It is difficult to learn Japanese, especially Kanji for foreign students. The problem for them are as follows; 1) They must take an intensive course in a short time to learn basic Kanji. 2) Their patterns of learning Kanji are different from Japanese. Japanese usually learn Kanji by writing. On the other hand, foreigners often like visual presentation. We designed the visual user-interface of Kanji learning support system using Hyper Media technologies. We intended foreign students to use our system when they want to review the lesson by themselves after school with following the curriculum guidelines of textbooks as if they take the lesson again.

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In recent years, it is indispensable to use CAI for Japanese language learning. Some Japanese language schools have assembled the facilities for CAI, but some schools must develop Software themselves, because that which is on the market is not suitable for the texts they are using and it mounts up to a large sum to buy a software for every computer. This paper introduces two stacks (card-system & button-system) that input the data for Kanji Stroke Order using HyperCard. These stacks can input effectually and have sound for counting the Strokes. Results from experiments for inputting the data of Haku(tomaru) showed that it was effective.

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In this paper, computer programs named QTKanji and Kanji Jiten will be introduced as kanji learning aids. QTKanji is a HyperCard-based kanji learning program. One of the characteristics of this program is to show the process of writing kanji on a computer screen. Kanji Jiten is also a HyperCard-based program which allows the user to find kanji without having much knowledge of "hen" and "tsukuri". After introducing the basic usages of both programs, the result of a pilot study and future research plans will be discussed.

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What "Kanji class" can do for students? There are many problems about Kanji education but few studies are been conducted about practical Kanji classes. Here we shall look at Kanji teaching methodology upon learning and teaching activities in classroom. Now most Kanji class activities are to connect sound and shape of Kanji. But it is necessary to connect sound, shape and meaning of Kanji. And the activities to connect many aspects of knowledge are needed for practical use. This study aims to discuss the role and the principles of Kanji class activity and to give a supplement Kanji class for non-Kanji area students as example.

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For advanced Japanese learners to read Japanese efficiently, it is important to minimize the time spent consulting a dictionary so that they can concentrate on reading. Also, texts should be offered with a wide variety of content topics so that learners can choose the most interesting texts. In this project, a CAI program with a dictionary function for advanced Japanese reading was developed using "Hyper Card." The texts are drawn from the first chapters of ten books of various themes. Tate-Shakai No Rikigaku by Chie Nakane is one of these texts adapted to CAI for use in an advanced Japanese university reading class. Feedback from the learners by questionnaire showed that the text and the dictionary function were evaluated highly and the role of this CAI program to assist the learners advanced reading was generally appreciated. Addition of auditory information about words and summary of the text were requested. As for the complementary use of CAI in a reading class, respondents mentioned the usefulness of the CAI text to prepare and review. The learning environment including the availability of the computer room still needs to be improved. As for the learners' affective aspects relating to motivation, the questionnaire indicated that the program still needs many improvements to lead the learners to autonomous reading activity.

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Computer networks are transforming the way we live - the way we educate ourselves, carry out business transactions, and govern ourselves. Information service tools like e-mail, ftp, gopher and the World Wide Web (WWW) are making it possible to provide services and information to a world-wide audience. At MIT we are building the JP-NET information service, the first such service to provide an on-line infrastructure for an entire field, that of Japanese Language and Culture education.

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From 1992 to 1994, CAI for kanji learning was introduced into the latter half of elementary Japanese and beginning half of intermediate classes. At the beginning it was introduced as a self-study system outside of the class, and later it was introduced into the course curriculum. The problem with the self-study system was that, first students didn't have enough time to study by themselves, and secondly, they would hardly study without any pressure from the teacher. When CAI was introduced into the curriculum, the problems of time and motivation we solved. Students studied with intense concentration and communication with teacher was increased during CAI implementation. Some students liked studying with a partner and others did not. The overall evaluation of the CAI was good: the following two points were cited as problems: 1) too easy kanji are included in the program 2) the computer works too slowly. To improve the effectiveness of the CAI component in the future, learned kanji should be omitted from the program and the capability and number of computers and the quantity of software should be upgraded. In addition, a program for kanji learning related to the class reading materials should be developed.

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To enable a better use of placement test results, some characteristics of speaking class I-1 are discussed in this paper. Students of speaking class I-1 are lacking some basic strategies of natural speaking. From interviews with students, it became clear that they felt that while grammatical ability has a close relation with speaking skills, each skill training class is too separated and difficult for students. Now only two types of listening comprehension tests scores are used in order to place students into speaking classes. From the point of speaking, it is necessary to use other materials, such as needs analysis and self evaluation as well as greater use of grammar tests scores.

