This study aimed to discuss the effectiveness and notable points of a case method class for Japanese language learners using role-play. The transcript of a class discussion in which learners took on the roles of characters in a case containing a problem was analyzed. The discussion was more active and reached deeper conclusions due to the intervention. Furthermore, the results contribute three points to the field: learners should take on roles, teachers should instruct which part learners can use imaginations, and learners should take notes on their ideas during the role-play.

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The international students in our Japanese language school do not have enough opportunities to communicate with local Japanese people. Therefore, we conducted presentation class to commercialize cuisine made by students for local shopping street delicatessen. As a result, the students had good chance to communicate with Japanese local people. At the same time, the local people had an opportunity to think about living with international students.

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Shadowing has received attention as a method for teaching pronunciation, but because shadowing is only an auditory presentation, it requires a high level of concentration and is a cognitively difficult and stressful task. The purpose of this study was to determine how the presence or absence of visual presentation of text and different accent types affect accent accuracy in shadowing by intermediate learners of Japanese whose first language is Chinese (N = 46). The results of the shadowing task revealed that the accuracy of pronunciation varied according to the accent type of the target word. Specifically, it was found that the head-high target words demonstrated a superior level of pronunciation accuracy compared to the other accent types following the shadowing task.

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In the spring of 2020, due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, our institution transitioned to online classes, and we started to develop an online international exchange activities handbook. However, in the spring of 2022, face-to-face classes resumed, and we needed to revise the handbook to ensure its usability for in-person and online modes. This study is a practical report on out-of-class international exchange activities using this handbook coordinated organically with a beginner’s comprehensive Japanese language class. It examines teachers’ scaffolding and beginners’ learning from their feedback on the international exchange activities.

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Due to the covid-19, many conferences were held online since mid-2020. In 2022, an increasing number of conferences were held face-to-face, while a certain number of conferences continued to be held online. It can be said that there are now more options for holding conferences than before. Conferences are a place to share knowledge gained through practice and research, but the way they function may differ depending on how they are conducted. In order to improve the quality of Japanese language education practice and research, it may be necessary to promote the sharing of knowledge in the management of academic conferences. This paper describes three conferences that the author has been in charge of running in the past, their respective challenges, and the points to overcome them.

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With the spread of TADOKU (extensive reading) in Japanese language teaching, activities to create reading materials for TADOKU have also expanded. This paper reports on project work in which Japanese and international students, including students in Japanese language teacher training courses, worked together to create reading materials. Students enjoyed the activity, learned, and felt a sense of fulfillment but on the other hand, they also experienced difficulties. Project implementation requires experience on the part of teachers, certain conditions are necessary to carry out the projects.

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Summarizing is an important language skill that is often used in daily life, and it can approach learners of Japanese as a second language to improve their writing competence. However, at present, there have been few studies of Chinese Japanese learners concerning summary writing in Japanese, and the relevant teaching materials and guidance methods are not very clear. In this paper, the research is based on structural analysis of newspaper editorial summaries. I will analyze the problem of Chinese learners' summaries and propose.

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I report the results of a survey of University students’ difficulties in transcribing to plain Japanese, with the aim of improving class activity quality. At the first and final classes of the Spring 2022 term, students were tasked with rewriting in plain Japanese. The products were then analyzed and compared on essential points of transcription. Students found it hard to judge which words to rewrite based on difficulty. They also had issues in: making whole structures easier; placing kana alongside difficult words; writing with spaces between words; and using illustrations and diagrams. These results informed future teaching plans.

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The author supervised Japanese language teaching training for undergraduate students in the Education department. The students conducted online Japanese language lessons for technical intern trainees. As one student taught the same lesson to different learners, it was aimed that the students could improve their lesson plans. However, there is little evidence that the students improved their “self-educating ability” and the following problem remained: 1) insufficient control of vocabulary, 2) inability to apply the lesson plans for practical use. The results indicated that it was necessary to incorporate class activities into pre-training lessons to improve students’ “self-educating ability” and activities to give students opportunities to think how they can improve “self-educating ability.”

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One of the methods used to introduce hiragana and katakana is the association method based on learners' native languages, and materials have been created based on English, Thai, Spanish, and Chinese. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no detailed descriptions of the selection of words and procedures for creating hiragana materials. Also, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no study of how to create hiragana teaching materials using the Hindi associative method. In this paper, we present a procedure for preparing a questionnaire for selecting words for creating Hiragana teaching materials using the associative method for class 6 students of secondary schools in the suburbs of Delhi and Delhi.

