The use of corpora in teaching Japanese as a foreign language has lagged behind that of English, but in the last few years improvements in the capabilities of personal computers and the construction of large-scale corpora have been accompanied by great advances in research, and now practical applications have been undertaken. This article provides an overview of what corpora are, and confirms their significance for Japanese language research and pedagogy. Then, discussing instances of the use of corpora, it demonstrates the potentials and issues in corpora use for four areas: 1) research on vocabulary and sentence patterns useful for syllabus design; 2) research on useful collocations for learner dictionaries and other reference works; 3) research on guidelines for determining proficiency levels based on learner corpora; and 4) corpus-based tools and reference works for assisting teachers and learners.

The media have the power to change how we physically feel ourselves, grasp the world, and communicate. The recent development and penetration of digital media on a global scale have made us realize the effects and influences the media have on every corner of our lives, particularly in communication. Japanese Language Teaching cannot escape from this new development. It must recognize the media as being deeply involved in our communication and start to investigate how they affect the Japanese language. It must also explore how learners are finding new ways to express and empower themselves through various media.

Media Language Studies lays an emphasis on contemplating the media as intervention in the framework. This paper investigates how the media and language have influenced each other by reviewing the adjacent media studies and recent language studies. It then focuses on changes in the themes and topics of media language studies in recent years. The latter half of this paper concentrates on introducing two media language studies papers. Miyake (2011) analyzes how Japanese hai (close equivalent to "yes" in English) is used in television broadcast discourse, and Jung (2005) compares Role Language (yakuwarigo) in Japanese and Korean comics. Using these as examples, it then discusses the purpose and the significance of media language studies and their implications for Japanese Language Teaching.

Some have expressed the opinion that the concept of Role Language (yakuwarigo) is not necessary for teaching Japanese as a foreign language or for the training of Japanese language teachers. In response, I maintain the utility of knowledge about role language, arguing from the following two points:

1. Role language is not merely a special type of language seen in manga and anime. We become familiar with the typology of speech styles associated with particular characters (that is, role language) as stereotypical knowledge. In this sense, it is possible to understand all spoken language as possessing characteristics of role language.

2. Learners of Japanese may be seen to play the role of learners of Japanese in society. Teachers of Japanese are in the position of helping learners to invent their character, and need to have an awareness of this when providing instruction.

With the spread of globalization, multilingualism and multiculturalism are accelerated. The goal of this paper is twofold. The first is to introduce one particular facet of language use among Japanese learners in contemporary Japanese society. Another goal is to look at the relationship between this kind of language use and the teaching of Japanese as a foreign language. After summarizing the main points regarding "contact situation", a concept derived from post-modernism, I present a case study which shows how learners of Japanese try to improve both their everyday language use and, eventually, overall living standard in Japan by actively participating in contact situations. In particular, I focus on Japanese language contact situations among foreigners, as this type of contact situation seems to play an important role in supporting the learners' everyday use of the Japanese language in Japan. This paper will also discuss the potential of these so-called "third-party language contact situations" for the teaching of Japanese as a foreign language in post-modern Japanese society.

Over the past twenty years, the topic of "language policy" has come to attract considerable interest in the world of language education. The context behind this interest could conceivably be objections to endorsement of the principles and situation of monolingualism, and to neoliberalist ideas that ratify this way of thinking; however, in parallel with the rise of attention to language policy, the discipline of "language policy research" has also come to be recognized.

This paper overviews the present situation of language policy research with a focus on language policy research related to Japanese language education, and the author considers what kind of phase this area is currently witnessing, together with issues concerning possibilities for trends in future developments.

Trial tests which consisted of 757 test items of CSAT, EJU, JLPT and 60 items of Japanese lan-guage Can-do-statements (CDS) were conducted in South Korea (N=4,647). Classical IRT 2PL scaling revealed a rank ordering of test difficulty according to median values of the distributions of item difficulty parameters (i.e. from the bottom of CSAT, through JLPT levels 4, 3, 2, 1 and to the top of EJU). A concordance analysis between difficulty levels of the three tests and achievement difficulty levels of CDS was conducted through IRT GPCM scaling. The result showed it was rel-atively more difficult for Korean JSL learners to achieve reading and writing tasks than speaking and listening activities. In addition, CDS item-category parameters were provided with respect to all four skills of language proficiency so that test users could qualitatively interpret difficulty levels of the three tests by referencing CDS achievement difficulty levels.

Matsuda (2004) claims that when L2 learners try to guess the meanings of new compound verbs, they tend to mix the meanings of V1 and V2. However, this "V1+V2 strategy" does not always work in a straightforward way. To make effective pedagogical suggestions, we need to explain the semantic nature of Japanese compound verbs.

This paper thus deals with the semantics of the Japanese compound verb form V-kakeru, which includes a polysemous verb, kakeru. The form of V-kakeru has several types of usage, like kabe ni e o tatekakeru, which means to lean an object against something; aite ni mizu wo abisekakeru which emphasizes the aspect of covering something; and akachan ni katarikakeru, which denotes action directed toward a receiver.

This paper suggests that all types of the V-kakeru form include the meaning of kakeru, and if L2 learners capture the meaning of kakeru properly, it will make it easier for them to use "V1+V2 strategy" effectively to understand the whole meaning of the V-kakeru form.

This study examines the effects of teaching verbs by making learners categorize the words that co-occur with the verbs. I named this method "the categorizing method". It is expected to promote understanding of the meaning and the appropriate co-occurrence of the verbs. I experimented with this categorizing method in comparison with making learners memorize the verbs and the words that co-occur with the verbs.

In the experiment, after the target verbs were taught in the two different ways, T/F tests about the collocations were given that same day, and one to two weeks later. The results of the experiment showed that the categorizing method resulted in higher test scores. The analysis of the results suggest that it is effective for noticing limitations on the co-occurrences as well as differences between usage of Japanese verbs and verbs of their own languages. But in the latter test , the difference was not statistically established, and the effect was not clear.

This article is based on an Exploratory Action Research study of a university writing course in Taiwan, investigating how Japanese teachers facilitate students in JFL peer response when the teacher is not proficient in students' mother tongue. At the beginning of the course, I was a novice teacher with two years of teaching experience and not proficient in Chinese. Fifteen JFL beginners enrolled in a compulsory writing course and participated in peer response. In this paper, I describe the implementation of peer response in order to improve contents and structure of students' writing. In conclusion, JFL peer response managed by a Japanese teacher could be practicable, although problems still remain: 1) "Process-oriented" was not conveyed; 2) Japanese teachers have limits; and 3) teacher-centered peer response could be biased.