Compared to other classroom activites, debates have two requirements which can be effective in developing competencies crucially needed by non-native language teachers. The requirements are, constructing speech in both affirmative and negative modes on the same theme, and performing speech within a given time limit. The first can be useful in enhancing understanding of different values and perspectives and the second can improve speaking ability. However, some participants find, these requirements stressful and consequently, a debating activity may not be as effective for them as for the other participants. In this research, we analyzed the participants' reaction to and reflection on debating activites in a listening/speaking class at the Japan Foudation Japanese Language Institute to see how participants perceived the activity and how their perceptions have changed. As a result of the analysis, we found that all participants admit that the debating experience helps to develop their language proficiency in the four skills, not only in speaking skills but listening, reading, and writing, but there are still a few who remain uncomfortable with debating activities, and who need more lead-up activities which help them understand the usefulness of debates.

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What should be taught in elementary conversation class? We have developed the materials that train the automanouse communication ability for elementary Japanese learners. These teaching materials consist of teaching items for communication and role-play cards. In this paper we report the process and porpose to develop these teaching materials.

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Class activities must designed consciously according to learner's learning process. Kobayashi(1996) classified kanji learning activities of some non-kanji area students classes from the aspect of learner's information processing. In this paper, it is discussed and described how learner's level or background knowledge affect learning activities. For beginners who have poor Japanese knowledge, character / vocabulary-centered approach is effective. On the other hand, intermediate and advanced level learner needs activities that connect kanji with much background knowledge of Japanese language. And intermediate and advanced learners have various problems of kanji, therefore the treatments for the problems are necessary in kanji class.

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In this paper, we analyze the Japanese language learning processes and language learning strategies of fifteen short-term exchange students at the Faculty of Letters of Chiba University. An examination of the first three-month learning goals set by the students after their arrival, and of their self-evaluations at the end of the first three months, reveals: Most of the students are trying to utilize their new environment to further their learning goals; there are certain individual differences in the concreteness of their learning goals; and cognitive strategies and meta-cognitive strategies figure prominently among the strategies they report.

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We will discuss the way of utilizing the information supplied by the participants in our teacher-training programs. In addition, the effectiveness of the utilization will be discussed. The participants in the programs have various background in terms of proficiency of their Japanese language, knowledge of teaching methodology, and teaching evironments. Varieties of the participants are sometimes mentioned as negative factors, but they also have positive influence on the programs. The participants' needs and evaluation for the programs provide a lot of information to improve curriculum and placement of the programs making use of the advantages of their varieties.

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There are many different motivations to study Japanese. International students have to acquire the ability to dispatch messages as well as get information. Recently as students visiting Japan become more diversified, Japanese teachers have much more of a burden because of students' level gap in the class. To resolve the issue it must be effective to open individual Homepages through Internet.

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This paper shows the difference of" informative " sentences of conversations found in Japanese textbooks as compared to those found in German textbooks. The following eight points about the informer are investigated: 1) identity, 2) sense, 3) activity, 4) possessions, 5) family, 6) organization belonged to her/him, 7) staying area, 8) culture. We conclude from this observation that we can see more information about family and possessions in Japanese textbooks, and that the textbooks written abroad involve information on culture.

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The International Student Center of the University of Tsukuba has been developing Japanese reading material for beginner students of Japanese. This material has the following two aims; 1) to develop the reading skills necessary to extract relevant information from authentic materials, 2) to develop basic reading skills. In this presentation, the authors will review the aims and construction of the material and examine the major findings and problems from student questionnaires conducted in March 1997.

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The purpose of this study is to report on an essay writing class where students' mutual evaluation is introduced. This method is motivated by the results of the studies of cognitive science such as Miyake (1985). It is shown that the students have been benefited from this learning style compared with the one in which only the teacher corrects their essays.

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This report describes CAI system 'Kanji Dojo' that aimed to learn reading and writing of Kanji. It incorporates an on-line character recognition engine of the latest technology that can evaluate the correctness of handwriting. The design policies of this CAI system are 'Repeated learning, Learning with handwriting, Separation of functions and courseware.'

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We have developed a CAI system for dictionary-assisted advanced Japanese reading, containing eight articles. While reading passages on the screen, the reader can consult the dictionary, which contains English translation of the words, readings of kanji, related vocabulary and example sentences. The result of the field test shows: 1) the degree of comprehension of the materials, 2) even students who have completed advanced Japanese read much slower than native readers, 3) even students with high reading proficiency utilize the dictionary and recognize that they can read passages faster with this system.

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The purpose of this study is to clarify the function and usages of TO which appears at the end of sentences in speech. Sentences that end with quotation marker TO (hereinafter referred to as TO-end sentences) are classified into four types: (1) pauses between TO and such verbs as "omou," "iu"; (2) abbreviations of "omou," "iu; (3) juxtaposed structures of "TO omou," "TO iu"; and (4) complete sentences plus TO. This study also argues the reason TO-end sentences are used.

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Dictlinker is an interactive computer system for assisting students to read and understand Japanese sentences. The system displays the translation of each word on the computer screen. The system is presently used for teaching Japanese at MIT. A survey was held among the teachers and the students regarding the effectiveness of the proposed system. The survey result indicates that it is necessary for the intermediate and advanced course students to refer the dictionary for understanding the meaning of difficult Kanji. Therefore, it is largely hoped that the proposed system would be an effective and powerful tool for the advanced course students.

