Many international students have difficulty conversing with native speakers in first meetings, so educational materials teaching conversation for mid-high level university international students, focusing on early stage relationship building, have been developed. Materials are based on conversations between newly matriculated native Japanese speaking freshmen, analyzed using conversation analysis. This paper focuses on a selection, "anxieties and frustrations". Whereas past textbooks focused on advice and consoling words for the reduction of anxiety and frustration, analysis found that the sharing of anxieties and frustrations also resulted in the building of empathy. Useful conversation strategies are presented here as a topic for instruction.

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"KAIGO NO KANJI SUPPORTER" is a kanji website to learn kanji, two-kanji morphemes and nursing-care technical terms interrelatedly. In the process of developing the website there has been various kinds of challenges to overcome such as 1)building system of cooperation among researchers of different field, 2)gap in IT skills between teachers and learners, 3)change of IT devices and 4)translation of nursing-care technical terms. This paper describes these challenges in order to share with the members of JLEM.

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At the end of the year, a 3-week intensive Japanese language and culture program, called Kanazawa University Short Stay program (KUSS), has been offered as part of JASSO's SS-SV project. The authors created a content-based program that includes language classes that develop vocabulary and communication skills for everyday life in Japan, as well as for the culture class. The culture class introduced the basics of Japanese traditional and everyday culture. This paper provides a summary of the 2011-2012 program, including recent improvements, and aims to contribute to the recent growth of short-term programs in Japan.

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It's hard for Japanese language learners, even in intermediate or advanced levels, to express their feelings well in conversation. In this study we extracted adjectives which show feelings in Japanese movies and analyzed the ways they are used. The result was that we found that adjectives which show feelings are also often used to express properties and states of being. We should teach not only adjectives but also other ways to express oneself. This is because we think that other factors are more important than adjectives.

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In this study, we inspected prosodic features of "-ndeskedo" in natural conversation of native speakers and Japanese teaching materials. We observed following points, 1) a) Falling intonation and lengthening of a final vowel /o/ are necessary when "-ndeskedo" is used to ask for the listener's action, and b) in natural conversation pitch raising is often added before falling. 2) When the preceding element (word(s) before "-ndeskedo") shows the speaker's intention of asking the listener to do something, short pronunciation can be used.

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The aim of this paper is to explain the construction of the Integrated Blended Learning Model specializing in classes for input. The proposition of the discussion is to divide Japanese classes into three categories; output, input, and interactive. Integrated Blended Learning Model is combination of conventional face-to-face learning with e-learning in one class. This learning model is not only effective in classes for input but also easy to accept in Japanese classroom situations. It will also be examined how the advanced grammar contents of e-learning for JLPT-N1, which are based on the class model I built, has made a progress.

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This paper will investigate the relationship between students' background and competence levels in Japanese, and their needs and expectations from visitor sessions. Data were collected from 384 international students at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University. Results indicate that their expectations and needs are strongly influenced by their level of Japanese and their nationality. In addition to these two factors, the amount of time that they speak in Japanese outside the classroom and their career plans determine their needs in visitor sessions.

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The present paper is a report of investigation concerning the evaluations for international students by the Japanese enterprises in the job search process. As we all know, candidates with good Japanese ability, communication skills and vitality and so on are much more favored. However, much still remains unknown about how the enterprises evaluate these abilities. In order to explore this question, the author interviewed four enterprises whose policies are "hiring talented people regardless of their nationality". This survey shows that Japanese language ability is a benchmark and it will affect the final hiring decision. Moreover, Japanese enterprises prefer the foreign students who can manage the company or become the mainstay of the enterprises in the future.

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This research was conducted for the purpose of determining the "concreteness" that is required for a persuasive one-minute speech with "problem-solution" structure. From the comparative analyses between 22 concrete speeches and 26 non-concrete speeches, the following factors are identified as the keys to determine the "concreteness" of problem-solution speeches: 1) citing statistical data to show the present situations of the problem; 2) giving concrete examples and indicating the cause-effect relationship to explain the causes of the problem; 3) giving concrete examples to explain the measures for the problem.

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We undertook a paper-based questionnaire and a PAC analysis to investigate how Japanese native speakers assess learners of Japanese who participated in a visitor session. As it is said that Japanese native speakers tend to be tolerant of learners' Japanese, this research also shows that their assessments of learners' grammatical and phonetic accuracy are tolerant. However, it suggests that they pay attention to learners' reactions to assess how well learners understand what has been told to them etc. The PAC analysis of two native speakers clarifies their perspectives on the visitor session and the learners, and how they assess the learners' Japanese.

