520210June 191043210June 26944100July 31228101July 101052300July 171254300July 241052300July 3115104010Total number of participants15378412653