Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language: Katakana and its Implementation in the Syllabus

Abstract

In this paper, based on the results of investigations at the classroom level, we highlight a number of problems surrounding the teaching of katakana characters and katakana vocabulary within Japanese language teaching as a whole. Teachers in almost all the institutions surveyed, in contrast to the time spent on the writing of hiragana and kanji and their related vocabulary, were found to devote very little time to the teaching of katakana vocabulary and characters. Katakana vocabulary was only taught as and when it appeared in teaching materials. This may be thought to be at the root of learners' difficulties with katakana characters and vocabulary, and the source of the need that is felt for the introduction of more katakana-directed teaching. Several factors stand behind the present reality: first, an insufficient appreciation among teachers that katakana vocabulary is indeed authentic Japanese; second, the disproportionately small amount of katakana vocabulary in the syllabus compared to its prevalence in real life; and third, an imbalance in the attention paid to katakana characters and vocabulary in teachers' manuals and reference books. It is our contention that there is an urgent need to bring teachers to an awareness that katakana instruction as it stands does not reflect the state of contemporary Japanese, and that it is high time to develop appropriate teaching methods and materials.