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The intensive course of Kurume University developed a beginner's textbook incorporating tasks in the 2012 academic year. The aim of this development is to accelerate the proficiency of Japanese language students who had already studied Japanese. Based on the TBLT theory, tasks have been incorporated in each unit to map the concepts behind them and the Japanese grammar that they incorporate. By presenting the tasks to the students at the beginning of the lesson, we have successfully activated class work.

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"The original songs" are useful for learning Japanese. You can memorize important words and grammar from lyrics with Japanese accent and rhythm. This study examined the effect of "Odotte samba" on the acquisition of te-form accent. The participants took a pre-test and two post-tests of their ability to tell the difference of te-form accent. An experimental group was taught te-form accent along with a melody, whereas a control group was not exposed to the melody. The study results suggested a tendency between the 2 groups on their delayed recognition, but no difference on their immediate recognition.

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This paper reports on the website "Nihongoon Kikiwake Renshuu" developed to assist Japanese learners to acquire Japanese phoneme, especially by those who find it difficult to acquire due to the influence of their mother tongue. This e-learning site was designed for Japanese learners with Chinese dialogues to acquire /n/, /r/ and /d/ which are generally considered difficult. It consists of three parts, "Self-diagnosis test", "Practice" and "Self-reflection". It was found that Japanese learners using the site were able to grasp the problem and understanding through various self-reflections. This study proposes the autonomous study method by using this e-learning site and how teachers should assist.

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This paper presents a report on joint lessons involving foreign and Japanese students participating in a social studies teacher training course. In this course, every lesson, students discussed and provided written descriptions about various perspectives of contemporary society. An analysis of these descriptions elicited some important points. Although initially, the students regarded themselves and each other as "foreign students" and "Japanese students," gradually, they began to communicate naturally without making that distinction. In addition, they began to gain perspectives on society and culture without national stereotypes. These changes are attributed to both groups' needs in their professional areas.

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J-CAT (Japanese computerized adaptive test) is a web-based Japanese proficiency test. It can be accessed from anywhere and anytime. The test result is immediately shown on the computer screen at the end of the test, therefore test-takers are able to know his/her real-time proficiency. There are two types of registrations, one for individuals and the other for groups such as placement test at institutions or a requirement for employment. We discuss how to meet various requests and keep the test security at the same time. We also show the means of semi-automated handling and streamlining of operation of the test.

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A learner-centered teaching method to master vocabulary through peer learning has been applied to an intermediate Japanese language class. First, a learner writes some words on A3 size paper about one topic as a mind-map. Then the learner shows the vocabulary-map to his peer learner and they teach each other their vocabulary-maps. They are also shown an example of a vocabulary map by the teacher as a reference. Finally, they decide on a common social issue as a topic from the common vocabulary they found. After deciding on the theme, the learners write essays or debate for practice and discourse.

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We developed Online Japanese Accent Dictionary (OJAD) for teachers and learners of Japanese. OJAD contains four functions! two functions of showing the accent nucleus positions of variously inflected forms of input verbs and adjectives, a function of showing similar information of the verbs and adjectives automatically detected from any input sentence, a function of the phrase intonation patterns and the accent nucleus positions of each word in any input sentence. The first two are effectively error-free but the others sometimes show incorrect information due to use of automation technology related to speech and language.

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We have applied the teaching of Japanese pronunciation using chunking, posing and 'へ' shaped intonation as an approach that is teachable and learnable. We have already compiled a pronunciation textbook for Japanese beginners and advanced learners and are currently developing teaching material for upper-intermediate learners of Japanese. The upper-intermediate learners have already learnt basic Japanese but need to develop the variation in expression and pronunciation and the ability to use the variation appropriately. Our textbook for the learners, therefore, facilitates the development of learners' pronunciation through various tasks, such as speech and discussion, to acquire the variation in expression and pronunciation. For each task, the learner outcomes are elucidated to both teachers and learners. This paper discusses the process of creating the textbook.

