Some Japanese-Peruvians have been enrolled at the part-time course of Tachikawa high School since 1993. They take individual Japanese lessons. From the questionnaire surveys and interviews to teachers and learners, we will report the progress of Japanese teaching up to the present and a plan of next school year. The followings became clear. 1)The teachers give careful attention to the writing of furigana on the blackboard and the distribution of a vocabulary list. 2) They don't give special consideration except furigana in the examinations. 3) They often include assignment papers as a criterion of approving credits. 4) They point out in some subjects their learners have some problems in their scholastic ability and learning attitude, though they can be moved up to the next grade. 5) The writing on the blackboard and vocabulary lists are useful for student's understanding. 6) It is difficult for them to understand a subject with much new words or Chinese words. 7) They feel ft very difficult to study the subject in which they are said to have problems in their learning attitude.

View full abstract

Dicto-Comp was originally developed as a reproduction exercise to improve learners' writing skills in English language education. It makes the learners examine the data received by dictation, engaging them in constant hypothesis testing in the process of making final written outputs. This integrated cognitive approach for listening and writing was combined with group work, subsequent classroom discussion, and feedback from teachers to facilitate self-instructed learning in Japanese language education. Providing learners with extensive reflection opportunities helps the development of self-monitoring strategies. The learners' evaluation indicates this approach's success in raising awareness in appropriate uses of their linguistic knowledge.

View full abstract

This study is designed to analyze non-native speakers' methods of obtaining information while conversing with a native speaker from the viewpoint of interlanguage theory. Due to lack of Japanese language ability, beginners tend to use one-word utterances, especial ly those with multiple meanings. One of the non-native speakers used 36 one-word repetitions. These 36 one-word repetitions can be classified into 8 main functions. This method may have a useful function during a short period of time in interlanguage strategy.

View full abstract

We have developed a CAI reading program which consists of eight lessons for advanced students of Japanese language. The materials were all chosen from "Kodansha Shinsho", and are assisted with a dictionary which provides explanations of the difficult words in order to help students. We have conducted a field test, and kept records of the time spent and vocabulary items searched by each student. The following points were analyzed after examining the records and the questionnaire: 1) possibility of enhancing students' motivation for reading, 2) adequate ness of the screen layout and the items in the dictionary, 3) students' needs for other functions.

View full abstract

For the foreign student studying in Japanese, it's nessesary to read and understand the Japanese language. Many stsudents can speak and listen to Japanese well, but can't understand Japanese sentences because of complicated Kanji's meanings. We wanted to develop a system to support Japanese reading and understanding on WWW Browser. In this report we present the developed System and offer some comments on our experience in testing and using the System.

View full abstract

The Internet is conntected with over forty seven thousand sites in the world up to the present. We can get a great quantity of multi-media data through the WWW. There is a demand for the use of the Internet for Japanese Language Education. But some teachers who have not yet obtained a good knowledge of Computers may find it difficult to use the Internet. In this paper, I would like to introduce what kind of functions the Internet has and how to apply it to our Japanese Language Education.

View full abstract

This paper discusses the effective integration of Internet communication into a language classroom. During 1995 academic year, the advanced Japanese course students at The University of Melbourne and native Japanese students at Tohoku University had e-mail and tele-conference communication in Japanese. Based on the shared knowledge gained from articles on Japan's current affairs, the students exchanged their comments via e-mails. On each topic the Melbourne students were required to write a summary of all the e-mails from Japan. The survey on the effectiveness reveals that the real communication opportunities integrated into the course greatly improves the morale of the Australian students towards Japanese language learning.

View full abstract

In Kanji education many kinds of learning activity are considered. But it depends on teachers' experience how to design learning activitiy. Learning activities have to be designed consciously based on some conditions, e.g. leaners' purpose, learning styles, time, class size and so on. This study aim to 1) clarify the patterns of Kanji learning activities and its background and 2) discuss what kinds of activities are necessary for learners to get and utilize Kanji knowledge. Kanji learning activities can be classified by learner's information processing process and his/her role.

View full abstract

Dictionary use is a complex process involving a number of skills and conventions which need to be taught and learned, but training in dictionary use is generally given little attention in language teaching. In the present study, 4 intermediate and one advanced learner of Japanese who are not native kanji users were videotaped while using dictionaries for reading and writing Japanese, and subsequently interviewed. While intermediate learners had problems at every step of the dictionary look-up process (identifying the unit to be looked up, determining its dictionary form, finding the entry, extracting information from the entry and applying it), the advanced student was able to look up words and characters quickly and accurately.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the following points: 1) to investigate the relationship between the function and optical performance of the human eye, and also to experimentally investigate the influence of visual attention on human memory and conceptualized comprehension, 2) to find out how visual attention influences general learning ability. The results of this experiment show that both function and opticatical performance of the human eye were effected by visual stimuli we presented. Recognition and memorization of varied depending on the position of the subjects, and also varied according to the nature of the stimuli, fiesults also differed between subjects observing stimuli while exessing moter skills and those who only observed, showing that moter activity effects visual attention, recoginition and memory.

