A new method to simulate Kanji learning process has been proposed. In the simulation, random numbers are used to determine whether each Kanji is forgotten or still remaining in memory. At each step of the simulation, remaining probability is compared with random number. The probability decays exponentially with time. It is assumed that the mean life time of each Kanji increases with time, however, the increase rate gradually becomes lower. As a result, Kanji groups introduced at early stages were well memorized whereas the late introduction group decayed rapidly.

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An important component of the Intensive Japanese Course provided by the International Student Center of Niigata University involves an independent research project. Students plan their own research based on personal interests, make questionnaires, and distribute them to ordinary Japanese people. Students collect and analyze the results, and perform an individual presentation exclusively in Japanese by course's conclusion. Computer technology utilized includes spreadsheet and presentation software. This paper reports the educational effects, methods, and possible future problems involved with this innovative method of Japanese language instruction.

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This paper attempts to categorize Japanese language teachers' attitude towards several parameters, including associates (i.e., learners and colleagues), profession meetings (i.e., society for the study of JSL), their lessons, and their teaching materials through their activities and awareness. 445 teachers responded to a questionnaire consisting of 89 items. From their responses, factor analysis revealed 5 primary factors, which were "positiveness toward studious activity", "flexible adaptability", "dependency", "consciousness of surroundings", and "dissatisfaction toward organization". Each factor showed a relationship with several parameters including age, personal possessions, experience of teaching abroad, and training course experience.

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This report describes an experimental course, taught utilizing a new approach to academic writing for Japanese language learners in the science field. The aim of this writing class was that the learner acquires the skill of writing a short scientific text through producing several independent sentences and arranging those sentences. For this class, new teaching materials such as handouts and video tapes describing physical principals and basic chemical experiments were prepared. By the final stage of the course, learners felt that their skill of expressing ideas in several sentences and connecting those sentences logically had improved.

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In recent years, several reading supporting systems for Japanese Language Learning based on morphological analysis tool and electronic dictionaries are developed and used in practice. The demand for teaching materials linked with not only word sense information but also teaching items, a classified index of linguistic knowledge about the language, will become larger hereafter. This paper describes the method of linking teaching items with Japanese sentences automatically using morphological analysis and a conceptual dictionary.

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A reading text bank has been set up using Japanese reading support system DL. The text is for the intermediate Japanese language learner and was written by Ken Ijikebich Ujie. Each word in the text is hyper-linked to English translations. By checking on the unknown word, the learner can instantaneously access a translation of the word. As a result, the reading process is not interrupted by looking up words in a dictionary. This text bank is opened to the public through the internet, so learners can utilize it for improving their reading skills.

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For effective language education, analysis of the content, order, and amount of material contained in the teaching materials is very important. Having a detailed and quantitative grasp of these, and going on to work out an educational sequence that is based on these data is not only vital for the beginning teacher, but also useful for the more experienced one. In our research, we have made a database of textbooks, and are creating a matrix of teaching items by analyzing their content quantitatively by order, quantity, amount, and how items of each level relate to each other. We then attempt to specify where a learner of Japanese stands at present, and what he should be taught next. In the present paper, we take up the basic thinking of our research, and an analysis of the kanji.

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This paper aims to compare kanji reading activities (activities to retrieve kanji sound and meaning from the shape) in ten kanji materials for beginners' level. The treatment of such activities is found to differ across the materials. Only three materials have a variety of learning activities which learners need in order to process "deeply" and build up their kanji knowledge. Learning activities also have different character in these three materials. These results suggest that views of kanji learning differ across materials, and that learning activities may be affected by their purpose. More analysis of such materials needed from the viewpoint of learners' information processing.

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This study investigates ordinary Japanese speakers' evaluation of Japanese learners' pronunciation. The results show that; (1) attention given to pronunciation items as compared to grammatical and discourse ones was limited; (2) consideration given to articulation and accent was to an even lesser degree than that of pronunciation; (3) by comparison, a greater attention given to sentence-final intonation, volume of voice and tempo was apparent.

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The purpose of this study is 1) to investigate the relationship between the vocabulary level of informants and the time and frequency of using dictionary part of Reading Support System, 2) to examine the relationship between difficulty of three reading texts and the time and frequency of using dictionary parts. The results were suggested that the frequency of using dictionary part differed from the vocabulary level of informants (Chi-square = 68.928 df=2 p<.01 for time, Chi-square = 28.046 df=2 p<.01 for frequency).