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In a dictionary, a verb "niburu" is defined as "yowakunaru" or "yowamaru". In order to differentiate between "niburu" and "yowaru", it might be more effective to use information of collocation than to consult only a dictionary. To verify the hypothesis, learners were asked to answer several questions by consulting a dictionary. Then, they were given examples of the usage of "niburu" and "yowaru", and were asked to answer the same questions. There were some learners who had deepened their understanding! however, others got more confused. Therefore, it is necessary to let them think of what (kind of condition) the collocating words mean.

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Center for Japanese Language at Waseda University held a "kanji workshop" to provide international students with an environment in which they can master not only kanji but also kanji learning methods, and then proceed with their kanji learning autonomously. This workshop consisted of the following activities: 1) an introduction to kanji learning resources, as well as tasks introducing the use of the kanji learning tools; 2) the planning of kanji learning and its review; 3) the sharing of kanji learning methods among learners; and 4) the creation of personalized dictionaries and their sharing among learners. This paper describes the activities carried out in this workshop, and reports on the results of a questionnaire survey.

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It is vital "to be conscious of a reader" when writing, but few chances exist to analyse a reader's perception of a learner's sentence. Therefore, in a foreign student upper level composition class, to develop the viewpoint of the reader, I gave a task where the learner had to describe sight information in words, and the reader had to read it and draw a picture. First I will introduce the procedure of the activity, and descriptions by learners which became clearer through this activity. Then, I will talk about notable points in the Japanese instruction that appeared from how learner's sentences reached the reader. Furthermore, I will report the conclusions from the questionnaire results to the learner, and the significance of this activity.

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The aim of this presentation is to examine, through a survey conducted of learners, how Japanese language learners who come from areas using Chinese characters experience difficulties in mastering the Japanese readings of Kanji. We will also introduce our awareness-raising tasks to enable these learners to recognize the importance of learning the readings of each Kanji and to teach them some sound alternation rules. We will report our starter materials focused on 1) "geminated p" as in not only "出発 shuppatsu","一方 ippo " but also "やっぱり yappari", "すっぱい suppai", and 2) " h/p alternation " as in "一杯 ippai", "二杯 nihai", and discuss the learners' progress.

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Rather than the conventional sense of "predicting error," this study focused on "predicting avoidance" as the significance of contrastive analysis. Verification was subsequently conducted using cases of Japanese language education. In doing so, the study took reference from the results of Japanese-Chinese contrastive analysis for the "-teoku" syntax. As a result of this verification, the study was able to successfully predict various points of learning difficulty with regard to the "-teoku" syntax.

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This research describes how Japanese instructors' expectations and beliefs influence visitor sessions and activities for learners of Japanese at the university level. Two different age groups of native Japanese participants were focused on; one group consisted of Japanese university students who were studying at the same university with learners of Japanese and the other group included mainly local senior citizens. This paper explains the results which collected in questionnaires and interviews and shows that there are different expectations of Japanese teachers with respect to these groups.

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We carried out a questionnaire survey for the purpose of investigating the activities and consciousness of foreign students and their families living near campus. The survey found foreign students and their families did not often participate in activities necessary for association with the community, but it suggests that this tendency was not directly connected with indifference to the area or the length of residence.

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"Nihongo Kakiko" is an activity designed to share online activities in the classroom. On the basis of reflections given by teachers and students, previous studies have indicated that it can be used as a tool for practicing language skills and is also useful for class communication. The present study investigates the teachers' approach and students' performance in the activity in order to assess how the previous studies' results were acquired. By reporting on the four types of class activities, different approaches taken by teachers are compared and analyzed. The results of our report show that "Nihongo Kakiko" facilitates students' use and understanding of language even in classes where the types of activities are different.

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In the conversation class, practical information about how activities are completed, how learners work and join the class is very important, especially when the class is managed by team teaching. In the conversation class for Ryugakusei-Bekka at Kurume University, in using the original materials for beginner and intermediate learners, teachers share their class practices with each other. The reports that teachers wrote after class make clear some points in teaching, such as necessary items for some learners, learners' inclinations, and motivational factors. These reports show the possibility of improving conversation materials and class activities, while giving feedback to teachers.

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This article is a report that is based on project work conducted in a Japanese class with eight intermediate/advanced foreign undergraduates in the humanities. During the practice of the project, students were asked to draw up an "International Student's Life Handbook" by themselves. To enhance their motivation, we obtained help from a corporation, and we now plan to commercialize the final product. The aims of the project were (1) to improve students' performance with regard to using Japanese, on the basis of the motivation for acquiring Japanese language proficiency to improve future job prospects, and (2) to foster self-monitoring among students through peer response. An interactive and autonomous learning process was observed among the foreign students in the course of the project.