View full abstract

Kanji are said by some to be "patterns" (zukei), but even a graphics-based approach such as Rowley (1992) to learning kanji makes use of structural analysis, which is widely used in the learning of kanji in various ways. However, the kind of structural analysis used in dictionaries has been designed for ease of search, and does not always reflect the structure of a kanji from the point of view of learning it. In teaching and learning kanji, structure has been used in a variety of ways, ranging from "graphemes" to mnemonics based on relating structural elements into a meaningful order. Comparatively little use has been made, however, of the phoneticity of kanji. Here, it is proposed to do away with traditional "radicals" and use a meaning-specifying element (DET) only for meaning+sound type kanji, defining it as the part remaining when having taken account of the sound element, and employ a number of separate structural patterns for meaning+sound type kanji and meaning+meaning type kanji for use in the Kanji Information Database (KID) currently being developed.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to propose a test for evaluating the no-kanji background learners' development process of kanji ability, based on the analysis of "Kanji Ability Diagnostic Test" developed by Kano et al.(1992) "Kanji Ability" does not mean their knowledge or mere ability to read and write a certain amount of kanji. It includes their implicit but more overall management ability of kanji/kanji vocabulary in the process of learning Japanese, which enables learners to memorize kanji/kanji vocabulary efficiently, to retain their knowledge systematically, and to refer the correct kanji/kanji vocabulary quickly. To investigate how "Kanji Ability" can be developed internally and to evaluate it is considered to be useful for realizing effective ways of teaching kanji to no-kanji background learners.

View full abstract

This paper discusses the effects of the pre-stimuli in composition instruction. In the class of 15 lower-intermediate learners of Japanese, pre-stimuli are given in the form of vocabulary and expression list, and pre-tasks of interaction with teacher and peers, and teacher's verbal encouragement to use specific expressions that considered to be difficult for the learners are given. Learners' compositions are analyzed from three points of view; 1)learners' actual use-quantitative aspect, 2)pre-task quality, 3)quality of performances.

View full abstract

It is important for the effective instruction of Japanese pronunciation to know how a learner of Japanese learn the Japanese pronunciation. An investigation on how the learner's consciousness and his/her behavior in learning Japanese pronunciation affect his/her performance is conducted. As a result, factors that contribute to good performance are obtained.

View full abstract

The Japanese language learning strategies used by 33 Japanese-Peruvian workers of different communication abilities were investigated and compared with those used by 26 foreign university students at Tsukuba University. The results showed that both groups make great use of 'social' and 'compensatory strategies', but that university students tend to use more 'metacognitive strategies' than Peruvian workers. However, workers who communicate effectively in Japanese also use 'metacognitive strategies' quite often. Moreover, 'affective strategies' were also found to be an important factor in language learning, especially for learners who do not have a classroom where they can practice without fear of making mistakes.

View full abstract

The study of language acquisition is useful as base for material development and syllabus design. In this research an investigated Korean learners acquisition state of Japanese particles was conducted. Particle 'ga' 'o' 'ni' 'to' were classified by their forms, meanings, and grammatical functions to construct a test. A multiple choice test on each functions was made. 68 Korean subject in intermediate level were tested. Based on the result of the test, this paper discuss how Korean learners acquire the Japanese particles, in terms of each function of particles.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the variability in the interlanguage of NNS-children in dyadic interaction with NS-adults in terms of the use of demonstratives. A quantitative comparison between discourse segments of high vs. low spontaneousness and autonomy in NNS-children speech showed that highly spontaneous and autonomous speech contains more demonstratives than when the speech is more dependent on the initiations and supportive utterances of the the NS-adults. An examination of transcribed speech data suggested that the complicated contents of highly spontaneous and autonomous NNS-children's speech resulted in greater, as well as, erroneous use of demonstratives.

View full abstract

Japanese-language learners often claim to have difficulty distinguishing whether Japanese are saying "Yes" or "No". This paper's focus is to determine the various kinds of clues that the native speakers perceive to be indicators of refusal. Gumperz' (1982) Interactional approach was applied to make explicit the unverbalized perceptions and presuppositions that underlie interpretation. As a result, it was found that in case that both positive and negative clues exist, native speakers tend to perceive the statement concerning availability to be more important than that of willingness.

View full abstract