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This paper illustrates the inference process of unknown KANJI vocabulary used by 15 intermediate level readers(high 5, middle 5, low 5) through think-aloud protocols. High level readers successfully inferred the meaning using both their own knowledge and meaning-based cues on context. Some of low level readers, however, could overcome the limited vocabulary by using general knowledge and meaning-based cues on context. And thinking main idea was effective method to compensate their lack of vocabulary. As a result, their score of meaning is higher than that of sound.

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Teaching Japanese in Hungary was introduced in primary school first in 1987. Method: teaching language and culture together. Developing and publishing teaching materials in DARUMA program was sponsored by Public Educational Institute since 1992 which includes curriculum (activities, system of knowledge, schedule, requirements, tasks, teacher's manual), workbooks, songbook, vocabulary, literature companion and grammar. Yasashii Nihongo textbooks covers hiragana, katakana, kanji and sample sentences.

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We have developed an Intermediate level reading textbook for the foreign librarians who study at The Japan Foundation Japanese Language Institute. In this textbook, we have made the following attempt; 1) We reduce sentence patterns to study, based on our previous surveys carried out on the frequency of patterns appearing in some existing reading textbooks, newspapers and magazines. This will lead to save the learners' load (in time and energy). 2) We put stress on reading activities for more effective compre-hension practice, such as comprehensive Q & A, exercise of conjunction or demonstrative pronoun, finding out keywords, summarizing from the flow-chart and close-test.

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In this study, we attempt to classify the functions of adjectives according to the patterns of accompanied intonations. Usually during class activities the adjectives are introduced with grammatical conjugations or as vocabulary, little attention has been paid to the fact that depending on intonations the functions of adjectives (or messages which the utterance carries) differ. According to patterns of intonation, we classify the adjectives into 6 groups.

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The purpose of this longitudinal case study is to investigate the way a child NNS studying Japanese as a second language interacts with an adult NS in Japanese, in terms of signals in negotiation of meaning. The NS-NNS conversation was analyzed through participant observation by the researcher to examine two points: first, the numbers of NS and NNS signals under different conditions such as in total, free conversation and language lessons: second, the variety of signal forms. The results obtained suggest that NS signals are designed for NNS's language skills and also that the NNS produces signals with least effort.

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Most traditional kanji tests are designed to check the reading and writing ability of students. However, in order to master kanji it is not enough for foreign students with no-kanji background to learn only readings and shapes of kanji. Kanji carry four kinds of information; 1) shape, 2) reading, 3) meaning and 4) word and sentence usage. Students should learn each by relating one to the other. In this presentation, the author analyzes a number of kanji tests and workbooks for beginners and tries to classify various kanji exercises into 62 testing items.

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These study reports on the learning process of writing words in Hiragana correspond with Japanese sound and the influence of learners' language in dictating Japanese words. After 6 month every morning practice, all learner had no stress on hearing and writing Japanese words and understood their week points at the end of the course.

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Dicto-Comp is a reproduction task in writing, combined with learners' own error analysis discussion. This study investigates how learner-types affect the effectiveness of the task. Using a case where the activity was considered by the teacher to be unsuccessful, recurrent incidents were examined based on the observation of the learners' performance in discussion and learners' self-reports. Analysis of the group's interaction lead to the identification of the factors that impede the development of learners' collective self-monitoring process.

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This paper introduces a new style of teaching Intercultural Communication focused on the process of misunderstanding in communication. The main purpose of this exercises are as follows; 1) students are more aware of the process of communication (Description, Interpretation, Evaluation) 2)students can learn from experience.

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This paper describe a new Japanese learning system developed on WWW. The system was designed and implemented so as to realize high interactivity, to enable Japanese characters, to display on every OS, and to record learning history. Especially Japanese character display system was evaluated as effective system in comparison with other display system.

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This article describes the development of a computer assisted language learning (CALL) system for writing to learn Japanese passive voice on the WWW. To investigate the error types when writing in passive voice of Japanese language by foreign learners, the authors conducted a test and took a survey through questionnaire. From this investigation, the authors classified the error types of Japanese passive voice. This classification will be used for error analysis which deals with the implementation of the system. In this system, the authors use NLP tools and then add the error analysis and the feedback processing part to the system. This system thus enables the learner to key in sentence freely, can detect the error in typed sentence and gives the adequate feedback messages to the learner.

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The purpose of this study was to develop the feedback system of computer assisted language learning system for Japanese writing on the WWW. The feedback system has four functions: 1. identifing the wrong phrase by rules, 2. creating useful feedback messages for the leaner, 3. creating useful examples, and 4. creating the Verb table. A survey has been done by asking some leaners to use the system. Then leaners response to questionnaire and the success rate of identification of wrong phrase has been investigated

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This paper reports on effects of conversation class using the role-play cards for elementary Japanese learners. In conversation class, learners have a conversation according to the instructions on the role-play cards without any model conversation. Through the class activities, we will make the following points: 1) without any model conversation, learners take a natural step in process of invitation, 2) to choose an appropriate expression from various grammar items according to the situation is still difficult for learners, 3) what is called an expression of invitation (V-masenka) is not always appeared conversation of invitation.

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