The authors conducted an investigation, using questionnaires, on: a.. doing oral reading during lessons b.. model reading c.. how to read orally. Results show that about 90% of teachers make learners read orally: Beginners' class: learners read orally, either together, or one by one, with a natural voice model, at the end of the lesson. Intermediate class: learners read orally at every stage of the lesson, with natural voice, and a taped model, or sometimes no model. Advanced class: learners read orally, one by one, without any model, at the beginning of the lesson. Teachers with more than 10 years' experience do oral reading at every point of the lesson, for every class. Moreover, in comparison with teachers who have had little experience, they often use a natural voice model, and make learners read orally together. It is clear that some of the differences in the use of oral reading in the classroom depend on, firstly, the learners' level, and secondly, the teachers' experience.

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Many Japanese language learners who have mastered daily conversation find it difficult to organize longer polished statements (hereafter called "Matomari-banashi"), such as when explaining something. Instructing Matomari-banashi is difficult and clues for teaching are scarce. This research aims to obtain clues for use in instruction. Interview situations, where it is likely that polished Matomari-banashi is taking place, were utilized. First, Japanese students' Matomari-banashi during mock interviews was analyzed. The result was extraction of expressions that function to support the stringing together of sentences during Matomari-banashi. Examples of the various expressions extracted include fillers such as "ano, ee, maa," connectors such as "de, sore de, ato," "〜 kedo, keredomo," and gap connectors such as "desu ne, sou desu ne."

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This paper describes how students at a junior high school students at night class, ranging from teenagers to people in their 80's, learn subjects. A survey was done mainly by interactive class observation and interviewing teachers and students. The results was obtained that 1) elder students want to make emphasis on learning authentic knowledge they use in their daily lives, 2) younger students want to provide teachers with an opportunity for bridge-program between subjects and Japanese language as well as learning motivation and readiness.

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We have developed a reading support system called "SHINSHO library". Results of experimental studies suggest that paying attention to the reading speed, as well as having audio-tape presentations of reading material are important in the reading comprehension classes from the beginning level. Furthermore, to be able to follow courses offered in Japanese, there is a great need for self-access learning after finishing the advanced Japanese courses for non-native speakers of Japanese at university level. This, in its turn, should be supported by language teaching specialists and group members in their community.

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In undergraduate universities, many foreign students are studying to be a Japanese teacher. The author aims to develop a new curriculum which is effective both for Japanese and foreign students' purpose. An interview was held to investigate foreign student's intention about Japanese education at a private women's university. The students don't know well about Japanese teacher's situation and qualifications in their country, and they put emphasis on getting not only Japanese competence but also understanding of Japanese society and people. About classes, they pay attention to writing reports, earning credits and the blend of foreign and Japanese students such as sitting place, group activities and age.

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In contrast to receptive activities such as reading or listening, the ability to generate accurate sentences in writing requires an active use of vocabulary. While the expressed intent of sentences may be comprehensible, sentences may impress one as being inaccurate, lacking in unity and consistency. The reason for this must be that the words have not been used actively, remaining at the level of meaning comprehension. To clarify how words can be utilized more actively, we divided the process of sentence generation into three stages, shown below, and had students practice generating sentences while self-monitoring: (1) determine parts of speech, (2) combine words, and (3) connect combined words and phrases. This paper reports on the effect of practice in raising vocabulary acquisition levels to the level of vocabulary usage, and an instructional method promoting the ability to use words actively.

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The aim of this study is to clarify the usages of DE, which is the contracted form of the conjunction SOREDE, through the analysis of a corpus consisting of presentations at scientific meetings. The findings were : (1) DE appeared much more frequently than SOREDE. (2) Various usages of DE were found. In addition to reason, cumulative increase, parataxis and conversion, these included supplementation, explanation and rhythm as new functions of DE. (3) DE often appeared in the part of the presentation explaining methods and results of experiments.

