Different Evaluations of Reading Support System between Foreign Students and Japanese Teachers

Abstract

This research aimed to study the different attitudes and preferences between foreign students and Japanese language teachers in using a reading support e-Learning system. In experiments, 20 language teachers and 22 foreign students used reading e-Learning content on LMS Server (WebClass) and answered a 33-item questionnaire that investigated four factors (e-Contents Effectiveness, Relevance between Modules, Difficulty of New Modules and Positive Perception of Traditional Exercises). Results revealed that foreign students show a positive attitude toward new tasks and explanation with graphics on e-Learning system. They also approved of ordinary language tasks (vocabulary and grammar), that were implemented in Module 1 and Module 2. On the contrary, Japanese teachers indicated difficulty and inadequacy of textual information in new tasks and explanations on e-Learning. They also showed a negative attitude toward ordinary language tasks.