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This report details an instruction method for students of spoken Japanese. To students of Japanese in our intermediate and advanced courses, I assigned the task of finding their own mistakes by listening to tape recordings of their speech. A number of errors were definite mistakes which both the learner and I recognized. Some others, especially their pronunciation of kango, were within our tolerance level. However, some errors, which the students didn't detect, are common among beginners, so one could consider that fossilization appeared in their Japanese. Still other errors which they could not identify, included twisted, and, too-lengthy sentences. For self-directed learning, it is most effective that we focus on those errors that are hard for learners to become aware of themselves.

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The focus of Foreigner Talk (FT) studies so far has been placed on how native speakers modify their speech when they communicate with non-native speakers of the language, This study swiches the viewpoint to the reasons why native speakers modify their speech. The purpose of this study is to make it clear what kinds of vocabulary are modified and how they are modified by native speakers who would like to make them comprehensible for non-native speakers. In addition to this, it is considered why native speakers choose the patterns of modification when they modify the vocabularies.

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This paper is a progress report on how to improve teaching skills of native speaking Japanese teachers. Whenever learners acquire a word and make the semantic frame, they need the following factors: extensive examples, exceptional cases and a well organized presentation. However, low skilled teachers fail to instruct them properly because they cannot be aware of these factors. That is, they cannot use the metalanguage. We suggest they should re-experience the process of vocabulary acquisition through a riddle game activity.

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This paper presents an application of three critical features for promoting learner autonomy: language awareness, task involvement, and authentic communication. Teaching strategies derived from these features were adapted in a series of tasks in order to facilitate reflective learning towards the target linguistic items. A sequence of alternating individual and group tasks was developed to enhance learners' reflection on their learning process; self-reflection on individual works is reinforced by the social interactions that take place in the subsequent group tasks. As a result, it was found that learners engaged themselves in self-reflection and gained language awareness from producing their own texts as well as during their interaction with others.

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In this research we proposes a multilingual learning system for Technical Japanese courses. The new system is based on the concept of interlingua, which is a language-independent representation of all the information that a sentence in any language expresses. Many of the foreign students in Japan are from Asian Countries. In most cases, these students are forced to access Japanese texts and educational materials through both dictionaries and grammatical explanations written in English. Students should be able to study more efficiently if they could learn Japanese directly from their mother tongue. Our project will develop a multilingual dictionary based on an interlingua. This paper describes the background research required for the development of a multilingual dictionary, which includes analysis and discussion of a survey of 1,000 concepts which appear in mainly computer science-related texts, with the corresponding terms in Japanese, Thai, and Chinese languages.

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This paper proposes a new aspect of 'kanji proficiency' and describes its implementation in a beginning-level kanji curriculum based on a functional approach to foreign-language teaching. The following working definition of 'kanji proficiency' is proposed: "learners' skills in performing authentic kanji-related language tasks, utilizing their knowledge of the orthography and its usage." Also discussed are teaching and evaluation materials used in a kanji course where beginning-level students are taught to use a Japanese-English kanji character dictionary to search for the meaning of unknown kanji vocabulary in authentic texts.

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This paper introduces our original textbook which is intended for students who have already finished studying Japanese basic grammar in their country. Because of the gap between knowledge and actual performance, students have difficulties placing into the intermediate level even though they received a good score on the grammar section of the placement test. This textbook is designed for those to improve their communicative skills and to increase vocabulary. For these purposes, this textbook employs a topic-based syllabus. We report the effect of employing a topic-based syllabus in a pre-intermediate level class.

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TV news reports and newspaper articles belong to the same media genre. Do they have common lexical patternings which characterize the reporting style? To answer this question we compared the features appearing at the end of each paragraph in TV news reports and newspaper articles. The analysis reveals that they have several common lexical patternings: (to/ni/koto ni) suru, (to/ni/koto ni) naru, to shiteiru, simesu and other forms of reporting verbs. The analysis also reveals that TV news reports have some special features: (koto ni) siteimasu, (to iu) kotodesu, wakarimasita. All of these lexical patternings and their uses can be incorporated in the Japanese language education.

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This paper examines the effort of activity of helping Japanese learners to Japanese persons living in Vienna who participated Japanese language classes as "Japanese Language Volunteers" in University of Vienna, Austria from 1997 to 1998. Psychological change of volunteers are analyzed. The analysis revealed the following results: (1)There is change of their confidence in Japanese language; (2)There is reduction in stress or "inferiority complex" about their own behavior as Japanese students in Vienna; (3)They believed that they got co-ordinate relation with students through co-teaching their native languages.