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The objective of this study is to analyse how viewpoint expressions in Japanese, such as passive sentences, giving and receiving expressions, are used by Thai learners. Therefore, 10 Thai learners were given a writing task to narrate the story shown in 10-panel comic strip, which was designed to include scenes that viewpoint expressions could be used. As a result, though usage of viewpoint expressions, especially giving and receiving expressions, was observed, Thai learners' viewpoints were frequently changed, which consequently made their narrations difficult to comprehend.

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This report presents the results of applying of the peer-dictation method over a four month period, to improve the skills of listening, speaking and writing, as well as to acquire grammar and vocabulary. Peer-dictation applies the dictogloss technique in which learners participate in discussion groups to reconstruct a text read by the teacher. The results of this evaluation show that peer-dictation is effective in improving a variety of skills, such as established of vocabulary, listening ability, as well as grammar acquisition. However, it is still unclear how to provide feedback to the students in the case that they are still unable to reconstruct the text, even after the group discussion.

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Regarding whether or not Sino-Japanese words undergo phonetic change as in 国会 kokkai and 発展 hatten, most learners rely on their knowledge of the words already learned, and this strategy does not necessarily help them figure out correct readings of yet-to-be learned words. Whether or not a Sino-Japanese word contains a mora obstruent /Q/ is determined by what comes next. It would have a substantial effect on predicting the readings correctly to recognize that there are phonological rules, and to familiarize themselves with applying them to a new word. Class materials under development have brought in steps by which learners could induce rules from familiar words and apply them to new words.

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Some practitioner studies of Japanese pronunciation teaching don't describe the practice in detail. Thus, in this study, emotional experiences and discoveries, and themes which I'd like to consult or discuss with others were extracted from videos of my pronunciation teaching practice utilizing self-monitoring. It's a result, it was able to separate the practices from the contexts and provide only the superficial activities. On the other hand, there are limitation in trying to provide the background and activities fully in a one-way report. How to further describe the practice should be considered in the future.

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The overseas practice teaching program is an important opportunity for students to enhance their knowledge and to exchange their experiences, for both trainee students and those who learn Japanese as a second language at university where the program is carried out. In this study, we focused on Korean students who accepted trainee teachers from a Japanese university. We conducted a questionnaire before and after the training program to investigate whether their images toward Japan changed or not. About 40% of students' images changed after the program. Their images became more concrete and students became more interested in learning Japanese.

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This paper discusses group activities in Japanese Anime Research class. A large number of Japanese learners are partial to Japanese pop culture. In Anime research class, we tried to analyze anime and participated in group presentations. The purpose of this work was to develop each student's speaking ability and gain experience in presentation. I analyzed the results of surveys from the view point of peer learning. Students considered the group work favorable. During group activities the presence of a listener made them use more effort in effective presentation. The respectful relationship between listener and speaker influenced the speaker's effectiveness.

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This study introduces an editing system for writing Japanese language texts with vocabulary that is more accessible to NNS of Japanese. The editor system will automatically identify the level of word difficulty by color coding words based on the coding scheme used in the Vocabulary Checker of Reading Tutor developed by Kawamura, et al. Word-level evaluation function is invoked by clicking on "analyze word difficulty" which appears at the bottom of the editor page. The editor is written in Java programming language, which makes it compatible with any type of operating system.

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This paper investigates the report of Thailand's and Indonesia's Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers in order to know the present state of team-teaching by the Japanese native teachers (NT) and the non-native teachers (NNT). The results are as follows: 1) NT and NNT make use of their strong points and support each other. 2) NT and NNT's positions have a strong influence in the styles of team-teaching. 3) The purpose of team-teaching is not only for the students, but also to improve NNT's Japanese proficiency and teaching ability.

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This research was based on study support conducted between a Japanese public middle school student of Chinese origin and the researcher as the volunteer. The purpose of this research was to observe the process of how both student and volunteer worked to overcome differences in thought concerning the learning process whenever such differences occurred between them. The results: By the volunteer first holding back on his own beliefs concerning the support of the learning process and based on negotiations between both parties, a new way of learning where the student's thoughts and opinions were fully put forward was born.