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The Nakama International Exchange Support Program was established in 2001. Only a year has passed since the program was established, however, the structure has already changed. One might question why such a change in structure has occurred; undeniably this organization is still young. There are surely other reasons, most will be outlined in this report. Likewise, although the Nakama staff has sought to meet certain ideals, we have come to the realization that international exchange is a far more delicate issue, thus, we feel this change is not only pertinent, but a necessity for the future of our organization to be bright one.

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Discussion in small groups can offer the learner the opportunities to be involved in genuine exchanges of information, not just a simulation of them, but it is not easy to get a discussion to work at the beginning level as learners are yet limited in vocabulary and skills. I report three efforts to have a successful discussion among the beginners: 1) To use the topics of the learners' own choice; 2) To get the learners be prepared for the discussion in terms of ideas as well as vocabulary; 3) To provide the learners with concrete tasks for preparation by giving a task-sheet in advance. These efforts have caused highly active communication among the participants. Also, spontaneous uses of compensational strategies have been observed to happen frequently.

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This study examines the effectiveness of intensive Japanese conversation training sessions for the students who have just finished elementary level. The sessions consist of three parts: 1) pre-lesson/discussions, 2) visitor sessions and 3) reflection. First, in the pre-lesson/discussions, the teacher explicitly gives instructions of how to use linguistic devices (e.g., request for clarification, aizuchi and assessments), and the techniques to open, develop and close conversations and topics. Then, in the visitor sessions, the students try to use and observe those techniques while talking with initial encounter Japanese native speakers. Finally, both students and visitors reflect their conversations. I will demonstrate that spiral repetition of these three parts of the sessions promote learner motivation to study as well as conversation skills.

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In order to learn Japanese today, we cannot pass the study of Katakana words. However, it is known that most Japanese learners at advanced level are still poor in recognizing, writing, and reading them. This fact may mean that Japanese mora rhythm, which include double consonants, long vowels, and syllabic nasals, are not acquired sufficiently. In this study, a method teaching Japanese mora rhythm through the activity of Katakana dictation and the learner's strategies are introduced.

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This paper aims to report the attempts at teaching informative speech skills to the international students studying at a Japanese University. The previous study conducted by the authors shows that the learners tended to fail to preview the body of their speech in its introduction and to review it in the conclusion. Considering this point, the authors revised their ways of instruction in order to make the learners be aware of the importance of both previewing and reviewing the content in an informative presentation. Consequently the organization of their speech became comparatively effective and its logic became simple enough to enable the audience to reproduce its outline.

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Recently CALL systems on the web have been widely used for the second languages education. However, the most systems cannot accept free sentences written by a learner in the target language, because it's difficult for a computer system to analyze free sentences precisely enough to point out errors in the sentences. As a result, exercises for learners are restricted to types of yes-or-no or alternative questions. We have developed a Japanese composition learning system using the menu-based input method which allows learners to input a sentence through multiple word choices from dynamic changing menus. The menu-based input method can naturally restrict learner's inputs within a limited set of sentences the system can precisely analyze.

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In this analysis, perspectives of Japanese and Thai teachers of Japanese on foreign and/or Japanese language education were examined. Data was collected in Thailand from a sample of 60 Japanese teachers and a sample of 64 Thai teachers using a modified version of BALLI. The results of the chi-square test on the data reveal that there are more disparities than similarities between Japanese and Thai teachers: Thai teachers tend to be stricter in teaching and often have clearer opinions and stronger attitude on language education than their Japanese counterparts.

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In 2001, the volunteer group "Minna" at Obirin University was reborn, changing from a teacher-centered organization to a student-centered one. In order to support international students' study of the Japanese language, "Minna" conducts tutorial activities with two objectives. First, it aims to provide students with an interest in Japanese language education or in becoming Japanese language teachers with a forum for practice and a chance to share knowledge. Second, it aims to foster mutual learning, where international students learn Japanese while tutors also learn from their activities. This presentation focuses on the role of student tutors in tutorial activities.

