An experiment concerning Japanese college students' ability to express themselves in English to non-Japanese English-speakers is reported. Freshmen and sophomores at two Japanese four-year colleges were asked to give written English responses to six specific communicative situations. Results showed that while few of the responses were unintelligible, they varied greatly. Few repetitions were found, but spelling and grammar formations were frequently different from standard forms. Responses varied consistently by college in the variety and frequency of reference to self, and students of one college provided more responses than those of the other college. However, in general the students appeared to be sensitive to the different conditions of the situations, suggesting that cultural barriers to teaching meaningful communication may not be as great as expected. (MSE)