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The expression of requests and orders has until now been considered as separate. However, given the functional similarity that exists between them as actions of demand to the listener, we intend to reconsider them as one unified expression of demand, They are divided into two types: "beneficiary +" and "beneficiary -" according to the existence of benefits to the speaker. As a result of some consideration, we have found out two things: a) "Beneficiary -" includes "o 〜kudasai", which had previously been considered as the polite form of " 〜te kudasai (please do〜)". b) "〜Te kudasai" has both elements of "beneficiary +" and "beneficiary -".

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The purpose of our research was to develop a final exam that was to be used as a standardized oral exam for the Intensive Japanese Language Preparatory Course. The text was to be developed with Japanese Government Graduate-level Scholarship students as the object of this research. In this presentation, we will introduce the development process of this oral final exam at the International Student Center, Okayama University. The test format is an interview with the instructor. There were 9 evaluation categories using OPI as reference, such as "function" and "content". We adopted the evaluation method of listening to the subject's recorded utterance and judging it in comparison with the guidelines which we prepared beforehand. After the exam, upon calculating the coefficient of interrator reliability, we found that while categories such as "function" and "content" had a comparatively high rating, "pronunciation" had an extremely low rating, and "grammar" as well as "sociolinguistic competence" were not able to get a sufficiently high rating. It is thereupon which we rearranged the evaluation categories, while at the same time completely adopting the Guttman scale, and upon refining the evaluation descriptions and rejudging the same sample, we were able to reduce the evaluation variance significantly.

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This study examined refusing patterns of university students learning Japanese as a foreign language in comparison to native speakers' by using a discourse completion test adapted from Takahashi and Beebe (1987). The conversational data obtained were analyzed in terms of the order, frequency, content, and tone of the semantic formulas included. The results indicated that (1) status of the interlocutor influenced the way the subjects refused in Japanese, (2) the semantic formula of "excuse" was used most frequently, (3) nonnative speakers used direct refusals more frequently than native speakers, (4) native speakers were more sensitive to the status of the interlocutor than nonnative speakers, and (5) nonnative speakers were more specific in their content than native speakers in some of the situations.

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In any language, there are some differences between men and women. In Japanese, most of the studies of women's language have focused on women's vocabulary, KEIGO (honorific expressions), SHU-JOSHI (final particles), sentence ending expressions, etc. In this paper, the focus was placed on ways of connecting two sentences. The results of the survey show that there were significant differences in the use of NONI, GA and KEREDO between men and women: women used NONI twice as often as men whereas in the use of GA, the result was the other way round. These results were significantly different from the use of KEREDO. Considering that KEREDO is related to polite expressions and that NONI has a stronger contrastive or emotional effect, we may say that Japanese women tend to be polite and see things more contrastively or emotionally than Japanese men.

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Conventional comparative analysis is criticized for its cross-sectional nature which ignores context and process of how a subject arrives at a certain syntactic choice. The author argues that the analysis and experiments should be developed in a way that the researchers take context into consideration within the framework of meaning and function of the language.

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Data taken from English speaking Americans who have studied Japanese reveal that comprehension of Japanese news media was one of the important linguistic skills that they wished to acquire before coming to Japan and suggest that it be essential. This method is being used in advanced and intermediate Japanese classes by the author at college level courses in the U.S. to enhance students' reading and listening comprehension of Japanese news on TV, radio, and in the newspaper. Exposing intermediate and advanced students to news articles and TV news programs synchronically and diachronically has proven to be effective in improving comprehension of Japanese news media. This will be discussed based on research findings in syntactic and lexical information across the news media, and some suggestions on classroom design for Japanese instruction, in which activities in all linguistic skills may be incorporated, will be presented.

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This paper is a progress report of the cross-cultural training program which has been carried out at the International Student Center of Tsukuba University. The program aims at a successful merger of cultural education and Japanese language education. By nature any language is a representation of its culture. An important feature of the program is a series of researches that include A) how foreign language learners understand Japanese language and culture, and B) how the cultural and communicative gaps of their native culture and language create a difference or distortion in their reactions to Japanese language learning, learning attitudes, word usages and other Japanese communicative activities. The aim of the program is for the Japanese language learners to enable 1) to accept meanings of different culture, 2) to position the language in their consciousness as natives do and therefore, 3) to use the language effectively based on their understanding of Japanese culture and ideas.

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The present study examines what student teachers perceive as helpful or unhelpful beliefs about language learning. To gather information a questionnaire based on BALLI developed by Horwitz was used. Results show that student teachers perceive beliefs correlated to the Audio-Lingual Method, such as "Because I have just started learning a foreign language, I can only say simple and silly things. But if I'm not patient, I will not improve."; "It is important to repeat a lot in studying a foreign language." as helpful.

