This paper presents the result of research on listening process, using the think- aloud analysis. The followings are found by analyzing this research. 1)Listening competence is reflected by the analysis of think- aloud. 2)Sometimes, a listener cannot understand what he is listening as it. And then he tries to make the protocol consistently in connection with vocabulary which he knows or background knowledge of the text.

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Japanese songs can give students pleasure and enjoyment while studying Japanese. Songs are one of the most suitable teaching materials for the functional roles of improving pronunciation, listening and dictation comprehension, as well as understanding Japanese hearts and culture. Being a microcosm of culture, songs that capture the popular imagination are the honest words of the Japanese hearts. They can be a magnificent teaching material for both beginners and advanced students.

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This paper reports on teaching low-intermediate reading in an attempt to foster effective and efficient reading skills, which we think require both top-down and bottom-up process functioning interactively. A new reading material was developed and actually used in the classroom, based on the following ideas: 1) To enable students to do a constant interaction between top-down and bottom-up processing in reading, it is necessary for teachers to control how students read in the classroom, and 2) To facilitate bottom-up processing, it is effective for learners, especially those without a Kanji-background, to strengthen their vocabulary knowledge.

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In order to make exercises effective in the basic class, I adopted a method of pattern practice accompanied by gesticulations and making the aural practice rythmical. This exercise has three purposes : facilitating learners' comprehension, making a good atmosphere in the classroom, and keeping leaners interesthd in the class. These goals are almost attained, however, some problems remained. Therefore, I will analyze the problems to find more effective ways.

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The present study is designed to investigate the discourse patterns of Japanese argumentative essays by focusing on the functions of 'BUN-DAN'. This is not a so-called formal paragraph, but a pile of sentences related to an identical theme. One hundred text samples of data were extracted from articles of Asahi newspaper's "Rondan" section. The text samples were devided into six type groups: assertion, proposal, report, exposition, objection, support. The 'BUN-DAN' of each sample was labelled from a two dimensional point of view. The first dimensional aspect concerns the content itself and the second focuses on the relative relation with the previous 'BUN-DAN' before it. The result from the present study demonstrates that the type of text is co-related with the variation of the labels from the two dimensional aspects and reveals some regularities of discourse patterns in developing 'BUN-DAN'.

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Since 1994,we have been conducting a new course for those beginning students who we expect may have difficulties following the usual program. To best serve these students, we are developing more flexible teaching methods. In regard to the teaching of characters, we employ computer software as well as characters that students encounter in their daily lives. We introduce kanji in an order based on the motions involved in writing them. We also give assignments which direct students to self-study, and let each student select the level of exams.

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The role of foreign language teaching, including that of Japanese, has recently become increasingly important, as developments in modern technology have brought people in closer contact with one another on the global scale. It is now appropriate to reexamine the rationals for foreign language teaching. Thus far, cross-cultural understanding has been considered important merely as a means for improving proficiency in the language concerned. However, I conversely propose to use language teaching/learning in order for the students (and also teachers) to reciprocally understand one another's culture. This approach is more fitting in view of the current global situation referred to above.

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At intermediate level, Kanji users tend to retain some errors in ON readings of Kanji; distinction between voiceless and voiced consonants, long and short vowels, double consonants, etc. To establish more effective instruction, Kanji which have ON readings with double consonants are taken up particularly for discussion in this paper.

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In order to make the task of learning Kanji more interesting and effective Macquarie University and Fujitsu Australia Ltd have developed a multimedia computer courseware package called 'Kantaro I', which introduces 200 Kanji with graphics and games. With 'Morphing' techonology, learners can see the transformation of a picture into Kanji, thus, allowing them to connect the form of the Kanji with the meaning. 'Kantaro I' also uses mnemonics to aid the learner's long-term memory of Kanji. 'Kantaro II' is now being developed to introduce a further 700 Kanji.

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Videoconference is a widely-spreading means of distant learning in the U.S., and two-way interactive communication without audio-visual delay has been made possible by recent fiber-optic technology, which may connect up to 9 classrooms simultaneously during the same session. Although this technology has been introduced in publications from technical perspectives, its applications in foreign language classrooms such as Japanese have not been fully discussed from practical perspectives. An overview of this system will be provided, and its efficacy for a U.S. high school Japanese course will be discussed in terms of teachers' and students' perspectives as well as pedagogical perspectives.

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The Study and research on the development of a dictionary of Japanese language learners' errors has been done since 1994 supported by a Monbusho research grant. One thousand error sentences were classified into 87 items belonging to 8 fields. Error sentences are simple sentences of elementary and intermediate levels. The classification and analysis of errors faces several problems: How is an error to be defined? By what criterion? How does the frequency of errors relate to the their importance? How should the learners' native tongue and their Japanese language proficiency be taken into consideration? This paper discusses these problems while reporting about the development of the dictionary up to now.

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It is difficult to know how learners think and feel toward the teacher's classroom activities. So sometimes the gap between learners' and teacher's consciousness is disregarded even if the gap is big enough to make the class unsuccessful . To solve the problem, it is necessary to develop the method to see the gap. As a first step to achieve this theme, I investigated the differences between one student-teacher's and eleven learners' consciousness toward the student-teacher's classroom activities.

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Seventy minutes pilot joint sessions were held between ELP and JLP students. Each session consisted of speech and discussion was divided into two, first half in Japanese and second half in English. The feedback revealed confidence in using Japanese language, awareness in one's actual Japanese language ability. Through these sessions opportunities for students to use the language that they are learning and cross cultural contacts increased simultaneously.

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This report describes the problems of teaching method and materials of writing class for intermediate Japanese learner. In the writing class of 6 months Japanese intensive course for research students, we required the students to brush up their writing skill by means of describing a comic strip for giving close image of that to the other person who doesn't see that strip. This task in the writing class was appraised by the students, but some problems came out. One is the mixture of objective description and subjective description in students' sentences. This mixture came from the students' misunderstanding of the word "objective description" and also the contents of the comic strip itself. Another problem was no marker for distinction between objective and subjective description. In spite of these problems, this writing class almost achieved its aim. For more effective teaching method and materials of writing class, we need further research of the relation between Japanese expressions and objective description.

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Despite students' wants, Japanese pronunciation is not taught ideally. This situation seems to come from the teacher's lack of knowledge and skills of how to teach it. In order to change the situation, IPA tutor is now being developed. This material enables students of phonetics to hear the sound corresponding to an IPA while reading a text book very easily. This material has the practice mode and the test mode, each of which is further subdivided into vowel section, consonant section and prosody section.

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It is usually said that two adverbs in imperative sentence, ZEHI and DOOKA, are synonymic. The common meaning of these adverbs is to express the speaker's wish. The difference between them and their proper use have been discussed by many studies. But some problems still remain, especially the cause of syntactic phenomena. This paper discusses the different meanings of ZEHI and DOOKA, from syntactic point of view. The central meaning of ZEHI is to express "speaker's hope", and the central meaning of DOOKA is to express "entreaty".

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Many learners of Japanese hardly pronounce the intonation on the syllabic consonant /N/ correctly. In the correct intonation the rise of pitch occurs only on /N/ not on the preceding vowel. Recently the rhythm training must be based not only on the mora but also on the syllable. But it is said that training based on the syllable might be bad effect especially on the pronunciation of intonation on /N/. In this study, I carried out the experiment comparing the pronunciation of learners trained in the syllable based class with mora based class to settle this problem.

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