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This article studied Katakana words (words written in Katakana, excluding Proper noun) in a total of 85 volumes of elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, and advanced Japanese textbooks, in terms of appearance rate and the type of textbooks with high appearance rate. Elementary Japanese textbooks had the highest appearance rate of Katakana words, with an average 6.44% (type frequency). The appearance rate varies according to the context of the textbook. Grouping textbooks by appearance rate of Katakana words, found that textbooks composed of Japanese daily conversations, especially textbooks which are published in recent years have a high appearance rate and usage per word.

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Japanese anime and manga are known worldwide as subculture contents and serve as the impetus and motivation for many learners to learn the Japanese language. However, there have been few studies on the practical applications of anime and manga, and there are limited variations of learning activities using them. This paper reports on an application of anime, an anime-dubbing workshop, in teaching Japanese and Japanese culture. The results show that many participants, including those who do not usually watch anime, actively participated in the activity and found it interesting. The workshop also raised the participants’ awareness of some features of the Japanese language, including role language and character expressions. The findings indicate that this classroom activity has practical potential for the field of Japanese teaching.

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In the Tohoku area there are few opportunities for foreign workers to learn Japanese and exchange views regionally. We conducted online Japanese conversation sessions for workers in various locations in Miyagi prefecture and analyzed their interactions and Japanese supporters’ reflections on the sessions. As a result, we observed that sharing workplace problems and seeking solutions through ideas and discussions were important for continued participation in the sessions. For the Japanese supporters, results indicated the importance of bringing the workers together through the sessions and encouraging them to use themselves and their workplaces as useful resources for solving their problems autonomously.

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This paper reports on the author’s practice in an advanced Japanese writing class. The students of the class were able to produce “detailed texts on a variety of subjects,” but not “well-structured texts of complex subjects,” and thus remained at the B2 as defined in the CEFR – Companion volume (Council of Europe 2020: 66) (CEFR-CV). Based on the descriptions in CEFR-CV, the author reasoned that C-level writing requires “points of view,” and by presenting these to the students, the author intended to provide a scaffold toward achieving C-level writing. Specifically, after reading an essay whose ideas they could empathize with, each student was tasked with producing a text that “expanded and supported” said essay's “point of view”, while adding their own experiences to provide “reasons and relevant examples”.

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This paper reports on the results and discussion of a class designed for learners' active learning of honorifics. A presentation activity was conducted in which the learners acted as staff members or store clerks and explained their company's services to customers, followed by a look-back Q’re. The results showed that active learning can be applied to honorific learning, which is difficult for learners to learn because it involves a lot of introductory material that tends to make learning passive.

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The authors conducted an interactive Tanka appreciation activity with upper intermediate level learners and conducted a survey which examined the process and changes in the interpretation of Tanka. The result of the survey indicated that it was difficult for the learners to develop a concrete understanding of Tanka due to their lack of understanding in grammar. However, once the learners understood the grammar correctly, their interpretation changed. Therefore, the authors considered that it is important for teachers to create scaffolding which tailors to each learner’s comprehension level.

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Previous research has revealed that there is a bias towards males in the　real person and raw content appearing in 19 Japanese upper-intermediate comprehensive textbooks. To investigate this further, we looked at the occupations of the real-life characters in 16 books. The results showed that nearly 30% of the female real person were housewives or had unspecified or mundane occupations indicating that women may have been pushed into the "private sphere" in their occupations. As for academics, the overwhelming majority were men, predominantly Westerners, and there was a tendency towards "Western supremacy".

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Why do Japanese learners struggle to utilize certain linguistic forms in appropriate contexts? Kida and Shimizu(2013), as well as Kawaguchi(2019), claimed that one of the significant reason is that function of these forms is not written clearly in textbooks. I analyzed how teiru is introduced in Japanese textbooks for beginners. The target of this analysis include how teiru is used in example sentences, grammar explanations, dialogues and exercises. It became clear that none of the textbooks mentioned the use functions of the teiru form. In order to help Japanese learners to utilize the grammar, and to have better communication, both teachers and learners should cultivate a better knowledge of its functions.

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