This study investigates the acquisition of Japanese mora timing by English- and Korean-second language (L2) learners of Japanese. Production data was obtained through a word-learning task, and the ratio of closure duration (CD) in C₂ to V₁ in C₁V₁C₂V₂ as well as the length of V₁ in both stop geminate-singleton and in non-stop geminate-singleton pairs were measured and compared. The number of mispronunciations which were caused by V₁ lengthening were also counted. Results suggest that both English- and Korean-speaking learners are influenced by the first language (L1) phonological system differently. English learners of Japanese (EL) had smaller ratio of CD to V₁ in stop geminates than Japanese speakers (JS) and Korean learners of Japanese (KL). Only ELs were observed lengthening V₁. KL, on the other hand, had a greater ratio of CD to V₁ in stop geminates than JS and ES; however, unlike JS, they did not control the length of V₁. KL's V₁ were only found to be relatively shorter than that of JS for stop consonants. This study points to the significance of the L1 in the acquisition of the intrinsic nature of lexical-phonological structure in the learners' lexicon.

This study reconstructs Japanese language classroom activities taught by a Japanese soldier in northern occupied China during the Sino-Japanese War. The characteristics of these classroom activities were examined based on official documents and war memoirs using a microstoria (microhistory) methodology. The main characteristic which the author reconstructs from fourteen historical documents is the accumulation of formal/mechanical procedures lacking in theoretical background, professional techniques, and systematized structure. It was also found that the soldier forced learners to do rote memorization, mimicry and mechanical exercises, relying on Chinese translation.

This type of Japanese language teaching by a soldier shares a common characteristic with contemporary Japanese language teaching by volunteer staff in the respect that the volunteer staff confront learners with an authoritarian structure by differentiation and self-categorization as Japanese, that is, as speakers of perfect Japanese language. Finally, this study points out that these documents and memoirs should be read not as history, but as a chance for re-examination of contemporary Japanese teaching.

This paper on grammatical usage of the expression ni totte ‘for …' is intended as a supplement with concise and clear descriptions for any explanations that might be offered in the classroom. The meaning of the expression "X ni totte, A wa B" is the judgment that [A is B] within the scope of X as an experiencer (i.e., at least in the case of X, it can be said that "A is B").

Although the position B (the predicate) is typically occupied by a noun and/or adjective, the use of adjectives can often result in unnatural examples. In particular, expressions such as hantai da ‘be opposed', kirai da ‘dislike' and other predicates that always express individual judgments based on an experience specific to X are difficult to link with ni totte. These share a syntactic commonality whereby X as experiencer is an obligatory constituent in the sentence pattern [X wa A {ga/ni} B]. However, ni totte also functions to make this syntactic relationship explicit, and when this function is given, the expectation is that even these predicates should sometimes occur with ni totte.

Producing words for conversation or composition is different from processing words receptively. In the productive use of a word, knowledge about context and collocation is essential, and the retrieval of the word is equally important. To explore the differences between the productive and receptive uses of a word, we conducted experiments in which intermediate and advanced Korean learners of Japanese were required in a free production task to recall words they had previously learned. The main findings are: 1) Compared to native Japanese speakers, the intermediate and advanced Korean learners of Japanese used more high-frequency and prototypical words, and fewer low-frequency words; 2) Compared to the production of second language (Japanese) words, these Korean learners of Japanese produced lower-frequency words in their first language (Korean). There was no difference in word frequency levels in the words both groups produced in their first languages (Korean and Japanese); 3) The level of vocabulary production in the free recall tasks for the Korean learners of Japanese had no correlation with the results of a grammar test and a controlled production test. In other words, the development of free vocabulary production is not in proportion to the development of controlled vocabulary production; 4) In cases where the learners could not free-recall the words that they could produce in the controlled production task, they tended to produce words whose meanings overlap with the unretrieved target words. These findings suggest that opportunities to retrieve and use words seem to be necessary to increase the size of free active vocabulary.

In this paper I consider the appropriateness of language used in editorial text from the viewpoint of linguistic register. Although any classification of linguistic register suffers from being both continuous and relative, in the past, 3-way and 5-way classification schemes have been applied to Japanese. However, in this paper I propose a 2-way classification of register, viewing the issue from both pedagogical and practical standpoints, and provide many language examples to demonstrate the workings of our classification. Further, I rank Miyajima's (1977) 5-way classification in the following manner. The less-than symbol < indicates the relative degree of aptness for commonly accepted written registers, while the double less-than symbol << indicates the boundary of suitability for language used in editorial text.

Slang < Informal colloquial << Neutral colloquial < Formal colloquial < Written

I point out, however, that the colloquial category in Japanese contains expressions such as keredomo and iroiro na which are difficult to characterise in terms of appropriateness for the accepted range of linguistic register for editorial text because they are so strongly associated with spoken-only registers; this decision is a linguistically important one. Additionally, I demonstrate some of the practical uses of such tools as data obtained from thesauri and corpora, which are quite effective in tagging each language example with a linguistic register label.

As one of the countermeasures for the JFL learners' lower listening comprehension ability, process-oriented, rather than product-oriented, listening instruction needs to be developed, particularly in Asian countries. In an attempt to shift the focus of listening instruction from product to process, this paper reports on the practices of peer listening by non-native Japanese language teachers in Kazakhstan and China. Peer listening is a classroom activity in which learners co-operate each other in constructing meaning through peer discussion before and after listening. The paper analyses the data of transcribed peer discussions as well as learner feedback for these newly introduced activities. The data shows that learners actively exchange their linguistic as well as background knowledge and compensation strategies such as inferences. Learner feedback also shows that the practices not only brought about mutual learning of knowledge and strategies but also enhanced awareness of the process of listening. The paper also examines how listening tasks designed to realize peer discussions seem to have had a synergetic effect on the success of peer listening.

The Can-do statement (CDS) questionnaire was administered to Japanese language learners at University T and at five overseas universities that sent their students to University T. The level-correspondence of the Japanese classes between University T and the overseas universities was determined based on the mean score of the results of the CDS survey. Determining the level-correspondence made it possible for the overseas universities to appropriately transfer the credits of the students. It also enabled University T to appropriately determine the Japanese classes in which the international students would be placed, before their arrival in Japan. Furthermore, we compare the results and discuss the differences in proficiency with regard to each skill. Some items included language behaviors that foreign students rarely meet, and it was found that, in general, the students' self-assessments for these items were low.