Abstract
Recently, “new type of Japanese language learners” who learn Japanese language on SNS (Social Networking Services) has come to draw attention. However, there are no studies that have focused on learning supporters of “new type of Japanese language learners.” In this study, focusing on a community on Facebook in which “new type of Japanese language learners” and learning supporters participate, the author surveyed how learning supporters recognize “community” and “position of learning supporter” by analyzing their metaphor. The result shows that the supporters were conscious of the following two points regarding other learning supporters in the community: (1) improvement of technical and knowledge aspects, and new educational views, (2) ambiguous relationship with learning supporters. As a conclusion, to build the relationships with the learning supporter in online learning community, I would like to state that the following three points are necessary; (1) Finding the theme of “What is ...” related to Japanese language education through activities in online community, (2) Comparing with the conventional community that considers the theme of “what is ...... ,” (3) Exchanging the awareness obtained through (1) and (2) with other learning supporters on the online community.