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At this poster session, the presenters will discuss the effectiveness of communicative activities focusing on games and demonstrate some examples of the games based on the book they published, "80 Communication Games for Japanese Language Teachers 1993 The Japan Times, Ltd.)." Games are one of the best ways to develop communicative competence. With games, learners can practice the target language in a non threatening manner and lower their affective filter. Games can also provide a realistic environment to the learners, and have them communicate in a meaningful situation. The presenters have been using the games in various classroom settings. They will introduce the games which were successful in their classes and discuss how the games should be used.

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Designing the course, the teacher must consider some points which effect procedure and the result of the course. I propose that teachers have to be free from the idea that there is one and only one correct and beautiful Japanese, and make efforts to answer the needs of actual learners. Teachers should participate in the process of selection and planning of the syllabus, development of method, and reconsideration and improvement of all part of the course design, as much as possible.

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In order to understand and contribute to the education of the Japanese language for foreign student in science field, this paper analyzes the characteristics of the Japanese in University Classes. The results are followings. 1) Lexicon is not so difficult, except the noun. 2) The frequency of adverbs are about 10 percentage. 3) The usage of adverb (lexicon and category) is restricted. 4) 60% of adverbs are used only 1 time or twice. 5) Adverbs 'degree (teido)' 'tens (jisei)' 'order (joretsu)' 'attitude (hatsugen)' are necessary for hearing lessons. There is some difference between Lexicon which need for hearing lessons and Lexicon used in Japanese for general purposes. To teach effectively, we must give students lexicon which used frequently.

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For university students majoring in science and technology, practical education, such as experiments, is an essential means to understand scientific technique as actual phenomena and to acquire the practical skills. During such classes, oral communication is commonplace for giving instructions and information on the apparatus and procedure of the experiments. It is of vital importance, therefore, to teach the students from overseas at an early stage the special terms and expressions which are not used in everyday Japanese. The video covers the selected basic terminology and expressions on the apparatus, phenomena, procedures, extent, volume etc. in the 3 domains of physics, chemistry and mathematics which are difficult to be understood by written explanation or drawings. Each theme is dealt with a duration of several minutes. Since the educational video was developed as an introductory course for improving the ability to understand and communicate in science technical terms, it covers a series of terms related with a specific concept rather than a comprehensive list of terms. With the main focus on oral Japanese in science and technology, it is a "teaching material for Japanese communication in science and technology".

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Although the number of students requiring special training in Japanese is said to be on the increase, nobody has accurate information on the current status. Our study, therefore, was to investigate the facts and problems about Japanese education in senior high schools. We have found out that, in many cases, students have sufficient knowledge in everyday language, but lack advanced skills to understand the subjects. These students are studying in an environment where there are no suitable teaching materials, little time left for learning Japanese and hardly any experienced teachers to help them. In order to improve the situation, a teaching material should be developed to help the students understand what is taught in school. We have compiled a basic data by analyzing a textbook (on health and physical education) used in senior high schools.

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The present study investigated the role of sounds in reading kanji, by asking native fluent readers of Japanese to read Japanese texts. By providing data on fluent readers' behaviors, this study indicated the ideal reading behaviors that nonnative learners may wish to acquire. The assumption is that if speech is crucial for fluent readers to comprehend Japanese texts, then the same must be true for nonnative readers. If this is indeed the case, then it makes sense to emphasize spoken over written Japanese in teaching, at least initially, and one way to do so is by using romaji. In the experiment reported in the present study, six Japanese newspaper articles were used. The articles contained homophonic and nonhomophonic kanji errors. By using an eye-tracking methodology, the number of fixations and fixation duration were measured on the kanji errors. The results showed that fluent Japanese readers noticed more nonhomophonic errors than homophonic errors, and when they noticed, they were more distracted by nonhomophonic errors than homophonic errors. The distraction felt by the readers was clearly reflected in their eye movements. The results from the present study demonstrated that speech plays a crucial role for fluent readers to comprehend Japanese texts. They support, therefore, the application of the primacy of speech in teaching Japanese as a foreign language, and the use of romaji as a useful tool for transcribing Japanese speech at the beginning level.

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This study is designed to investigate the differences in cognitive process between skilled and unskilled writers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the following two points: 1) Skilled and unskilled writers use different strategies in writing process. 2) Skilled and unskilled writers differently evaluate teachers' feedback. 7 university students' protocol data are collected and questionnaires designed by Cohen(1991) are used to analyze cognitive process of both skilled and unskilled writers. As a result, it is founded that skilled writers used strategies more effectively than unskilled writers. Moreover, it suggested that skilled and unskilled writers differently evaluate teachers' feedback.

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