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Previous studies on teaching segmental sounds have focused on ad hoc pronunciation correction. Such studies have not been conducted based on the usual curriculum of pronunciation teaching. This study examined the acquisition of production of segmental sounds by Japanese learners. The results of this study show that the acquisition order of segmental sounds by Japanese learners isn't so different from that by Japanese native speakers.

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This is the report of the Japanese lessons through creating a drama. In my opinion, by using the process of creating a theatrical drama, i.e. writing a scenario, memorizing the lines and performing it in front of an audience, students can learn many aspects of Japanese language, namely, writing, reading, listening and speaking. The drama itself is an effective way for students to discover new words and phrases, to correct their mistakes and errors, and practice fluent speech. The process of creating a drama with classmates is also a good language activity, because they have to interact and co-operate with each other. To do this they must discuss, negotiate, and proceed using their Japanese language skills. Ultimately, when the students complete their drama and perform it in front of an audience, they will have learned a great deal of language material while having fun, and feel a deep satisfaction and fulfillment.

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Listening can generally be divided into two types. One-way listening, such as listening to the radio, and reciprocal listening - listening where there is the opportunity for speaker and listener to exchange roles. Commercially available listening materials for intermediate and advanced learners are regrettably not focusing on reciprocal listening skills. These skills enable the listener to grasp the information of the utterance correctly, to understand the speaker's intended meaning and to formulate the appropriate response. Therefore we have designed listening material through which learners can develop and hone reciprocal listening skills by practicing the integrated listening and speaking tasks.

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To gain knowledge of Japanese Language Education in Australia, I researched an Australian Primary School, (Gawler Primary). I surveyed teachers, children and parents and found the following; children enjoyed learning Japanese, but found it difficult. The teachers thought that the children enjoyed learning Japanese and that assistant teachers were important to help the children learn the language. The children's parents thought Japanese was very interesting, therefore were happy that their children were the language, and would like them to continue if they enjoyed it. Overall I found that LOTE works very well at Gawler Primary School.

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This research investigates what types of verbs are found in the Oral Proficiency Interviews of 30 Korean learners of Japanese, whose proficiencies of Japanese vary (Superior, Advanced, Intermediate and Novice). The data was analyzed using a morpheme analysis program, 'ChaSen'. The following inference can be drawn from the results of the study: (1) The number of types and tokens of verbs increase as the learner's proficiency level goes up; however, more advanced learners repeatedly use the same verb, as can be explained by the greater difference between the number of types and tokens. (2) Learners at the higher proficiency level make use of the same verbs repeatedly, e.g., 'iu', 'suru', 'omou', 'aru', 'naru'. It seems that difference in usage of these verbs influences the learners' language acquisition process.

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Backchannels refer to both verbal and nonverbal behaviour that signal comprehension to the speakers. The use of backchannels during turn-taking by Japanese native speakers and Cantonese native speakers who are learners of Japanese is investigated. Conversations were investigated between Japanese native speakers (Conversation A), Cantonese speakers in their native language (Conversation B), and Japanese and Cantonese speaking in Japanese (Conversation C). Japanese native speakers are mainly concerned with the feelings of the listener and with mutual understanding between speaker and listener, so backchannels are often used in their conversations. However, for those Cantonese learners of Japanese, the main focus is whether or not messages are presented clearly, so backchannels play a less active role in both their Cantonese and Japanese conversations.

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In 2001, we reported on our curriculum for the foreign students in the Faculty of Policy Studies of Nanzan University. In this paper, we report on the attempts made to improve the afore-mentioned curriculum. In the end of the second year, we interviewed the students and the teaching staff about our Japanese classes, which we used to make improvements. Based on the interview result, we decided to shuffle some courses around and further added some new topics and skills. Specifically, we changed the balance of grammar-based and topics-and-skills-based instructions.

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