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This paper compares the attitude structures of teacher-trainees and a professional teacher towards Japanese language lessons. Each subject's data is obtained by using the Personal Attitude Construct analysis method developed by Naito (1997). The results shows that the attitude differences between the novice teacher-trainees with 8 week teaching practice and an advanced one with one year professional teaching experience are rather subtle. In comparison to a professional teacher with 3 year experience, these two levels of trainees are regarded to be in the same stage in terms of the attitude structure change triggered by the amount of teaching experiences.

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On the process of reading Japanese, the students who are from different countrys, have different ways to read Japanese sentence. We want to research how they read Japanese sentence. We plan to observe the process of their reading Japanese by video camera. We classify three groups, the groups are for the students who are using Kanji, for the students who don't use Kanji, and for the students who don't use Kanji, but see them in their country. In this paper we will report the difference.

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The International Student Center of the University of Tsukuba has been developing and using audiovisual materials for Japanese Conversation based on a database since September 1996. In this presentation, the authors will first review the structure of the database and the nature of audiovisual materials. Secondly, the authors will examine major findings obtained through student questionnaires and interviews about the utilization and attribution of the audiovisual materials. Finally, the authors will discuss what the ideal materials and media for enabling the students to develop Japanese conversation skills should be.

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In the intermediate level oral expression class at Hokkaido International Student Center, a self-monitoring activity was designed in order to enable learners to become autonomous. Learners recorded their own speeches and corrected mistakes in their speeches by listening to the tapes several times. As a result, there was a tendency for pronunciation to become better, whereas mistakes regarding grammar and vocabulary needed correcting by a teacher. According to the questionnaire, many learners answered that this activity would be helpful in making their speeches better. It is necessary to make learners aware of what they can correct and what they cannot, and to develop class activities which will promote learners' self-monitoring.

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This is a report of a pronunciation practice course using the Computerized Speech Lab, which was installed at the International Center, University of Tsukuba in 1998. This course aims to cater for the needs of individual students with different first language backgrounds in order to assist their acquisition of Japanese pronunciation.

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The Center for Student Exchange of Hitotsubashi University has developed Japanese reading material for advanced students in cooperation with professors of sociology. This paper categorizes and explains the difficulties, made clear in the class, which students face in reading comprehensions of theses of social sciences. Furthermore, the ideal method of cooperation with special studies instructors is discussed.

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The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss problems involved in self-correction of dictation. In a study that was done, students listened to a Japanese tape and wrote down the sentences that they heard. Then, they corrected what they had written. However, when I examined their work, I found that there were many mistakes that they failed to correct. In this paper, I report that students are apt to overlook mistakes involving particles and elongated vowel sounds when they make corrections, and explain why certain Japanese words are difficult for students to write.

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We analyzed the function of "to omou" from the aspect of mood. Moriyama (1992) insisted that "to omou" has two usages: one to show the uncertainty of the speaker and the other to show the subjectivity of the speaker. However, we observe that from the aspect of the territory of information which appears in the main clause (Kamio, 1990), that the function is divided into three groups: 1) Blending: the speaker causes the hearer to sympathize with the contents of the thoughts. 2-1) Coordination: only the speaker's thoughts. 2-2) Coordination: the speaker judges that the contents of thoughts belong only to the hearer. In addition, these three groups are connected with politeness and the uncertainty of the speaker's attitude.

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Learners of Japanese tend to use 'WATASHI' in their writing or speaking Japanese more oftener than native speaker of Japanese. This study reports the result of a survey whether the native speakers consider the usage of 'WATASHI' in the learners essays is appropriate or not. The result shows the native speakers judge there were some over-usages of 'WATASHI' in the essays. The Native speakers were more sensitive to those places where topic chain was not realized or where over modification of noun phrases by 'WATASHI NO' had occurred.

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The validity of SPOT as a placement test has been widely studied by researchers not only in Japan, but also in USA, Australia, Korea, Indonesia, Germany, Holland, and so on. Nonetheless, we don't know yet exactly what SPOT measures. Especially, it is not clear what skill or knowledge SPOT requires the examinees to use in order to answer it correctly. In this paper, we investigate the validity of SPOT by comparing its grammar items with those used in DGT (Diagnostic Grammar Test). The analysis of the data from these two tests suggests that SPOT is capable of testing the examinees' grammatical knowledge when the answer can be figured out from the context adjacent to parentheses.

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