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The need for foreign students to pronounce naturally is of significant importance. In general, classes in which students learn by listening, speaking, reading, and writing, there is little room to focus on teaching natural pronunciation. We have been developing teaching material - the "Kotoba sheet" that can be used while teaching vocabulary to address this problem. The "Kotoba sheet" enables one to effectively teach pronunciation in a short time. In response to our questionnaire, most teachers affirmed the sheet's effectiveness; however, some expressed difficulties in teaching pronunciation. Thus, this prompted the development of a teachers' manual for the "Kotoba sheet." This study gives an overview of the development of the teachers' manual for the "Kotoba sheet."

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With the increasing number of foreign residents, it is important for non-native speakers of Japanese to understand Japanese language variations for appropriate language use. However, the variations have not been taught to learners sufficiently. Based on the results of a survey, participant observation and recordings of the students' conversation in class, we investigate how advanced-level learners understand the variations, such as regional dialects and gender language differences.

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Sentences written by students for self-promotion in job application forms (entry sheets) to companies are analyzed. Implicit patterns and common expressions in the forms are investigated. The genre analysis (Swales, 1990) reveals the following components in student's essays on their past efforts. The moves are (1) answers, (2) episodes, and (3) applications. The steps of move (1) are (i) title and (ii) answer. Move (2) comprises (i) setting, (ii) goal, (iii) difficulty, (iv) reason, (v) attempt, and (vi) outcome. The steps of move (3) are (i) state, (ii) usefulness, (iii) appear, and (iv) hope.

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This paper reports on an activity involving the use of karuta in a beginning level class for Japanese language learners. Cards with written letters (hiragana or katakana) were used to play karuta. Through this activity, students could familiarize themselves with the hiragana and katakana systems, and they could check their Japanese pronunciation. Students took turns to read the cards, and other students were allowed to comment on the reader's pronunciation. As a result, differences between the student's pronunciations and those of a native speaker could be pointed out.

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The purpose of this study is to clarify elements of cooperator teaching competencies for teaching Japanese to students who learn Japanese as a second language (JSL students) in elementary schools, and to clarify processes for cultivating these elements based on the life history of an experienced cooperator. From the experienced cooperator's life history, three fundamental elements teaching competencies in particular are observed: creativity, self-reflection in teaching, and a cooperative attitude to build collegiality.

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I used "Bibliobattle" for listening and oral expression classes in order to have students consider the knowledge, background and interests the audience may have. In the battle, the audience choose the "Champion Book" as the one they most want to read. Therefore students must prepare the contents of their presentation while considering audiences. In this paper, using self-evaluation sheets and mutual evaluation sheets. I verify whether this battle is useful for their learning.

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This paper aims to investigate if learners who had studied the method San bun setsu hou 3 months prior to the actual language learning, use the method in actual speech or not. Regarding the research method, three teachers will first listen to the learners' recorded speech. Following that, the learner was interviewed on the usage of San bun setsu hou. Finally we discovered the difference between learner's usage of San bun setsu hou. Through our findings, we found out that nearly 90% of the learners use San bun setsu hou in speech. One of the reasons is that San bun setsu hou is simple and visual, so learners use it easily. We can also see how it is important for learners to divide the main topic into three subtopics before explaining it concretely.

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This past summer we had Summer School for the first at International Center in The University of Tokushima. Through this program the people from the local community and the Japanese students worked together on many occasions. This new trial helps them to appreciate the other cultures and to be internationalized. Also for the students from abroad it was a chance to get to know more local people. At this moment I would like to mainly mention the class joined by the students from overseas and the Japanese people from the local community and The University of Tokushima.

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We'd like to show an example of how to use the "Educational Learning Cards", and how they help students. These cards are not only for Japanese language learners but for Japanese children of elementary and junior high schools. They will help learners to remove the barriers of language acquirement and encourage them to understand Japanese culture. If students make these cards by themselves, and play the game in groups, they will be able to improve their communication skills. They can also use their own cards at home, and play with their family.

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The class reported on here is an integrated content-based instruction (CBI) class in Marketing conducted by a Japanese language teacher for both foreign students with advanced Japanese proficiency and native Japanese students. It was designed to let students learn about aspects of marketing while at the same time improving their academic Japanese language skills. In the first half of the semester students learned about the basic words and concepts of marketing through lecture. In the second half, they studied the examples of real marketing strategies and activities of Japanese companies via presentations and writing reports.

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